GALWAY’S INTERNATIONAL literary festival has been unofficially renamed “Cúirt Under the Volcano”, as further transport-related changes were made to its programme yesterday.
Ian Rankin, who was due to read tonight, has been replaced by fellow crime writers John Connolly and Declan Hughes at the Town Hall Theatre. Rankin has promised that he will travel to Galway at a later date.
US National Book Award winner Colum McCann will make it across the Atlantic, according to programme director Maureen Kennelly. However, his Friday night event with writer Jennifer Johnston has been rescheduled for Saturday at 6.30pm, also in the Town Hall Theatre.
Other artists who were able to make alternative if somewhat more arduous travel plans after the Icelandic volcanic eruption include former Granta editor Ian Jack, musician Richard Hawley, and English novelist Rupert Thomson. US-based musician Josh Ritter and writer Joyce Carol Oates are still on standby for flights.
Celebrated poet Dennis O’Driscoll will stand in for John Burnside to read with fellow poet and Aosdána member Gerard Smyth tomorrow evening.
Smyth's latest collection for Dedalus Press, The Fullness of Time, will be launched at the festival this evening.
Mayo poet Ger Reidy will replace Enrique Juncosa, reading with Enda Wyley, also this evening. Due to demand for tickets, the reading by British writer AL Kennedy has been moved from the Nun’s Island Theatre to the larger Town Hall Theatre venue.
An exhibition of work by Barrie Cooke opens in the Norman Villa Gallery, Salthill, Galway, this evening as part of the festival’s visual arts programme.
Separately, Galway artist Padraic Reaney's new exhibition of paintings, sculpture and graphics on the theme of the Great Famine, entitled An Gorta Mór, opens in the Kenny Gallery, Liosbán, on Saturday.
