One of Athlone Literary Festival’s key events is an “in discussion” forum which features a well-known personality. Previous participants have included President Michael D Higgins and well-known author Ruth Dudley Edwards. This year’s festival will have eminent Irish psychiatrist and author Dr Ivor Browne talking about changing attitudes in Ireland to mental health and his book, Music and Madness, on Saturday October 6.
His book Music and Madness was acclaimed by critics upon its publication and it includes an introduction by Colm Tóibín who discusses how Ivor Browne’s therapy helped him deal with the suppressed grief of his father’s death. He calls Ivor Browne “a towering and powerful influential figure in Irish psychiatry”.
Dr Browne is Professor Emeritus, University College Dublin. He was formerly professor of psychiatry at UCD and chief psychiatrist with the Eastern Health Board. He trained in Dublin and Harvard. His current work focuses on psychological trauma and how the brain possesses traumatic experience and living system theory. His book Music and Madness was published in April 2008.
He will be interviewed by Nell McCafferty, the well known journalist, playwright, and feminist. It is her career in journalism, commentating on Northern Irish life, and Republican politics that brought her to public fame.
The discussion with Ivor Browne takes place on Saturday October 6 in the Shamrock Lodge Hotel at 3pm. A full festival programme is available on www.athloneliteraryfestival.com
To make a booking, please contact [email protected] or phone/text (086 ) 2282760.
