And very briefly...

THE poetry of Seamus Heaney and the music of Michael Holohan combine this evening in Drogheda, at a special recital at the Augustinian Church at 8 p.m... Anna Livia 103.8 FM's literary show, Writers Inc., is running a poetry and short story contest. Poems not longer than 40 lines and short stories of less than 2,000 words should reach the show at 3, Grafton St. Dublin 2, by Friday March, 7th... It would almost certainly be careless to miss Simon Callow's "platform performance" of MacLiammoir's The Importance of Being Oscar, at the Edmund Burke Theatre in TCD, on Thursday, March 5th, 8 p.m. ... As part of the on going investigation of the state of art criticism in Ireland Temple Bar Gallery, DIT and Circa magazine will host a debate cum auto da fe, at the Gallery this Saturday (2-5 p.m.), with contributions from IMMA's Declan McGonagle, The Irish Times's Chief Critic, Brian Fallon and others too numerous, or too close by, to mention ... If you happen to be in Manchester the same evening, you can catch Irish violinist Fionnuala Hunt performing under the baton of Sir Georg Solti at the Bridgewater Hall. But if that sounds like too much of a hike, Hunt will be playing a series of Sunday afternoon concerts at IMMA later this Spring.