DUNCAIRN AUTHOR SPECTACULAR

Such a great night at Duncairn Centre for Culture and Arts in North Belfast (Friday, August 11). Fascinating novelists Michelle Gallen, Tony Macaulay, Michael Magee read from their books and took questions from the audience, expanding on points raised and talking about their experiences as authors and living in Belfast. Also me. Chair, Marnie Kennedy (Reader in Residence) clearly knew all our books intimately, asking interesting questions herself and facilitating the whole event superbly.

 

The  Duncairn is a 174 Trust strategy. Established in 1983, the Trust is celebrating forty years of building peace and promoting reconciliation.

 

I was honoured to be invited into the program and fully enjoyed meeting the other authors and the audience. I especially appreciated the response to my poem War Zone Tours which, in part, looks back at my own experience of the Troubles and later as a migrant watching the Troubles from a safe distance. (The tour aspect is from another country altogether.).

 

Afterwards a couple of us (daughter Aroona and a lovely friend) went to Cassidy’s where the service is still of the days when my (late) husband Bill was a barman/manager — orders taken from and back to your table, payment and change at your table, orders remembered for the next round, everything a pleasure — you just can’t wait to go back again. At the end of the night — after last orders — I’m introduced to a local: this is Lizz she’s a poet; response — an on the spot rendition of a poem he wrote when he was eighteen years old. It gave a particular and powerful insight to the Troubles.

Photo (top): Tony Macaulay (left), Michelle Gallen, Michael Magee, me wearing a light shade and host Marnie Kennedy. 

Photo (below): My first ever reading in Ireland.