The visitor from Nantucket believes there
haven’t been as many American tourists in
evidence in the museums and cafes of Paris
or in the pubs, movie houses and theatres of
Dublin as one would expect. Perhaps it’s his
imagination. Perhaps it’s the cost of buying
euros with dollars.
In any event he has left Dublin (where a pint
of Guinness goes for almost $8) and come by train
to Galway, where this week the Cuirt International
Festival of Literature is on (and where a pint costs
under $6.50). Has enjoyed lunch with friends in-
cluding JackHarrison who, with Dermot Somerville,
played music at The Brotherhood in Nantucket back
in the ’70s and ’80s. Has opined, whenever asked,
who he believes will be the next U.S. president. Has
visited the spruce little Galway library to look in
Marilyn French’s appealing study The Book as World:
James Joyce’s “Ulysses” to remind himself what does
happen in the Aeolus chapter, which he’s wondered
since last Thursday’s Larkin lecture in Dublin. Has
attended the Festival launch which featured remarks
by the fine poet Brian Turner (Here, Bullet), who read
here last year and then was surprisingly invited back
this year to be Festival Writer-in-Residence and to
teach a poetry masterclass. Has caught up with many
old friends, including several who run the website
www.flosca.com, which serves young writers and
which has just become the publisher of Flosca Teo,
which showcases the winners of their first fiction contest.
David Means, the acclaimed short story writer (A Quick
Kiss of Redemption (1993), Assorted Fire Events (2000),
and The Secret Goldfish (2004)), judged the contest and
Cuirt combined with Flosca to bring David Means over from
the States. He’ll read Friday afternoon with the Irish language
writer Liam O Muirthile.
After a trip to the Chat’rnet shop to post a blog last evening,
the visitor attended the opening reading with Irish writers
Sebastian Barry and Jennifer Johnston. The pieces they read
gave a kind of unity to the evening. Barry gave a very
dramatic reading of a section from his novel The Secret
Scripture (due out in June in the U.S.) in which a 100 year
old woman writes down, unfettered and with wry humor
her memories of girlhood. Johnston read a monologue by
a sixtyish woman waiting in the hospital for her husband
to die, exposing conflicted feelings after long years in a
marriage lacking warmth and fulfilment.
In the coming days there will be many readings with a
number of international writers, more than the usual
number of Irish language authors, two plays nightly
instead of the usual one, interviews, book and magazine
launches, panel discussions and a focus on the writer as
eyewitness to some of the terrible conflicts of our times.
There are always surprises here and discoveries to be made.
You can check out the full schedule at www.galwayartscentre.ie
and plan your trip for next spring. And remember, the festival
club, which fills up after the last reading, does a compulsory
“last call” every night and then stays open late.
It’s a busy week and the visitor has his tickets.
Filed under: By Dick
