Irish short story writer Claire Keegan may be more than a touch exhausted after a traverse of Europe, but she is one of many who will have extraordinary traveller's tales to tell at this week’s Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway.
Other artists who have been determined to defy Icelandic volcanic events for Cúirt include former Granta editor Ian Jack, musician Richard Hawley and English novelist Rupert Thomson.
All three have arrived or are en route to the west of Ireland by land and sea, while transatlantic participants Colum McCann and Joyce Carol Oates and musician Josh Ritter are still on standby for flights.
However, crime writer Ian Rankin is unable to travel, and fellow crime writers John Connolly and Declan Hughes will read in his place tomorrow night.
To the festival organisers' delight, Man Booker prize winner Anne Enright stood in for Mary Gaitskill and read with Roddy Doyle last night.
African-born Irish short story writer and poet Orfhlaith Foyle is due to read with Kevin Barry at lunchtime today in place of Tessa Hadley, while Denis O'Driscoll will stand in for John Burnside to read with fellow poet and member of Aosdána Gerard Smyth on Friday evening.
Mayo poet Ger Reidy will replace Enrique Juncosa, reading with Enda Wyley on Thursday, while Pat Boran is standing in for Arab American poet Naomi Shihab Nye today. Guyanese poet Fred D'Aguiar, who was also due to read with Shihab Nye and Richard Tillinghast, is unable to make it, as are a group of leading writers from Canada who were due to participate.
Writer Roddy Doyle paid tribute to programme director Maureen Kennelly and her team at last night's opening, and noted that it was 15 years since he had been at the festival.
In a stream of consciousness about what Galway represented to him, Doyle described the city as a "guilt-free zone", due mainly to the roundabouts which tend to divert all guilt down to Limerick and Galway. And not since Brian Boru's time had a tent – as in the now abandoned Galway race week version - figured so significantly in Irish history, Doyle noted to much laughter.
The Cúirt new writing award was presented last night to Andrew Meehan. The programme includes a visual arts dimension, with an exhibition of work by Barrie Cooke opening on Thursday in the Norman Villa Gallery, Salthill, Galway.
The Cúirt International Festival of Literature will run until Sunday, and bookings can be made on 091-569777 or book online 24 hours at www.tht.ie.
