Booksellers, book launches and talks will fill every available space this weekend in Ennistymon, as the Book Town Festival takes place.
The festival has proved a popular addition to the calendar locally and has developed a large following across the whole region over the last ten years.
In addition to the local bookshops, Salmon Bookshop and Banner Books, booksellers such as Charlie Byrnes of Galway, Joe Collins Rare Books from Dublin and Cooney Books from Cork will set up throughout the town.
Joe Heddon of the organising committee said, “We are getting a great response from book lovers who are keen to get back to events after the last 18 months and expect the shops and events to be busy over the whole weekend.”
On Saturday, bookshops will open at 10am and close at 6pm; from 2pm, Salmon Poetry will be celebrating 40 years of publishing poetry and music in the Salmon Bookshop walled garden on Parliament Street, where numbers will be limited to 25.
Also at 2pm, Wendy Smith will be in Banner Books selling her booklet “Weaving My Way Through the Classical Greek World”, the proceeds of which go to Safe Passage, and will be chatting about Greek mythology, Ancient Greek and Latin.
Joe Power will hold a talk in Teach Ceoil at 6:30pm on Saturday on his two recent books, “Clare and the War of Independence” and “Clare and the Civil War”; numbers will again be limited to 25, and Banner Books can be contacted at 065 707 1372.
Joe Heddon assured, “While the usual restrictions to numbers apply, the fact that we are using large venues for the book stalls should mean we won’t have any problems.”
On Sunday, events continue with bookshops opening at 10.30am, Wendy Smith continuing her delving into Greek mythology from noon until 2pm.
From 2pm, Martina McCarthy will host “The Edge of Moher and Beyond”, with music from Liam O’Brien; this will be one of a series of events organised by Idir Dha Thra, exploring the natural harmonics between landscape, language and psyche. This will also take place in Salmon Bookshop garden, with only 20 tickets available, purchasable on Eventbrite.

By Conor Clohessy