Dublin Book Festival

City Hall, Dame St, Dublin 2 Sat-Mon Adm free See dublinbookfestival.com

Given that it’s happening on the weekend of International Women’s Day, it’s appropriate that there’s a feminist thread running through this year’s annual celebration of Irish writing and publishing.

On Monday, the Irish Times Stage will host a discussion on the legacies of feminism, featuring historian Margaret Mac Curtain; Susan McKay, director of the National Women’s Council; Senator Ivana Bacik; and writer and critic Caitriona Crowe. There will also be a poetry reading to mark the day with Joan McBreen, Catherine Phil MacCarthy and Louise C Callaghan.

Other highlights include an interview with Nell McCafferty (Saturday, 1pm), and the launch of a new collection of the late Nuala O’Faolain’s writing (Monday, 2.30pm).

Another thread in the festival is called “be inspired”, and frankly, with so many interesting workshops, readings, discussions and interviews scheduled, all of them free, it would be quite hard not to be.

More than 100 Irish writers are participating in this year’s bash, and, interestingly, in some cases they’ll be interviewing each another. For example, crime writer and playwright Declan Hughes will put the searching questions to playwright Thomas Kilroy, as part of the In Conversation series, also in association with this newspaper. (Booking is essential for this series of interviews, which also features Eileen Battersby, Gordon Snell, Nell McCafferty and Mary Kenny).

Promising themed events include explorations of sports writing, surviving redundancy and the art of literary reviewing.

Children are well catered for, with plenty of events and treats, and on Saturday night you can groove to the surreally brilliant Radio Butty at the Lord Edward on Christchurch Place.