Iron Mountain Literature Festival

Vincent Woods

Vincent Woods’s plays include At the Black Pig’s Dyke (Druid Theatre Company, 1992); Song of the Yellow Bittern (Druid Theatre Company, 1994); and A Cry from Heaven (Abbey Theatre, 2005); and for radio, The Leitrim Hotel, The Gospels of Aughamore and Broken Moon. Poetry collections are The Colour of Language and Lives and Miracles. He has co-edited The Turning Wave: Poems and Songs of Irish Australia, and Fermata: Writings Inspired by Music (with Eva Bourke); and in 2016 published Leaves of Hungry Grass: Poetry and Ireland’s Great Hunger (Quinnipiac University Press). Awards include the Stewart Parker Award for Drama and The Ted McNulty Award for Poetry. For many years he has been a regular presenter of arts programmes and documentaries on RTÉ Radio 1. He is a member of Aosdána.

The Dock, Carrick on Shannon, Co. Leitrim.

Sat 5th & Sun 6th Oct, 2019

The Dock, Carrick on Shannon, Co. Leitrim.

Sat 5th & Sun 6th Oct, 2019

Mary McPartlan

Mary McPartlan is one of the most talented singers to come out of the Irish scene in recent years. Born in Drumkeeran, Co. Leitrim and now living in Galway, she started singing in the early 70s but it wasn't until 2003 that she decided to make music her full time career. She has been working for the last 12 years as producer and director of many music and theatre projects. She developed the concept of the TG4 National Traditional Music Awards, and was co-producer of the award-winning music series FLOSC, also for TG4. As a singer however, Mary, didn't come out of the shadows until January 2004 when she released the critically-acclaimed album The Holland Handkerchief. Her most recent album from Mountain to Mountain was released earlier this year.

Mary McPartlan

Keith Hopper

Dr. Keith Hopper teaches Literature and Film Studies for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education. He is the author of Flann O’Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-modernist (revised edition, 2009); general editor of the twelve-volume Ireland into Film series (2001-2007); and co-editor of Flann O’Brien: Centenary Essays (2011) and The Short Fiction of Flann O’Brien (2013). Recent work includes co-editing (with Neil Murphy) a series of four books relating to the late Dermot Healy: The Collected Short Stories and an edited reprint of Healy’s debut novel Fighting with Shadows appeared in 2015; The Collected Plays and a volume of critical essays entitled Writing the Sky: Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy were published this summer (by Dalkey Archive Press).

Keith Hopper

Brian Leyden

Brian Leyden is a novelist, short story writer, memoirist, playwright, screenwriter, librettist, and editor. His books include Departures, Death & Plenty, The Home Place and Sweet Old World: New & Selected Stories. He has written extensively about his home area for RTÉ's Sunday Miscellany. Other work for radio includes the documentaries No Meadows in Manhattan, Even the Walls Were Sweatin’, The Closing of the Gaiety Cinema in Carrick-on-Shannon and An Irish Station Mass. He co-wrote the feature film, Black Ice and is the recipient of a Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Sound Vision Award (2014) and an Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Literary Bursary in 2014. Most recently he published Irlande '66/69 (French language edition) and the novel Summer of ’63.