Main Programme

In Wild Ireland (The O’Brien Press) author and photographer Carsten Krieger takes us on a journey across Ireland to explore the nature we pass by every day, and that which is buried deep in the bog, high in the mountains and under crashing waves. Discover alpine flowers blooming in the Burren, meet ferocious anemones on […]

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Storyteller Joe Brennan will be weaving tales of magic, wonder and adventure as he leads you on this special storytelling walking tour around the grounds of Dublin Castle.   From Wexford, Joe Brennan he has been sharing his collection of traditional and original stories with audiences of all ages for over 20 years. He has featured in storytelling […]

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Leading Irish photographer Barry McCall was commissioned to capture a series of portraits of some of our DBF23 authors, poets and illustrators, for a feature which has just been published in the Sunday Independent’s Life Magazine. Visit our Festival Hub at The Printworks, Dublin Castle, across the weekend of Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th November […]

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Channel is a literary journal born out of the climate crisis, publishing writing in English and Irish that fosters connection between people and planet. It aims to create space for the emergence of new narratives surrounding nature in the public consciousness, building a community of writers, artists and readers grounded in shared ecological concern. Find […]

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In Wild Ireland (The O’Brien Press), author and photographer Carsten Krieger takes us on a journey across Ireland to explore the nature we pass by every day, flying with our ocean birds to experience their ever-more challenging search for food, hearing the dawn chorus in Killarney, and looking closely at our hedgerows, home to countless […]

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Join author and Professor of Psychiatry Brendan Kelly in discussion about his latest book with writer and journalist Caelainn Hogan. In 1814, the Richmond Lunatic Asylum at Grangegorman started an extraordinary programme of asylum building across Ireland, resulting in a huge increase in ‘mental hospitals’ around the country. Through letters, medical records and doctors’ notes,  […]

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Chris Morash’s book, Dublin: A Writer’s City (Cambridge University Press) asks what it means to live in a city like Dublin, where literary culture has so long been a part of its identity, and almost every street has layers of stories to be discovered, from Swift and LeFanu to Joyce, Meehan and Boland. This walking […]

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The climate and ecological crisis can often seem overwhelming. Our panel of experts will shed light on the reality of where we are today, and on contributing to shaping tomorrow. With meteorologist Joanna Donnelly, Lorna Gold, author of Climate Generation: Awakening to our Children’s Future (Veritas) and Éanna Ní Lamhna, author of Wild Musings: A […]

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In John Hume: The Persuader (Gill Books) author and journalist Stephen Walker combines over 100 interviews with many of Hume’s colleagues, critics and family members, with never-before-published interviews with Hume himself to present a comprehensive portrait of one of the most significant political figures in Northern Ireland and around the world. Join the author in […]

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Join editor and writer Martin Doyle as he discusses his new book with broadcaster Joe Duffy. Written with a literary sensibility, Dirty Linen (Merrion Press) is a personal, intimate and revelatory history of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of a single rural parish, the author’s own, part of both the Linen Triangle – heartland […]

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The environmental and sustainability debate can often feel overwhelming. At this event, Catherine Cleary of Pocket Forests and Michael Kelly, author of The GIY Diaries: A Year of Growing and Cooking (Gill Books) will be in conversation with Professor Jennifer McElwain, as they aim to pare back and look at the small, simple steps we, […]

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The idea of ‘the wild’ has great power both to attract us, and to repel us – sometimes both at once. Before the Romantic movement, the term was mainly repellent in European literature, referring to ‘uncivilised’ lands and peoples, savage, dangerous and frightening places. The Romantics inverted this stereotype, seeing untamed and uncrowded nature as […]

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