Schedule of Events:

CROSSTOWN DRIFT Friday 20th September

Entry to the island is free on Friday the 20th. Visitors must buy a return ferry ticket to the island.

A Walk and Talk with Glyn Sherratt – 11.00am | Starts at the Casita Lawn

Glyn Sheratt has been Head Gardener on Garinish Island since 2022. Glyn has managed gardens in the UK and abroad throughout his career and is a keen and passionate plants person. His walk will take you around the highlights of Garinish Island bringing its history, wildlife and plants to life.

 

Wild Rose Basketry – Talk & Demonstration – 12.30pm | The Casita Lawn

Rosemary Kavanagh is a basket maker and teacher from nearby Bantry. She gives courses and teaches through the Heritage in Schools program about the ancient art of basketmaking. She grows over 15 types of basketry willow, gifted by many teachers she has worked with over the years. Today Rosemary will give a talk and demonstration on traditional basket making.

 

WALKING TOUR MUSIC – 1.30pm | Starts from the Casita lawn

The Italian Garden, The Grecian Temple, The Martello Tower, The Bryce House

Join us as we meander around the island listening to everything from Uilleann pipes to Dulcimer, Fiddles, Pedal Steel Guitar, and Sean Nós singing.

David Murphy takes the pedal steel guitar outside the confines of its traditional roots with frequent ventures into a range of genres. His debut album ‘Cuimhne Ghlinn: Explorations in Irish Music for Pedal Steel Guitar’ takes it from the well-worn roads of the dusty American south to a new place in contemporary Irish music.”

 

Sorcha De Roiste, award-winning sean-nós singer, with one foot in the world of experimental composition. Sorcha has shared stages with acclaimed singers such as Traveller and TG4 award winner Thomas McCarthy, and renowned sean-nós singer, Róisín Elsafty.

 

Brian Leach is a multi-instrumentalist whose music spans from traditional to experimental. Concentrating on Uilleann Pipes and Hammered Dulcimer, he is drawing music from ancient depths and launching it into the cosmos. He has toured internationally and also builds his own instruments.

 

Eoin Stan O’Sullivan has had a colourful musical journey, moving from a childhood steeped in traditional music to a youth of punk rock. Recently, he has crafted a blend of Sliabh Luachra fiddle music and electric guitars, striking a balance between mountain music and desert blues.

 

 

CROSSTOWN DRIFT Saturday 21st September

Visitors to the island must buy a return ferry ticket, and pay the entry fee to the island.

Atlas of the Irish Civil War – 11.30am | The Casita Lawn

Dr John Borgonovo & Dr Donal Ó Drisceoil from UCC’s School of History are co-editors and writers of the newest Cork University press publication – Atlas of the Irish Civil war.This new volume of the award-winning Atlas Series presents fresh perspectives on and an insightful understanding of  the history of the Irish Civil War (1922-3). Michael Moynihan will speak to John and Donal about their new book and the historical relevance of Cork in the civil war.

Michael is an assistant editor with the Irish Examiner, an author and a documentary maker.

 

Grub Circus All At Sea – 1.00pm | The Casita Lawn

Grub Circus Ringmaster/Irish Examiner Food Writer Joe McNamee (@jozeemac) hosts RAI Irish Chef of the Year Aishling Moore (@aishlingmoore), of Cork city’s renowned Goldie seafood restaurant, along with internationally renowned award-winning food producer and legend of the Irish food world, fish smoker Sally Barnes (@woodcocksmokery), of Woodcock Smokery, for a discussion on what truly constitutes sustainability when it comes to sourcing food from our rapidly deteriorating oceans. Nibbles of a maritime nature will also be served…

 

WALKING TOUR POETRY – 2.30pm | Starts at the Casita lawn

The Italian Garden, The Grecian Temple, The Martello Tower, The Bryce House

Victoria Kennefick | The Italian Garden

Victoria Kennefick’s debut collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet Press, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Butler Literary Prize. She is the Cork County Council Writer-in-Residence 2024. Her second collection, Egg/Shell (Carcanet Press, 2024) was a PBS Choice for Spring 2024 and BBC Poetry Extra Book of the Month for March.

 

Julie Goo | The Grecian Temple

Julie Goo is a bilingual poet, writer and singer. Julie is a well-established spoken word poet, performing at festivals and conferences in Ireland and abroad for over a decade. Her first collection DÁNA was published by Coiscéim in 2021. An Individual Artist Bursary by Cork City Council was awarded to Goo in 2022 to enable the writing of her first English Language Collection.

 

Cormac Lally | The Martello Tower

Cormac Lally is one of Ireland’s top spoken-word artists. Originally from Tullamore, he moved to Skibbereen in 2015 with his family and put down roots. His work has been featured on RTE and is a familiar face at the country’s top festivals. His work is a mix of utter lies, hard truths, politics, and family life, dropped on the listener with cutting humour on a deep emotional level, delivered in a flowing rhythm.

 

Paul Casey | The Bryce house

Paul Casey Paul Casey’s poems have most recently appeared in The Irish Times and Flare, and he is working on his third collection. Virtual Tides was published by Salmon in 2016, which followed home more or less (Salmon, 2012) and a chapbook, It’s Not All Bad (Heaventree, 2009). He edits the Unfinished Book of Poetry and promotes poetry in his role as director of Ó Bhéal.

 

After the walk, Eoghan O’Sullivan will chat with the poets at the stretch tent at the Casita lawn.

 

CROSSTOWN DRIFT Evening Concert

Saturday 21st September – 6pm- 8pm

Cormac Begley

Tickets €30 available from eventbrite.ie – Tickets include a return voyage to the island  on Harbour Queen Ferries from the Pier in Glengarriff.

 

Cormac Begley is a bass, baritone, treble and piccolo concertina player from the west-Kerry musical family. He plays in a number of projects including: duets including Clíodhna Ní Bheaglaoich, Jack Talty, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Liam Ó Maonlaí; a trio entitled ‘Concertina’; and with the band Ré. He is the founder of Airt and the award winning Tunes in the Church live concert series in Galway & Dublin.

 

Get the Harbour Queen ferry from the Pier in Glengarriff at 6pm. Cormac will play solo with the concert taking place in our stretch tent by the Casita Lawn. The show will be approximately eighty minutes. Return from the island at 8pm .

 

 

CROSSTOWN DRIFT Sunday 22nd September

Visitors to the island must buy a return ferry ticket, and pay an entry fee to the island.

What Ireland can teach the world about music. Toner Quinn with Eoghan O’Sullivan –

11.30am | The Casita Lawn

 

Toner Quinn is a musician, writer, editor, publisher and lecturer born in Galway and raised in An Cheathrú Rua in Connemara and Bray, Co. Wicklow. In 2000, he founded the Journal of Music, an award winning Irish music publication. In February 2024, Toner published a collection of his writing on music, What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music – and other essays, described in the Irish Times as ‘a richly textured, all- embracing compendium … a formidable collection’.

He chats to Eoghan O’Sullivan of the Point of Everything podcast about his latest book of essays and articles on music.

 

Marjorie Brennan in conversation with crime writers Amy Jordan, Michelle Teahan & Michelle Dunne – 12.45pm | The Casita Lawn

Join our three crime writers as Marjorie unearths inspirations, ideas and plots and how to go about becoming a crime writer.

 

Amy Jordan lives in Cork with her husband and young children. Previously writing as Amy Cronin, she is the author of the “Anna Clarke” trilogy with Poolbeg Press. Her first police procedural crime thriller with HQ Stories, HarperCollins entitled  “The Dark Hours” will be published in early 2025.

 

Michelle Teahan is a qualified Medical Scientist but her passion has always been writing stories. Her debut novel Go Seek was shortlisted for the 2024 CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and her second novel, Knock Knock is out now.

 

Michelle Dunne is the author of four psychological thrillers, including the dark & twisty ‘The Hotel Maid’ (Aug 24), ‘The Good Girl’ (March 24) and her Lindsey Ryan series, which is currently in development for TV (While No One Is Watching & The Invisible)

 

Marjorie Brennan is an arts and features writer, and books columnist with the Irish Examiner.

 

 

WALKING TOUR – WRITERS

Sunday September 22nd – 2.00pm | Start at The Casita lawn

The Italian Garden, The Grecian Temple, The Martello Tower, The Bryce House

 

Sinead Gleeson | The Italian Garden

Sinéad Gleeson’s essay collection Constellations: Reflections from Life won Non-

Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. She is the editor of four anthologies including The Art of the Glimpse and the award-winning The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, and The Glass Shore: Short Stories. Her debut novel, Hagstone, was published in April 2024 by 4th Estate.

 

Aoife Barry | The Grecian Temple

Aoife Barry is the author of Social Capital, a book about social media that was nominated for an Irish Book Award in 2023. An arts journalist and Sunday Times columnist, she features regularly across national newspapers and on RTÉ radio. Her essays have featured in Banshee and Sunday Miscellany and fiction in ThiWurd. Originally from Cork, she lives in Dublin.

 

Danny Denton | The Martello Tower
Danny Denton is a writer from Cork. He is the author of the novels The Earlie King & the Kid In Yellow and All Along The Echo. He lectures on writing at University College Cork and is a contributing editor to The Stinging Fly.

 

Sarah Harte | The Bryce House

Sarah Harte is a prize-winning author of short stories both in Ireland and the UK. She won

the Byran MacMahon short story prize and has been shortlisted or longlisted in the Bridport

Prize, the Manchester Fiction Prize, The Fish Prize, and the Sean O’Faolain Prize. On the

Literary Peer Panel of the Arts Council of Ireland, she is a columnist with The Irish Examiner

and is finishing her newest novel. She lives in Union Hall.

After the walk Eoghan O’Sullivan will chat with the writers at the stretch tent at the Casita lawn.

 

CROSSTOWN DRIFT Evening Concert
Sunday 22nd September, 6pm- 8pm

Lisa Hannigan

Tickets €30 available from eventbrite.ie – Tickets include a return voyage to the island  on Harbour Queen Ferries from the Pier in Glengarriff.

Lisa Hannigan is a versatile Irish folk singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and voice actor, whose solo musical career has spanned 17 years.  Hannigan released her debut album, Sea Sew in 2008, which earned her nominations for a Choice award in Ireland and a Mercury Music Prize in the UK. Since then Lisa has released Passenger (2011) and At Swim (2016) to huge critical acclaim in Ireland and the United States. 2019 saw the release of Live in Dublin recorded in the National Concert Hall with the contemporary-classical orchestra, s t a r g a z e. She now resides in West Cork when not touring the world.

Get the Harbour Queen ferry from the Pier in Glengarriff at 6pm. Lisa will play solo with the concert taking place in our stretch tent by the Casita Lawn. The show will be approximately eighty minutes. Return ferry from the island at 8pm .