Main Programme

The Next Step: Information and Advice for Newly Contracted or Recently Published Children’s Writers and Illustrators Chair: Sarah Webb Speakers: Bruce Stanley (Accountant), Aoife Murray (Children’s Books Ireland), Oisín McGann (Author), Helen Carr (Editor, The O’Brien Press), Matthew Parkinson-Bennett (Publisher, Little Island Books) Congratulations! Your children’s book has been accepted by a traditional publishing house. […]

Read More

Starting off from just outside the Viking foundation of Christ Church Cathedral, join author Pat Liddy, or one of his expert guides, on a walking tour of the old city. Learn about the first development of writing in Ireland, from the earliest monastic settlements to the internationally-recognised flowering of some of the most famous writers […]

Read More

In this event we explore the power of poetry to care for the vulnerable, to extol the living and honour the memory of all that is lost. What is a poet’s relationship to the experience of pain, their responsibility to bear witness, the commitment to do no harm? Poets Róisín Leggett Bohan, Jennifer Horgan and […]

Read More

Join us as we delve into three powerful debut short-story collections. The stories in Claire-Lise Kieffer’s Tenterhooks (Banshee Press) are humorous, off-kilter, savage and surreal; illuminating an Ireland both strange and familiar. Shane Tivenan’s To Avenge a Dead Glacier (The Lilliput Press) contains stories that explore the lives of rural Irish outsiders, with style, verve, […]

Read More

Susanna Galbraith’s debut collection, morsels (Macha Press) is a formally ambitious multi-sequence debut collection. The title series ‘morsels’ explores the ways language and its absences shape our relationships with one another, with natural environments, and with human and animal bodies. Across three interconnected sequences, Galbraith makes sensitive yet tough-minded forays into unstable, ever-evolving territories: love, […]

Read More

Exploring themes including family, grief, memory, migration and belonging, join us for an evening around three captivating debut novels. Patrick Holloway’s The Language of Remembering (Époque Press) asks how we connect to the people we love, moving on from the past to find meaning in the present. In Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin’s Ordinary Saints (Bonnier Books) […]

Read More

 New Island Books invites you to celebrate the official launch of the Sunday Miscellany: A Selection, 2023–2025, a brand-new selection of recently broadcast essays, poems and stories first heard on the legendary RTÉ Radio 1 programme. Featuring a spectrum of writing talent, from household names to striking new voices, this book offers solace, joy and […]

Read More

Introductions | Céadlínte is a Poetry Ireland showcase of 14 of the most exciting new poets writing in English and Irish on the island of Ireland today. The poets were selected by Jessica Traynor and Aifric MacAodha. We’ll have a musical guest along on the night.  Introductions | Is sárthaispeántas d’Eigse Eireann é “Céadlínte” de […]

Read More

Can fiction allow writers and their readers to grapple with the worst of human behaviours? Through their writing, Gaea Schoeters and Audrey Magee have both explored historical and imagined instances of extreme cruelty and its devastating moral consequences. In today’s world, has the normalisation of violence and the assignation of colonization to the past inured […]

Read More

Immerse yourself in an evening of artforms at our DBF After Dark Festival Club, where we’ll be exploring books inspired by music, art and film. Anna Carey’s Our Song (Hachette) is a story of second chances, and following dreams. Brendan Mac Evilly’s novel Deep Burn (Marrowbone Books) explores the seductive and devastating power of art, […]

Read More

Starting off from just outside the Viking foundation of Christ Church Cathedral, join author Pat Liddy, or one of his expert guides, on a walking tour of the old city. Learn about the first development of writing in Ireland, from the earliest monastic settlements to the internationally-recognised flowering of some of the most famous writers […]

Read More

From Irishwomen United through to the Repeal the 8th campaign, join us for an engaging morning of conversation tracing the seismic impact of women activists in Ireland through the decades. Evelyn Conlon is co-editor, along with Rebecca Pelan, of After the Train (UCD Press). This striking collection of essays captures the courageous efforts of Irishwomen […]

Read More