Class Acts: Equality, Connection and Belonging One-Day Literature Event in Partnership with DCU
Curated in partnership with DCU Cultural Arts Officer Marcella Bannon and Arts Council Writer in Residence Sarah Gilmartin.
A day-long event that highlights writers who illuminate often underrepresented lives—working-class communities, fractured families, and outsiders navigating complex social and emotional landscapes. Their work is united by profound empathy, exploring class, economic precarity, mental health, and the search for belonging.
Class Acts: Poetry on Class and Belonging
Time: 1pm – 2.15pm
This event brings together three compelling poetic voices whose work illuminates underrepresented lives with clarity, empathy and depth. Poets Colm Keegan (Dublin), Charles Lang (Glasgow), and Clíodhna Bhreatnach (Waterford) each bring a unique lens to themes of working-class identity, belonging and emotional resilience. A quiet, powerful gathering of words, place and perspective.
Location: Belvedere Library, Belvedere House, DCU St. Patrick’s campus, Drumcondra, D9
More information and booking: Eventbrite link
Class Acts: Emerging Voices in Irish Fiction — A Panel Discussion with DCU Arts Council Writer in Residence Sarah Gilmartin
Time: 4pm -5pm
What role does class play in shaping today’s Irish stories? Three rising stars of Irish fiction, Fíona Scarlett, JP McHugh and Niamh Mulvey, read from their work and join a discussion on belonging, identity and inequality in contemporary Ireland. From working-class Dublin to small island life and the echoes of our recent past, these writers explore the power of place and the politics of community in their acclaimed fiction.
Location: Belvedere Library, Belvedere House, DCU St Patrick’s campus, Drumcondra, D9
Booking: Eventbrite link
Class Acts: Navigating Emotional and Social Landscapes through story and song
7pm –8.30pm
Join us for an evening featuring readings by acclaimed Irish writers Elaine Feeney, Lisa Harding, and Ronán Hession, accompanied by live music from I Have a Tribe. Hosted by Derek Hand, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, DCU, this event explores themes of equality, connection, and belonging through powerful storytelling and evocative sound.
Each writer illuminates working-class communities, fractured families, and outsiders navigating complex emotional and social landscapes. Elaine Feeney’s Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way offers a lyrical and urgent voice for social justice; Lisa Harding’s The Wildelings delivers a darkly compelling exploration of friendship, manipulation, and family secrets within the pressures of social expectation; and Ronán Hession’s quietly contemplative Ghost Mountain delves into grief, healing, and imagination. Together, these readings provide a rich, empathetic glimpse into lived experience.
Throughout the evening, Patrick O’Laoghaire of I Have a Tribe will perform music that pulses with the rhythms of everyday life. His sound blends folk, electronic, and spoken word influences to create immersive soundscapes that echo the themes of resilience, identity, and community explored by the writers.
Experience a moving fusion of words and music that celebrates resilience, identity, and the search for belonging.
Location: Seamus Heaney Theatre, Cregan Library, DCU St. Patrick’s Campus, Drumcondra
For more information and booking: Eventbrite link
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Clíodhna Bhreatnach is from Waterford and lives in Dublin. Her poetry has been published widely in journals such as The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee and The Forward Book of Poetry 2023. She has been highly commended for the Forward Prize and for the Patrick Kavanagh Award and was awarded a DCC Arts Bursary in 2025. She is the former poetry editor of Frustrated Writers Group. Her poetry pamphlet Pink roses, green was published by Green Bottle Press in 2025.
Elaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. She has published four poetry collections including The Radio was Gospel & Rise. Her debut novel, As You Were won Dalkey Book Festival’s Emerging Writer Prize, The Kate O’ Brien Prize, The Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize, and was shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year and the Rathbones-Folio Prize. Feeney has published widely including The Paris Review, The Stinging Fly, The Moth, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Review, RTÉ, BBC, The Irish Times and The Guardian. Her second novel, How to Build a Boat was nominated for The Booker Prize, was a New Yorker Best Fiction of 2023, and shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year. It is translated into over a dozen languages. All the Good Things You Deserve, her fourth collection of poetry, was published in 2024. Her third novel, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way was published by Vintage (2025). She is a director of Fighting Words, and lectures at the University of Galway where she is a founding member of the Tuam Oral History Project.
Sarah Gilmartin is an Irish writer and arts journalist. She won the Máirtín Crawford Short Story Award in 2020. Her bestselling debut novel Dinner Party (One, 2021) was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Kate O’Brien Award. Her second novel Service (One, 2023) was a Washington Post top books of summer and included in the Irish Times list of the best Irish fiction of the 21st century (2025). Her new novel Little Vanities will be published by One next year. She is the current Arts Council Writer-in-Residence at Dublin City University.
Rónán Hession is an Irish writer and musician based in Dublin. His debut novel Leonard and Hungry Paul was published by Bluemoose Books in 2019. It was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, the An Post Irish Book Awards, the British Book Awards, the Books Are My Bag Awards, the Dalkey Literary Prize, the McKitterick Prize, and was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize. Leonard and Hungry Paul was selected by Dublin City Council as the 2021 One Dublin One Book. It was also chosen by the Sunday Times and the Irish Times as one of the 50 Great Irish Novels of the 21st Century. It is currently being adapted for a six part BBC series. Ronán’s second novel Panenka was published in May 2021. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards and the for Books Are My Bag Fiction prize. His third novel, Ghost Mountain, was published in May 2024 to critical acclaim. It was a Book of the Year in Review 31 and The Irish Independent. Rónán has been a judge for the An Post Irish Books Awards, the British Book Awards and the Society of Authors McKitterick Prize. He also reviews fiction in translation for the Irish Times. As Mumblin’ Deaf Ro, he has released three albums of storytelling songs. His third album Dictionary Crimes was nominated for the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year.
Charles Lang is from Glasgow. His poems have appeared in numerous publications including Poetry Ireland Review, The Poetry Review and The Stinging Fly. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series in 2022. In 2024, he was Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, and was shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. The Oasis, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, was published by Skein Press in 2025.
John Patrick McHugh is from Galway. His work has appeared in the Stinging Fly, Winter Papers, Banshee and the Tangerine and been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He is the author of the short story collection Pure Gold and the novel Fun and Games.
Niamh Mulvey is a novelist and short story writer from Kilkenny. Her first book, a short story collection called Hearts and Bones: Love Songs for Late Youth was published in 2022 and was shortlisted for the John McGahern award. Rachel Cusk said of it: ‘her writing has the unassailable sanity peculiar to an authentic literary gift, and her themes of female being and becoming take on a new vigour and a new seriousness in the light of it.’ Her first novel, The Amendments, was published in April 2024. The Observer called it ‘a questing first novel of significant prowess.’ It was nominated for an An Post Irish Book Award. Niamh offers one-to-one coaching via niamhmulvey.com, teaches at festivals around the country and hosts an annual writing retreat.
Patrick O’Laoghaire is an Irish song-writer, composer, writer and performer. He has performed worldwide under the moniker I Have a Tribe, collaborating with acts such as Villagers, Clare Sands and Leslie Feist. O’Laoghaire has performed in Wembley Stadium, 3 Arena Dublin, (with Bon Iver), NCH, Vicar Street, CCI Paris, amongst others. His work has received critical acclaim, described as “deep, honest, generous and playful.” Fishamble Theatre Company have presented O’Laoghaire’s work elsewhere; his long poem/music composition “Change” inspired by the landscape of the west, was adapted for short-film starring Olwen Fouéré, Pat Kinevane and Mary Murray.
Fíona Scarlett is from Dublin but now living in Co. Kildare, with her husband and two children. Her debut novel Boys Don’t Cry was published by Faber & Faber in April 2021 and was an instant Irish Times Bestseller. It was shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year in the Irish Book Awards, and the Kate O’Brien first novel award. She was recently named as one of An Post Irish Book Awards ‘New Voices 20 Best New Irish Writers’ and her second novel May All Your Skies Be Blue was published in February of this year. She is currently adapting Boys Don’t Cry for screen as well as working on her third novel.