Fifty years after his death, writer and politician Oliver St John Gogarty is to be celebrated at his former home in Connemara, Renvyle House Hotel, Co Galway, from November 8th to 11th.
Literary readings and discussions will be complemented by opera and a month-long exhibition of work by John Behan, Roisin Coyle, Brian Bourke, Dorothy Cross, Pádraic Reaney and John Coll, which will be opened on November 11th by Irish Times literary editor Caroline Walsh.
Gogarty (1878-1957), who is buried in nearby Ballinakill Cemetery, was a surgeon but also a poet, writer, politician and wit. WB Yeats, Augustus John, Lady Gregory and Winston Churchill visited him at Renvyle House, which he bought in 1917. Gogarty was appointed a senator in the early years of the Free State, prompting an unsuccessful attempt on his life by anti-treaty republicans. Renvyle House was burned down, Gogarty was compensated and the house was rebuilt as a hotel. He moved to New York, where he died in 1957.
First event on the programme will be a performance of The Renvyle Play by Tegolin's Tales theatre group on Thursday, November 8th. Eamon Grennan and Moya Cannon will give poetry readings the next day.
A field trip around "Gogarty country" will be followed by an after-dinner talk on Friday by former Irish ambassador to Britain Ted Barrington. NUI Galway writer-in-residence James Ryan and Prof Brian Arkins of NUI will lead discussions on the Saturday, and Ulick O'Connor will read from Gogarty's first collection of poetry, An Offering of Swans. Opera Theatre Company will give two performances.