Tag Archives: Ennis Book Club Festival

STUDENTS are being encouraged to take a leaf out of the book from one of the county’s most successful festivals. Preparations are already in motion for next year’s Ennis Book Club Festival which is set to take place from March 5 to 7, 2021. Festival director, Dani Gill and the committee are currently working on plans for the 15th festival. Book clubs have always been at the heart of the festival’s programming and this year the festival aims to develop new audiences by setting up the TY Book Club. Ennis Book Club Festival are inviting Transition Year classes from Clare schools to participate in a series of workshops on book clubs with Sarah Moore Fitzgerald. Sarah Moore Fitzgerald is a professor and award winning author based at the University of Limerick. She will host three workshops with TY classes from four schools in November, December and January online. The first workshop will give students tools and techniques to generate sharper …

A NEW artistic director has been announced for the Ennis Book Club Festival. Dani Gill’s appointment follows on from Paul Perry who was the artistic director with the festival for the last four years. Dani and the committee will now begin work on programming for the 15th Ennis Book Club Festival which will take place on the first weekend of March in 2021. Dani has a wealth of experience in delivering festivals and is passionate about making literature accessible to all. She is a curator, producer, writer and educator, based in the west of Ireland. She is also the national Audience Development Officer for Words Ireland and was the Director of Cúirt International Festival of Literature from 2010-2016. She is very keen on developing outreach, access to the arts and community development projects. Dani’s first collection of poems was published by Salmon Poetry in 2017 and she has just completed a novel. Her literary hybrid show ‘Mirrors’, was part of …

A NEW artistic director has been announced for the Ennis Book Club Festival. Dani Gill’s appointment follows on from Paul Perry who was the artistic director with the festival for the last four years. Dani and the committee will now begin work on programming for the 15th Ennis Book Club Festival which will take place on the first weekend of March in 2021. Dani has a wealth of experience in delivering festivals and is passionate about making literature accessible to all. She is a curator, producer, writer and educator, based in the west of Ireland. She is also the national Audience Development Officer for Words Ireland and was the Director of Cúirt International Festival of Literature from 2010-2016. She is very keen on developing outreach, access to the arts and community development projects. Dani’s first collection of poems was published by Salmon Poetry in 2017 and she has just completed a novel. Her literary hybrid show ‘Mirrors’, was part of the International Literature Festival Dublin, 2019. …

AS part of the upcoming Ennis Book Club Festival (01-03 March) the organising committee and The Clare Champion have teamed up to run a window display competition for Ennis based businesses. Entrants are asked to create a book festival themed window display from Friday February 22 until the conclusion of the festival on Sunday March 3. Every business that enters will be given two free tickets to an event during the Ennis Book Club Festival. A judging committee, comprising of representatives from the Ennis Book Club Festival and The Clare Champion, will select a winner. Furthermore a 2019 window display winner will be selected at the end of the year, following two additional window display competitions, which are planned for later this year. Entry forms will be available at the 2019 Ennis Book Club Festival launch on Thursday January 31 at 7pm in the Rowan Tree Café.

A MINISTER for Justice who slept with a gun under his pillow, the very nemesis of Charles Haughey and the founder of a political party that exercised influence way beyond its size throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Des O’Malley wasn’t struggling for material for his book Conduct Unbecoming: A Memoir. Much of O’Malley’s career was defined by his enmity with a certain former taoiseach, an era that was revisited in the recent RTÉ mini-series, Haughey. O’Malley feels it was a relatively fair exploration of the time. “You have to take it as a drama, rather than a factual documentary, but a great deal of it is factual. It is of course based on fact but, for dramatic purposes, certain things are written into it and the chronology of some of the things changes, they happened in a different order. But I thought it was a fair enough representation of the atmosphere at the time, the atmosphere of fear and intimidation.” …

THIS Friday,  The Pat Kenny Show will be in Ennis to broadcast live from the Temple Gate Hotel. This will be the first time that Pat Kenny will broadcast from Clare in front of a local audience since joining Newstalk last year. As well as bringing you analysis of news and current affairs, Pat will be speaking to Ciana Campbell, chairperson of the Ennis Book Club Festival as well as local authors and book club members. After each serving 15 years on death row for murders they did not commit, Sonny Jacobs and Peter Pringle will be discussing their incredible story of strength and survival, while well -known priest Fr Harry Bohan will be looking at the problems with rural isolation. The show, which will air from 10am, will also hear from local families, businessmen and farmers about the recent flooding, coastal erosion and the effects these have had on day-to-day life. Musical entertainment will be provided by  Kate Purcell.

AS the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War approaches, a booklet commemorating those with Clare roots who lost their lives in the Great War has been created. The booklet, ‘The Great War 1914-1918 – The Clare War Dead WWI’ will be officially launched at the Ennis Book Club Festival. And it is hoped that the booklet will raise awareness, and assist plans, for the establishment of a memorial in the Friars Walk area of Ennis honouring Clare’s war dead. The publication, prepared by Ger Browne in association with the Clare Roots Society is now available but will be officially be launched during the Ennis Book Club Festival on the Saturday, March 9 at 2.30pm in St Columba’s Church. John Bradley of Clare Roots Society explained, “This year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War and with it comes four years of commemorations. The official commemorations will begin in Sarajevo with a …