Elusive Theatre presents Brendan Behan’s play Moving Out
Date: Wednesday, 11th October
Time: 8pm
Venue: On Highland Radio
In 1952, Brendan Behan was commissioned to write two plays for Radio Eireann, Moving Out and A Garden Party. In Moving Out, Jim Hannigan’s starts his day just like any other. However, on his return from work he discovers that his wife has moved the family out to the new houses and he’s to join them for tea … Jim, born and reared in Dublin’s Inner City, is not sure how he’ll cope with suburbia.
Elusive Theatre presents Brendan Behan’s play A Garden Party
Date: Wednesday, 18th October
Time: 8pm
Venue: On Highland Radio
The Hannigan’s have moved out to the suburbs from the city centre, and Mrs. Hannigan wants to make use of the gardens front and rear. Having bought a load of manure, she instructs the men of the house to dig it in to the soil… but the menfolk will try anything to avoid lifting a finger…
The Newland Choir and Ukrainian Evening
Date: Thursday, 19th October
Time: 6.30pm – 8pm
Venue: Letterkenny Central Library
Free Event
The Newland Choir was created in September 2022 supported by the Donegal Volunteer Centre. The aim was to help newcomers integrate into our area through our love of singing. We have eight nationalities represented and sing in four languages … so far!
An extra highlight in this event, will be music, poetry, and song from the Ukrainian community.
Official Opening of Eighth Letterkenny Cathedral Quarter Literary Festival and special screening of ‘The Laughing Boy /An Buachailll Gealgháireach/ Το Γελαστό Παιδ
Date: Friday, 20th October
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Regional Cultural Centre
Free Event - Contact Regional Cultural Centre on (074) 91 29186
The Literary Festival will be officially opened by Sheila Friel from Creeslough who is the Managing Director and Executive Producer of Imagine Media Productions, which created An Buachaill Gealgháireach / The Laughing Boy / Το Γελαστό Παιδί.
The Irish song entitled "The Laughing Boy" was written by a teenage rebel called Brendan Behan in memory of another iconic rebel, Michael Collins - the centenary of whose death was commemorated in 2022. But this song also had an extraordinary and dramatic afterlife as "To Yelasto Paidi," the powerful left-wing anthem of resistance against the dictatorship that ruled Greece in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Translated by the poet Vasilis Rotas, Behan's words in Greek were set to music by the legendary Mikis Theodorakis. The song remains an enduring and potent cultural force in the heart of Greece today. The film takes poet Theo Dorgan on an odyssey of his own, as he attempts to uncover the truth of the story behind the song. It is a narrative that interweaves the tragic and bloody birth pangs of both modern Ireland and modern Greece. But these histories are also bound together by something more profound and transcendent: the power of a song.
Writing Masterclass: The Behan Legacy
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 11am
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Admission: €5 at the door
In conversation with, Blanaid Behan Walker, Sheila Friel, Fionnuala Rabbitt and Frank Galligan, journalist and Ulster Television News Presenter Gareth Wilkinson, will explore the impact and influence the works of Brendan Behan had on their careers. This promises to be a very interesting morning and there will be a Q&A session to close.
The Jane Austen Connection
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Donegal County Museum
Free Event
Ulster storytelling champion, Sinead Rice McAleavey, presents her one-woman show based on the life of Cassandra Jane Louisa Hill, the grandniece of Jane Austen and daughter of Lord George Hill of Gweedore. There will be a historical background to this event by Dr Niamh Brennan from the County Donegal Archives.
Raphoe Diamond Writers
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 6 pm
Venue: Himalayan Café, Church Lane
Free Event
The Raphoe Diamond Writers are great friends of our Literary Festival having participated over a number of years. There will be a poetry reading by the group on Saturday, 21 October at 6pm in Himalayan Café, Church Lane.
Established in 2007, The Diamond Writers, a cross-community group, published Wednesday Words in 2017, their 10th anniversary collection of poems, essays, memory pieces and short stories, which was a major event in the Donegal literary calendar. Group members have had work published in national literary journals, books and magazines.
Letterkenny Cathedral Quarter Poetry Competition
Prize Winners’ Evening/New Voices
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Free Event
Everyone is welcome to this event, our inaugural Poetry Competition, to hear readings by shortlisted poets, and celebrate the presentation of prizes.
We are delighted with the response to this new competition, where poets were invited to write on the theme, ‘Against the Odds’. Over two hundred poems were received from all parts of Ireland. Our thanks to Poetry Ireland, the Irish Writers’ Centre, Writing.ie, and all other platforms that promoted our new venture, and to our main sponsors Bookmark Letterkenny and Donegal ETB.
New Voices: Prize Winners’ Evening will also give an opportunity to a number of new poets from the county to read their work to a festival audience.
In conversation with Paul Charles
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 8 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Admission: €5 at the door
Paul Charles, in conversation with Jean Curran of Highland Radio, will discuss his much acclaimed recent memoir Adventures in Wonderland. Paul's career as a music promoter and talent agent spans forty years with many top names in the music world, including Van Morrison, The Waterboys, and Christy Moore.
He may also have time to talk about his other career as a crime fiction author, having written more than a dozen books in that genre. Paul, who is originally from Magherafelt, spends his time between London and his Donegal home in Ramelton.
A Century Of Brendan Behan with Donal Fallon & Fergus Whelan
Date: Sunday, 22nd October
Time: 1 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Admission: €5 at the door
Donal Fallon (Newstalk’s Hidden Histories) and historian Fergus Whelan will discuss the work and legacy of Brendan Behan. Expect some songs and plenty of stories about one of Ireland’s most beloved writers and radicals.
Donal Fallon is a Dublin historian, with a particular interest in the social history of the city. A founder of the popular Come Here To Me! blog in 2009, since 2019 he has presented the Three Castles Burning podcast, exploring the many histories of the Irish capital. His previous publications include 14 Henrietta Street: From Tenement to Suburbia (2021). He is formerly Historian-in-Residence to Dublin City Council.
Fergus Whelan is the author of Dissent into Treason: Unitarians King-killers and the Society of United Irishmen (2010), God-Provoking Democrat: The Remarkable Life of Archibald Hamilton Rowan (2015) and May Tyrants Tremble (2020). He has contributed to History Ireland magazine, ‘An Irishman’s Diary’ in The Irish Times and the Irish Humanist and Look Left magazines.
Donegal Chamber Orchestra at Conwal Parish Church
Date: Sunday, 22nd October
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Conwal Parish Church
Admission: €10/€5 at the door
We are delighted that events at the Donegal Chamber Music Society Festival are part of the Cathedral Quarter Literary Festival programme. Their closing concert takes place in Conwal Church on Sunday, 22 October at 3pm. Music by Rachmaninov, Ponce, and Weiner can be enjoyed on this Sunday afternoon.
Excerpts from Caisleáin Óir - The Musical
Date: Sunday, 22nd October
Time: 5 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Free Event
Making Waves Productions brings to life Seamus Ó’Grianna’s famous story. Sadly, not the full musical, but music and dialogue excerpts with narration from the award-winning local show, telling Séimí and Baibaí’s beautiful story of love and destiny. This is a follow-on from the lecture given by Rev. Sean O’Gallchóir last year, where he highlighted the significance of Caisleáin Óir as one of the first novels written in Ulster Irish at the beginning of the 20th century.
An Evening with Frank Galligan
Date: Sunday, 22nd October
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Admission: €5 at the door
Through the medium of reminiscence, story and verse, Frank Galligan will chronicle his own Letterkenny experience from aged twelve, when he entered St Eunan's College as a boarder, to working in local radio and print journalism.
Frank is a well known as a regular broadcaster on Highland Radio. His talk promises to be fascinating and funny as he recollects the way we were and compares it to the way we are.
Date: Wednesday, 11th October
Time: 8pm
Venue: On Highland Radio
In 1952, Brendan Behan was commissioned to write two plays for Radio Eireann, Moving Out and A Garden Party. In Moving Out, Jim Hannigan’s starts his day just like any other. However, on his return from work he discovers that his wife has moved the family out to the new houses and he’s to join them for tea … Jim, born and reared in Dublin’s Inner City, is not sure how he’ll cope with suburbia.
Elusive Theatre presents Brendan Behan’s play A Garden Party
Date: Wednesday, 18th October
Time: 8pm
Venue: On Highland Radio
The Hannigan’s have moved out to the suburbs from the city centre, and Mrs. Hannigan wants to make use of the gardens front and rear. Having bought a load of manure, she instructs the men of the house to dig it in to the soil… but the menfolk will try anything to avoid lifting a finger…
The Newland Choir and Ukrainian Evening
Date: Thursday, 19th October
Time: 6.30pm – 8pm
Venue: Letterkenny Central Library
Free Event
The Newland Choir was created in September 2022 supported by the Donegal Volunteer Centre. The aim was to help newcomers integrate into our area through our love of singing. We have eight nationalities represented and sing in four languages … so far!
An extra highlight in this event, will be music, poetry, and song from the Ukrainian community.
Official Opening of Eighth Letterkenny Cathedral Quarter Literary Festival and special screening of ‘The Laughing Boy /An Buachailll Gealgháireach/ Το Γελαστό Παιδ
Date: Friday, 20th October
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Regional Cultural Centre
Free Event - Contact Regional Cultural Centre on (074) 91 29186
The Literary Festival will be officially opened by Sheila Friel from Creeslough who is the Managing Director and Executive Producer of Imagine Media Productions, which created An Buachaill Gealgháireach / The Laughing Boy / Το Γελαστό Παιδί.
The Irish song entitled "The Laughing Boy" was written by a teenage rebel called Brendan Behan in memory of another iconic rebel, Michael Collins - the centenary of whose death was commemorated in 2022. But this song also had an extraordinary and dramatic afterlife as "To Yelasto Paidi," the powerful left-wing anthem of resistance against the dictatorship that ruled Greece in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Translated by the poet Vasilis Rotas, Behan's words in Greek were set to music by the legendary Mikis Theodorakis. The song remains an enduring and potent cultural force in the heart of Greece today. The film takes poet Theo Dorgan on an odyssey of his own, as he attempts to uncover the truth of the story behind the song. It is a narrative that interweaves the tragic and bloody birth pangs of both modern Ireland and modern Greece. But these histories are also bound together by something more profound and transcendent: the power of a song.
Writing Masterclass: The Behan Legacy
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 11am
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Admission: €5 at the door
In conversation with, Blanaid Behan Walker, Sheila Friel, Fionnuala Rabbitt and Frank Galligan, journalist and Ulster Television News Presenter Gareth Wilkinson, will explore the impact and influence the works of Brendan Behan had on their careers. This promises to be a very interesting morning and there will be a Q&A session to close.
The Jane Austen Connection
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Donegal County Museum
Free Event
Ulster storytelling champion, Sinead Rice McAleavey, presents her one-woman show based on the life of Cassandra Jane Louisa Hill, the grandniece of Jane Austen and daughter of Lord George Hill of Gweedore. There will be a historical background to this event by Dr Niamh Brennan from the County Donegal Archives.
Raphoe Diamond Writers
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 6 pm
Venue: Himalayan Café, Church Lane
Free Event
The Raphoe Diamond Writers are great friends of our Literary Festival having participated over a number of years. There will be a poetry reading by the group on Saturday, 21 October at 6pm in Himalayan Café, Church Lane.
Established in 2007, The Diamond Writers, a cross-community group, published Wednesday Words in 2017, their 10th anniversary collection of poems, essays, memory pieces and short stories, which was a major event in the Donegal literary calendar. Group members have had work published in national literary journals, books and magazines.
Letterkenny Cathedral Quarter Poetry Competition
Prize Winners’ Evening/New Voices
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Free Event
Everyone is welcome to this event, our inaugural Poetry Competition, to hear readings by shortlisted poets, and celebrate the presentation of prizes.
We are delighted with the response to this new competition, where poets were invited to write on the theme, ‘Against the Odds’. Over two hundred poems were received from all parts of Ireland. Our thanks to Poetry Ireland, the Irish Writers’ Centre, Writing.ie, and all other platforms that promoted our new venture, and to our main sponsors Bookmark Letterkenny and Donegal ETB.
New Voices: Prize Winners’ Evening will also give an opportunity to a number of new poets from the county to read their work to a festival audience.
In conversation with Paul Charles
Date: Saturday, 21st October
Time: 8 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Admission: €5 at the door
Paul Charles, in conversation with Jean Curran of Highland Radio, will discuss his much acclaimed recent memoir Adventures in Wonderland. Paul's career as a music promoter and talent agent spans forty years with many top names in the music world, including Van Morrison, The Waterboys, and Christy Moore.
He may also have time to talk about his other career as a crime fiction author, having written more than a dozen books in that genre. Paul, who is originally from Magherafelt, spends his time between London and his Donegal home in Ramelton.
A Century Of Brendan Behan with Donal Fallon & Fergus Whelan
Date: Sunday, 22nd October
Time: 1 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Admission: €5 at the door
Donal Fallon (Newstalk’s Hidden Histories) and historian Fergus Whelan will discuss the work and legacy of Brendan Behan. Expect some songs and plenty of stories about one of Ireland’s most beloved writers and radicals.
Donal Fallon is a Dublin historian, with a particular interest in the social history of the city. A founder of the popular Come Here To Me! blog in 2009, since 2019 he has presented the Three Castles Burning podcast, exploring the many histories of the Irish capital. His previous publications include 14 Henrietta Street: From Tenement to Suburbia (2021). He is formerly Historian-in-Residence to Dublin City Council.
Fergus Whelan is the author of Dissent into Treason: Unitarians King-killers and the Society of United Irishmen (2010), God-Provoking Democrat: The Remarkable Life of Archibald Hamilton Rowan (2015) and May Tyrants Tremble (2020). He has contributed to History Ireland magazine, ‘An Irishman’s Diary’ in The Irish Times and the Irish Humanist and Look Left magazines.
Donegal Chamber Orchestra at Conwal Parish Church
Date: Sunday, 22nd October
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Conwal Parish Church
Admission: €10/€5 at the door
We are delighted that events at the Donegal Chamber Music Society Festival are part of the Cathedral Quarter Literary Festival programme. Their closing concert takes place in Conwal Church on Sunday, 22 October at 3pm. Music by Rachmaninov, Ponce, and Weiner can be enjoyed on this Sunday afternoon.
Excerpts from Caisleáin Óir - The Musical
Date: Sunday, 22nd October
Time: 5 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Free Event
Making Waves Productions brings to life Seamus Ó’Grianna’s famous story. Sadly, not the full musical, but music and dialogue excerpts with narration from the award-winning local show, telling Séimí and Baibaí’s beautiful story of love and destiny. This is a follow-on from the lecture given by Rev. Sean O’Gallchóir last year, where he highlighted the significance of Caisleáin Óir as one of the first novels written in Ulster Irish at the beginning of the 20th century.
An Evening with Frank Galligan
Date: Sunday, 22nd October
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Dillons Hotel
Admission: €5 at the door
Through the medium of reminiscence, story and verse, Frank Galligan will chronicle his own Letterkenny experience from aged twelve, when he entered St Eunan's College as a boarder, to working in local radio and print journalism.
Frank is a well known as a regular broadcaster on Highland Radio. His talk promises to be fascinating and funny as he recollects the way we were and compares it to the way we are.