Get thee to Dalkey

Come to a book festival with a difference. The first annual Dalkey Book Festival will take place in Dalkey, Co Dublin from Friday 18^th – Sunday 20^th June 2010.

Want to listen to the collected wisdom of local lad Ross O Carroll Kelly and then dance in a club where the Rosser himself is spinning the discs? Or maybe walk the Flann O Brien, Dalkey Archive trail with “The Brother” -Eamon Morrissey? What about, on the 20^th anniversary of Italia ‘90, talking football, books and politics with Eamon Dunphy, Des Cahill, Dermot Bolger and Declan Lynch?

If writing’s your passion, fancy a chat with Maeve Binchy? You never know, you might just bump into Joseph O’ Connor and Martina Devlin. Or see Nick Dunning performing Shaw, Gary Jermyn reacting to Beckett or maybe you can explore Joyce’s Dalkey – when all the Bloomsday crowds have gone.

Tony Award winner Conor Mc Pherson will be there, talking about writing for the stage, while Mark Little will examine what the future of writing and communication might look like. And, delving back to Dalkey’s pirate past when it was the swine smuggling centre of Ireland, you can watch Edgar Allan Poe performed in a medieval graveyard when darkness finally falls on the longest day of the year.

For families, there is an enchanting performance of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince, readings by Marita Conlon-McKenna and Gordon Snell, while for the little ones there are puppet shows and entertainment at the family funfair.

“Traders in Dalkey village have joined forces with some of the area’s great literary talent and come up with this festival which aims to create a unique cultural offering,” said David McWilliams. “The initial response to the idea has been overwhelmingly positive and in a very short time frame we have been able to put together a great festival programme. We aim to make this a significant annual event.”

All this and more awaits visitors to this unique festival in the heritage town of Dalkey from 18^th-20^th of June. For more information, visit us at www.dalkeybookfestival.org , or on facebook ‘Dalkey Book Festival’ or on twitter; www.twitter.com/dalkeybookfest.  For tickets, please visit the website, www.dalkeybookfestival.org.