Authors appearing at Hinterland Festival 2021

Tony Bucher

Tony Bucher grew up in one of the few places that mattered in the 1970s - Berkeley, California.

Catriona Crowe

In addition to her many scholarly, journalistic and broadcasting achievements Catriona Crowe, former head of special projects at the National Archives of Ireland, is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and Chair of the Irish Theatre Institute, as well as a member of numerous boards in the cultural sector.

Tom Dunne

Tom Dunne has been front man with the Irish rock band, Something Happens (‘the band that forgot to break up’) for the better part of three decades now. He has also been a radio presenter for the last two decades - probably still best known for his seminal ‘Pet Sounds’ programme on Today FM. He’s only been coming to Hinterland to enthuse audiences about classic rock albums since 2017, but in 2027 we have no doubt that he’ll have been doing that for a decade as well.

Diarmaid Ferriter

Professor Diarmaid Ferriter is Professor of Modern Irish History at University College, Dublin. He is a regular broadcaster on TV and Radio and a weekly columnist with the Irish Times. His books include The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 (2004), Judging Dev (2007) and A Nation Not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913-23 (2015).

Paul Howard

Author, journalist, biographer and playwright Paul Howard helps Ross O'Carroll-Kelly to write his autobiographical series in book form and in the Irish Times, largely because Ross can't really write, despite having re-sat the Leaving Cert this year. Paul is also the author of the bestselling prison exposé, The Joy, co-author of Celtic Warrior, the autobiography of boxer Steve Collins and author of I Read the News Today, Oh Boy, the biography of Guinness heir Tara Browne. He has also collaborated in writing the autobiography of Roy Keane’s dog. As you would.

Oisín McGann

Oisín is a writer and illustrator who has produced dozens of books, including his latest, A Short Hopeful Guide to Climate Change, Headbomz: Wreckin' Yer Head, the Mad Grandad series, and The Forbidden Files, as well as a whole bunch of critically acclaimed novels.

Matthew Spangler

Matthew Spangler’s highly successful stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner has now toured the known world, with stops on London's West End, the Dubai Opera House, and Gaiety Theatre in Dublin along the way. Matthew has hosted numerous ‘adaptation sessions’ at Hinterland over the years, with authors like Zlata Filipovic (Zlata's Diary), Kevin Barry (Beatlebone), Mary Manning/Sinead O'Brien (Striking Back), and Christy Lefteri (The Beekeeper of Aleppo). The latter two are currently being adapted for stage by Matthew in collaboration with their authors, writer/actor/director Kellie Hughes and actor Ammar Ahmad.

Myles Dungan

Myles Dungan is an historian and broadcaster. He is the presenter of The History Show on RTE Radio 1 and author of more than a dozen books on Irish and American history, including Irish Voices from the Great War, Conspiracy: Irish Political Trials and How the Irish Won the West. He is a dual Fulbright scholar (2007, 2011) and was awarded a PhD by Trinity College, Dublin in 2012.

Liz Nugent

With her debut novel Unravelling Oliver Liz Nugent made a spectacular entrance onto the Irish and international literary stage. She followed it up with Lying In Wait, Skin Deep and Our Little Cruelties, and her books have all been number 1 bestsellers. She has been long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award (formerly the IMPAC) and won multiple awards at the Irish Book Awards. Liz was named Irish Woman of the Year in Literature in 2017 and received the James Joyce medal for Literature from UCD’s Literary & Historical society in 2021.

Fiona Sherlock

Fiona Sherlock is a crime writer from Bective in Co. Meath and released two murder mysteries during the lockdown. Twelve Motives for Murder is an immersive murder mystery experience published in audio and ebook by Hodder Studios. The paperback will be published in Ireland, the UK and the US on October 7th. Preserved, a modern murder mystery is out now, published by Poolbeg.  She creates murder mystery games for Zoom and in real life. She also writes poetry and is mammy to two small kids. She's the current Meath Writer-In-Residence and studying an MST in Creative Writing at Cambridge University.

Gerry Daly

Gerry Daly is a children’s author and illustrator living by the sea in Dublin. His previous books include the best-selling Where Are You, Puffling? and Wee Donkey’s Treasure Hunt, both written by Erika McGann, an Irish language edition of ‘Puffling’ - Cá Bhfuil Puifín Beag?, translated by Muireann Ní Chíobháin, and Finn’s First Song, an exciting underwater picture book adventure. Gerry’s new book, Puffling and the Egg, also with Erika McGann, will be published in Autumn 2021.

Cecelia Hartsell

Hartsell is a U.S. historian, specialising in African-American history and American social history. Since moving to Ireland, she has been a contributor to the RTE History Show and Radio Kerry on topics in U.S. history and frequently gives U.S. history talks for the Dublin Festival of History and in the Dublin public libraries. She has a Masters degree in history from University College Dublin.

Liam McNiffe

Dr Liam McNiffe is an historian, author, teacher and retired Principal of St. Patrick’s College Cavan. He also lectures in Art History.  In 2019-20 he worked with Meath County Library Service and Meath Travellers Workshop based in Navan, devising a course on Traveller Genealogy and History. Michael and Nell Mc Donagh as well as Frances Tallon and Tom French were instrumental in helping him produce a course manual on Traveller Genealogy, published in May 2020.

Luke O’Neill

Professor Luke O’Neill has become the public face of science in Ireland, largely through his weekly appearances on Pat Kenny’s radio programme, first on RTÉ and then Newstalk, where he explains science to the layman in a witty, informative and charismatic style. Winner of the prestigious Boyle Medal in 2009, and a longstanding member of the Royal Irish Academy, Luke is author of the 2018 book Humanology: A Scientist’s Guide To Our Amazing Existence.

Robbyn Swann

Robbyn Swan is the author of five critically acclaimed non-fiction books spanning the worlds of intelligence, politics and crime. She has delivered scoops on FBI Director Hoover's sexuality, Richard Nixon's sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks and White House pill-popping, and Frank Sinatra's links to Mafia “boss of bosses” Lucky Luciano. Her most recent book, A Matter of Honor, written with her husband and long-time collaborator Anthony Summers, rewrote the history of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Summers and Swan have three children and live in County Waterford in a converted ferryman’s house on the River Blackwater.

Kellie Hughes

Kellie Hughes is a theatre artist with over twenty years’ experience as a director, writer and performer. She has toured extensively nationally and internationally. Highlights include; Galway International Arts Festival, Dublin Theatre Festival, The National Theatre, London, Barbican Arts Centre, London, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York and Adelaide Theatre Festival. Kellie is Artistic Director of the UCD Ad Astra Performing Arts Academy. For the 2019 Hinterland Festival, Kellie and dramatist Matthew Spangler presented a reading of Act 1 of Striking Back, a theatrical adaptation of activist Mary Manning's book, detailing Mary's experiences as a Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid striker during the 1980s.

Denis Casey

Dr Denis Casey is a University Tutor in Critical Skills at Maynooth University, where he teaches on areas such as academic writing, podcasting, Wikipedia editing and public speaking. He has a particular interest in early Irish history and especially the Book of Kells. In addition to his article on ‘How many cows did it take to make the Book of Kells?’ he has also contributed articles on it to Ríocht na Midhe and History Ireland, as well as publishing Tigernán Ua Ruairc and a twelfth-century royal grant in the Book of Kells with Four Courts press.

Deirdre Kinahan

Deirdre Kinahan is a theatre actor, writer and director and a member of Aosdána, whose prolific output (Bogboy, These Halcyon Days, Spinning, Rise et al) has been produced by the Abbey Theatre, the Royal Court, the Old Vic and the Bush Theatre. She is the founder member of Tall Tales Theatre Company, which she ran for fifteen years. She now writes, in the main, for the Abbey, Landmark Productions and Fishamble Theatre Company. Born in Dublin she had the good sense to move to Meath in 1998, before it was too late.

Patrick Freyne

Patrick Freyne spent much of his early post adolescent existence in a valiant but vain attempt to become a famous rock star, before opting for the more staid and pensionable world of newspaper journalism. He writes (engagingly and hilariously) for the Irish Times, most notably with a weekly TV column the like of which has not been seen since Clive James returned his bottle of vitriol to the shelf. OK Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea is his first book. He also stars on Twitter as @PatrickFreyne1 where he has laid claim to over 35,000 followers.

Ann Ingle

Ann Ingle was born in London in 1939 and became an Irish citizen in 1977. Ann returned to education and graduated with a History/English degree from Trinity College when she was in her 50s. In 2019 she ghost-wrote Driven ( Harper Collins Ireland) for her good friend racing driver Rosemary Smith. Ann lives in Dublin and is a widow with eight adult children.

Roísín Ingle

Roisin Ingle is a columnist and podcaster with The Irish Times. She is the author of two collections of her columns, Pieces of Me and Public Displays of Emotion and is the co-author of The Daughterhood with Natasha Fennell which has been published in several languages. She is co-producer and co-presenter of the award-winning Women’s Podcast on irishtimes.com, and is also one of those eight adult children brought into the world by Ann Ingle.

Angela Keogh

Angela Keogh’s The Winter Dress was short listed for last year’s Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair (2020), The Winter Dress is the story of Rose, a wild Irish dressmaker and Brother John, an agnostic monk and scribe. Their paths cross at the end of a winter day in 1348 and they spend the night in conversation, revealing stories of passion, love, betrayal, war and loss of faith – all in the looming shadow of a pestilence that will become known as The Black Death.

Marian Keyes

Since her debut with Watermelon in 1995 Marian Keyes has become primus inter pares amongst Irish writers, assuming the mantle previously held by Maeve Binchy. She has sold 35 million books and has been translated into 33 languages. While best known for her fiction she has also published a number of well-received non-fiction works Under the Duvet (2001) Saved by Cake (2012) and Making it Up As I Go Along (2016 – winner of an Irish Book Award for Popular Non-Fiction). Her most recent best-selling novel is Grown Ups (2020), released in the teeth of a pandemic but still pouring off the shelves, albeit often on the basis of ‘click and collect’.

Sheila Killian

Sheila Killian is a writer based outside Limerick City who teaches at University of Limerick. Her fiction, poetry and travel writing have won awards in Ireland and the UK, and her work has been broadcast on RTE Radio. She is a member of Writepace, a writer’s co-operative based in Limerick. Her first novel, Something Bigger, will be published in 2021 by Caritas Press in September.

Cauvery Madhavan

Born in India, Cauvery Madhavan moved to Ireland more than thirty years ago. She is the author of three novels, Paddy Indian, The Uncoupling and The Tainted. She has also written opinion pieces for the Irish Times and the Sunday Tribune. She lives with her husband and three children in Co. Kildare.

Manchán Magan

Manchán Magan is an Irish writer, traveller and television programme maker. He writes a weekly environmental column for the Irish Times and is a prolific travel writer (Angels and Rabies, Manchán’s Travels: A Journey Through India, Truck Fever) In one TV documentary series, ‘No Bearla’, he accepted the challenge of travelling around Ireland speaking nothing but Irish. In the post-talk Q/A session you might ask him how that went.

Tom McEnery

Tom McEnery is an American politician, author and teacher who served as the 61^st Mayor of the California city of San Jose from 1983 to 1991. He was part-owner of the San Jose Sharks. He is the author of a book (and many columns from America to the Irish Times) on the problem with cities, The New City State (1995), and edited and introduced his friend, John Hume’s autobiography. He has written a number of plays, including Swift Justice and A Statue for Ballybunion.

Louise Nealon

Louise Nealon studied English literature in Trinity College Dublin, and then completed a masters in creative writing at Queen’s University Belfast in 2016. In 2017 she won the Sean O’Faoláin short story competition. She lives on her family farm in Co Kildare, where she divides her time between reading, writing and occasionally milking cows. Film and TV rights to Snowflake have been secured by Element Pictures, who brought Sally Rooney’s Normal People to the screen.

Melatu Uche Okorie

Melatu Uche Okorie was born in Enugu, Nigeria and has been living in Ireland for thirteen years. She has an M.Phil in creative writing from Trinity College, Dublin and is currently studying for a PhD in the College of Education, Trinity College on creative writing as a way to nurture creativity in young pupils. Her debut collection, This Hostel Life, was published in May, 2018. Melatu is also a is a member of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Éanna Ní Lamhna