Read Books from Ireland
Read Books from Ireland, and event put on by Publishing Ireland and Books Ireland to highlight and showcase Irish written and published books, took place on Sunday, 23 July at the London Irish Centre. The event was met with full and enthralled audiences and composed of several talks and demonstrations throughout the day. A table was set up as a bookshop and filled with titles from children’s books Once Upon a Place by Eoin Colfer and Elisabeth Brami’s Declaration of the Rights of Boys and Girls to historical novels Arthur Griffith by Owen McGee and Myles Dungan’s How the Irish Won the West, and everything in between.
Some of the talks held throughout the day included Julie Parsons, Sheila Bulgar, and Sam Blake’s panel on crime fiction. They discussed The Art of Murder and what goes into writing crime novels. Parsons’ latest book, The Therapy House, was released just this past May.
Little Island’s Gráinne Clear also took part in the event. She held many storytelling times throughout the day where she expertly told several tales of Irish folklore. Another event, an illustration workshop with Alan Nolan, was also a big hit. Along with teaching both children and adults alike how to draw a character from one of his books, Nolan told stories of what inspired much of his writing and illustrations, many of which were from his childhood. His new book Sam Hannigan’s Woof Week, published by O’Brien Press, is set to release August 14th. The rest of the day included readings with Marian Broderick from her novel Wild Irish Women: Extraordinary Lives from History where she read several accounts of biographical stories of Irish women, as well as cooking demonstrations, and much more.
