The low-key, intimate atmosphere of Galway's Cuirt International Festival of Literature is what draws readers and bibliophiles back year after year. Everyone mingles and is studiedly casual about being seen in the company of the first-class writers the festival increasingly attracts - "I'm just going for a pint with Salman and Vikram," etc. This year, from Monday April 19th to Thursday 25th, the names to drop in An Tobar and Taylor's include: Amoz Oz, Andre Makine, David Leavitt, Simon Armitage, John Cooper Clarke, Seamus Deane, Seamus Heaney, Dervla Murphy, Andrew Miller, Alastair McLeod, Jennifer Johnston, Hugo Hamilton, Ben Kiely, Antonia Logue and Pat McCabe, who will be discussing the work of Tom Murphy. Jack Mapanje, the Malawian poet who is currently writer-in-residence at UCC, will read his work with John Montague, who currently holds the Ireland Chair of Poetry.
The Cuirt Lecture will be delivered by Terry Eagleton on The Doubleness of Oscar Wilde, and The Irish Times Cuirt Debate will be on The Modern Library, Colm Toibin's and Carmen Callil's selection of the best 200 novels written in English since 1950 - which is bound to be contentious. Bookings in person or by post from: Cuirt Box Office, Town Hall Theatre, Courthouse Square, 091-569777.
The fourth annual music festival at The Ark, Temple Bar's cultural centre for children, runs from today until April 27th. ESB MusicFest '99 includes performances and events, for school groups and the general public, and opens with the award-winning German ensemble, Theaterwerkstatt Pilkentafel, which presents Washing Day (pictured above). The show will be performed without words to a live accompaniment of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Further information and booking from 01-6707788.
