President Michael D Higgins has been presented with John B Keane Lifetime Achievement Award at the opening night of Listowel Writers’ Week 2024.
It was presented in recogniition of his service to the arts in Ireland and in celebration of the connections between the President’s literary and political careers.
President Higgins was in Listowel on Wednesday night to accept the award presented by John B Keane’s son Conor.
Writers’ Week Festival Curator, Martin Dyar, described it as an historic and truly great moment that will endure as a cherished memory and inspiration in the years ahead.
“The President’s literary and political achievements are abundant. In so many remarkable ways they are also intertwined,” he said.
“We are proud to recognise that abundance, together with the ways that President Higgins has united poetry and politics, and indeed poetry and the presidential office itself,” Mr Dyar added.
The Kerry Group Novel of the Year Award for 2024 winner was Darragh McKeon for his novel Remembrance Sunday and the Piggot Poetry Prize Award winner was Paula Meehan for her collection The Solace of Artemis.
Now in its 53rd year, the literary festival continues until June 2 and this year’s programme includes a host of big names, together with newer and diverse literary voices and an environmentally themed schedule of events combining literature, music and film.
This Friday in The Plaza, there will be screening of the IFTA award winning film That They May Face the Rising Sun, followed by an exclusive live interview between the film’s director Pat Collins and the Shakespeare scholar Andy Murphy.
On Saturday. marking the 30th anniversary of Riverdance, Grammy award winning composer Bill Whelan will be in conversation with Philip King in the Listowel Arms Hotel.
The American writer, Lily Kingsolver, who with has co-written the acclaimed children’s book Coyote’s Wild Home with her mother, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver, will be in conversation with writer and broadcaster Anja Murray on Saturday.
The man who guided the country through the Covid-19 crisis, former chief medicalofficer Tony Holohan, will discuss his highly regarded memoir We Need to Talk, with poet and curator of the 2024 Writers; Week programme Martin Dyar, will be the festival closing headline event on Sunday in the Listowel Arms Hotel.
Tickets are on sale for headline events at www.writersweek.ie.
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