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A foretaste of Wexford Literary Festival 2022 Wexford Literary Festival is delighted to announce that things are beginning to hot up for this year’s Festival weekend from 1st – 3rd July. The hard-working Festival Committee are busy putting together a comprehensive, all embracing, wide ranging, Programme of Events incorporating the many forms of literature – Poetry, Prose, Drama, Film, Visual Art, and Spoken Word. This year the Festival will be a Room & Zoom event, allowing viewing and participation from right around the world.
The Battle of Enniscorthy, between the Free State garrison at Enniscorthy Castle and Anti Treaty snipers at St. Mary’s Church and the Courthouse, raged for four days on the streets of the town from 1st – 4th July, exactly coinciding with our 2022 Festival. We are currently engaged with developing a programme telling Enniscorthy’s story and the part it played in the birth of the Nation, through literature, visual art, and drama. So, watch this space for further details of this exciting concept.
The Festival Committee is also developing and expanding literary links begun in 2021 with writers and poets in Savannah, Newfoundland, and Wales, further enhancing our international status and appeal.
Our 2022 Programme will also include events at the Wexford Arts Centre and Red Books, Wexford, and our annual Children’s Bookmark Competition kindly sponsored by Eason of Enniscorthy.
This year’s Festival’s theme, a century from the formation of the State, is historical, and our innovative Committee plan to incorporate the historic events of one hundred years ago into our Festival weekend.
Over the coming weeks, we will have details of the myriad of events planned for WLF 2022 and in due course we will be announcing the winners of our various prestigious competitions:
Maria Nolan, Secretary, Wexford Literary Festival
n The Colm Tóibín Short Story Award, n The Anthony Cronin Poetry Award, n The Eoin Colfer Children’s Short Story Award, n The Billy Roche One Act Play Award n Meet The Publisher Event. For updates, news, etc make sure to visit our website www.wexfordliteraryfestival.com – Maria Nolan
Odd women out! A lecture entitled ‘Odd Women Out: Waterford Playwrights Teresa Deevy and Rosamond Jacob’ will be given by speakers Dr Úna Kealy and Mr Aaron Kent on 19th May at 7pm in Enniscorthy Library. In this lecture Dr Úna Kealy and IRC Postgraduate Scholar Aaron Kent discuss and explore the dramatic work of playwrights, Teresa Deevy (1896-1963) and Rosamond Jacob (1888-1960, Waterford women who resisted and countered the cultural and political momentum of their time. Both Deevy and Jacob were Waterford women who asked important questions of Irish society throughout their lives and through their work. Close contemporaries and friends, they addressed similar issues in their writing and activism, although they did so from different cultural backgrounds. Both women wrote across a variety of literary forms but it was their plays in particular that went against the grain of popular sexist, discriminatory and
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patriarchal attitudes in the mid-twentieth century: they remain dynamic and relevant to twenty-first century audiences. A growing body of theatre makers, researchers and historians, much like Deevy and Jacob’s contemporary critics, are discovering that these writers offer valuable insights into Irish society and that their plays have much to say to contemporary audiences. Booking is essential: https://wexfordcoco.libcal.com/event/3885404 n
