Ledwidge movesThe unreliable August weather has necessitated a change of venue for this year's Ledwidge Day, which normally takes place at the poet's cottage home at Janeville in Slane, Co Meath.
Instead, Townley Hall, a Georgian mansion on the Slane road, close to the Battle of the Boyne site, has been chosen for tomorrow's events to commemorate the poet, who died in the first World War.
Talks, poetry readings and musical performances have been organised as part of Heritage Week 2008. Townley Hall makes an appropriate and resonant substitute for the poet's cottage: one of Francis Ledwidge's early poems, The Robin in Townley Hall, recalls the "red-breast bird/ that piped in Townley Hall.
No bird the more could
cheer my heart
I heard them each and all,
Than the robin in the thorn
In the woods of Townley Hall.
Author and journalist Susan McKay, whose book, Bear in Mind these Dead, was published earlier this year, will be the guest speaker. Others taking part include tenor David Eager, the McDonagh Sisters, and poets Ruairí Gough, Frances Mulley, and Kevin Barry. The programme includes a dramatisation of Ledwidge's life through his poetry and letters.
Plans involving the Ledwidge Museum Committee and Meath County Council to restore the poet's home to its original condition augur well for turning it into an even more frequented place of literary pilgrimage.
For details of tomorrow's events, tel: 041-9824544, e-mail info@francisledwidge.com, or contact Rosemary Yore at 086-0732593.
New books festival
John Banville and Martin Amis are among the authors lined up for a new Dublin literary festival, which will take place next weekend. Other author events scheduled for the Sunday Independent Books 2008 include readings by Joseph O'Connor, Hugo Hamilton and Marian Keyes in the National Gallery on Friday at 7.30pm.
Amis, who will be accompanied to the festival by his wife, the novelist Isabel Fonseca, will read from his latest book, The Second Plane, a collection of essays, reviews and short stories on the subject of the post-9/11 global situation. Banville and Amis will join Fonseca and Wicklow resident and film-maker Rebecca Miller, in Trinity College Dublin on Saturday.
Crime-writing is the subject of a series in County Hall, Dún Laoghaire, with contributions by John Connolly, Declan Hughes, Alex Barclay and others. The National Gallery is the location for children's writers at the festival, including Anthony Horowitz, Marita Conlon-McKenna, Judy Curtin, PJ Lynch, Niamh Sharkey and Derek Landy.
Tickets can be booked at www.bookevents.ie.
Hartnett goes Irish
This year the annual Michael Hartnett Poetry Award is looking for submissions in Irish - an apt decision given that Hartnett himself once wrote A Farewell to English, in which he flagged his intention to concentrate on his own work in the language, which resulted in a fine body of work. Thankfully the poet later relented, giving us his Inchicore Haiku and other great final poems.
The award, organised by Limerick County Council Arts Office and co-funded by the Arts Council and Limerick County Council, is for poets' first or second volumes of poetry, published between May 16th, 2006 and September 5th, 2008.
The Michael Hartnett Poetry Award is in its ninth year and is worth €6,500. The adjudicating panel comprises previous winner Paddy Bushe, as well as academics Róisín Ní Ghairbh and Alan Titley.
Details at www.lcc.ie, or tel: 061-496498/496300.