Search Results for 'Jennifer Johnston'

Thought leaders from the seemingly disparate worlds of human rights and the arts will come together for the Galway International Summer School on the Arts and Human Rights from 9-11 July. This landmark event, a world-first, is hosted by NUI Galway’s Irish Centre for Human Rights, and will take place in the days immediately before the Galway International Arts Festival.

Westmeath local Mary O’Rourke was named as a winner at the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2012 which took place on Thursday November 22.

Jennifer Johnston, Eugene McCabe, Theo Dorgan, and Dermot Healy, will be among the 70 major Irish writers coming to Kenny’s to help the bookshop celebrate 70 years in business.

I find it hard to imagine that not everyone liked Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole Park. What few readers there are of the Diary, I am told, sigh with exasperation when they see her name appear. They know that I will eulogise endlessly about how her home at Coole became a ‘workshop’ for writers, poets and artists during those exciting days at the beginning of the last century, leading to such remarkable talents as WB Yeats, John M Synge, Sean O’Casey and others to stand as giants on the European literary stage. She was the co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, its director and organiser during its shaky early days. She was a substantial playwright, journal keeper, folklorist, scholar, etc, etc, and, in my opinion, this amazing Galway woman never got the recognition she deserved.

The highly successful Lady Gregory Autumn Gatherings will continue in Coole Park, Gort, from Friday September 24 to Sunday September 26. Recognising the remarkable influence of Lady Augusta Gregory on the development of Irish theatre and literature, this 16th gathering highlights her unique inspiration for the early foundations of the Abbey Theatre.

TWO OF Ireland’s leading contemporary writers - Michael Longley and Jennifer Johnston - will be reading at the Cúirt International Festival of Literature later this month.

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.”

Ireland has every possibility of getting back the 39 controversial paintings, willed to the Irish people by art collector Sir Hugh Lane at the beginning of the 20th century, but which remain in London because the codicil to his will was not witnessed. “Hugh Lane’s intentions were absolutely clear”, the dynamic director of the Hugh Lane (formerly Dublin City) Gallery, Ms Barbara Dawson said in Coole last weekend, “there is no reason on earth why the paintings are not on Irish soil permanently.”

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” said the author Jane Austen. “When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”