Authors appearing at Hinterland Festival 2025

Bex Sheridan

Bex is an author, illustrator, designer and educator. Her children’s picturebooks include Wild Eyes; Go to Sleep, Hoglet! and Irish Farm Animals. She creates illustrations in many formats, including real and imagined maps, and stand-alone pieces of all shapes and sizes. Her work often features animals, nature and little lessons for early learners, as well as exploring fantasy concepts and developing works with dark and macabre themes. She has a passion for creating stories and putting them into pictures, to generate excitement among all audiences for story worlds in all formats. To see more, visit bexsheridan.com

Brian Fitzgerald

Brian Fitzgerald is an author & Illustrator of Children’s picture books. ‘Amuigh Faoin Spéir’, written by Sadhbh Devlin, winner of the Réics Carló Irish Picture Book award. ‘Gealach agus Grian’, by Muireann  Ní Chíobháin was selected for this years ‘The White Ravens ’, A Selection of International Children’s Literature. ‘Bunny’s Most Fabulous Holiday Ever! Is Brian’s first book as author and illustrator published in 2024. His latest book with author Jake Hope: ‘Taking The Long Way Home’, published by Scallywag Press, London.

Some of his books include: ‘Little Irish Folklore Friends’, Gill Publishing. ‘The Bear Who Had Nothing to Wear’, Scallywag Press. ‘The Rattlin’ Bog’, Barefoot Books. ‘Twas The Match Before Christmas’, O’Brien Press, and ’Be Thankful For Plants’, Red Comet Press.

Bryan Dobson

Known affectionately to one and all as ‘Dobbo’, Bryan Dobson, stepped down last year from an illustrious shift as a broadcast journalist. He began his career early, producing a half hour radio programme in Transition Year in Newpark Comprehensive. The child being father of the mean he went on to join, first Radio Nova (when it was a pirate station), BBC Northern Ireland, and then RTÉ to become presenter of the Six One TV news and News at One on RTÉ Radio, he also served his time as an early riser to front Morning Ireland. In May 2024 he retired after 37 years with RTÉ.

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. The Inheritance, set in the Beara peninsula, and with a Joycean or McGahernesque sense of place, is her latest novel.

https://cauverymadhavan.com

Darryl Jones

Darryl Jones was born in Wales and educated at the University of York. He has taught at Trinity College Dublin since 1994 and is currently Professor of Modern British Literature. His major area of teaching and research is nineteenth-century literature and popular literature including Horror; Nineteenth-century fiction; Popular Literature and Welsh Studies. He became a Fellow of TCD in 2006.

Dave Rudden

Dave Rudden is an Irish author and scriptwriter. His bestselling novel, Knights of the Borrowed Dark, won Children’s Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards in 2016 and is now a syllabus text. He has also authored multiple works in the universe of Doctor Who. Dave has been an Ambassador for Ireland Reads since 2022 and is Writer-in-Residence for the Kids Love Books podcast on RTÉ and Artist-in-Residence at Dublin City University.

Diarmaid Ferriter

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), A Nation Not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913-23 (2015) and Between Two Hells: the Irish Civil War (2021). His latest work, The Revelation of Ireland 1995-2020, was published last year. https://people.ucd.ie/diarmaid.ferriter/

Eileen Dunne

RTE Newscaster, Eileen Dunne, is the eldest of the late RTÉ GAA correspondent Mick Dunne’s three daughters. Born and raised in Clontarf, Dublin she studied Irish and French at UCD and after a year in France, came back to do a H.Dip (Masters in Education) and begin work as a radio continuity announcer in RTÉ. Eileen joined the RTÉ Newsroom in 1984 and was involved in coverage of all the main news stories from then until her retirement in 2022. She has also presented programmes on RTÉ Lyric FM and on RTÉ Radio 1. A member of the Association of European Journalists, she served as International President from 2010 to 2014 (the first woman to hold the position). She is also currently Chair of the Kennedy Summer school in New Ross. Eileen is married to the actor Macdara Ó Fátharta and they have one son, Cormac.

Erika McGann

Erika McGann grew up in Drogheda, County Louth, and now lives in Dublin. She is the author of many books including the Where Are You, Puffling? stories (illustrated by Gerry Daly), Standing On One Leg Is Hard and What is a Peachick? (illustrated by Clive McFarland), the Cass and the Bubble Street Gang series and Tabitha Plimtock and the Edge of the World.

Faith Hogan

Faith Hogan holds an Honours Degree in English Literature and Psychology from Dublin City University and a Postgraduate Degree from University College, Galway. She has worked as as a fashion model, an event organizer and in the intellectual disability and mental health sector. She was a winner in 2014 of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair – an international competition for emerging writers. Her fiction has achieved top ten best seller status across the US, UK, Australia and Canada. Her books are top ten best sellers in Ireland. The Ladies Midnight Swimming Club – reached the overall No 1 position in the Amazon UK charts. In 2024 The Bookshop Ladies, her latest novel, was shortlisted for An Post Book Award.

Fintan O’Toole

Whether writing for the Irish Times, the Guardian or engaged in one of his many non-fiction tours de force the range and scope of Fintan O’Toole’s scholarship is startling. He is a critic, historian, controversialist and intellectual. He is as capable of writing a monograph on Richard Brinsley Sheridan or George Bernard Shaw, as he is of eviscerating the corrupt cowboys of the Celtic Tiger. His latest work, We Don’t Know Ourselves was winner of the An Post Irish Book Awards for 2021, was an Irish Times  #1 Bestseller and was cited by the New York Times as one of its books of the year. Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life, published in 2024, is his latest work.

George Hamilton

George Hamilton is a Belfast-born sports commentator and broadcaster who has been covering Irish, British and European soccer for decades. He has also worked on countless Olympic games as a rowing and athletics commentator and also includes hockey in his extensive repertoire. He also presents a twice weekly classical music programme (Hamilton Scores) on Lyric FM. The Nation Holds Its Breath is his memoir of a long and fascinating career in sports broadcasting. Hamilton Notes, published last year, is his second book of memoir.

Gina Clifford Holmes

Gina Clifford-Holmes is great-granddaughter of Rosie Boote, Marchioness of Headfort. She grew up on the romantic tales of Rosie Boote, the Gaiety Girl, who married the 4^th Marquis of Headfort.  After receiving her history degree in 1981, Gina started to research Rosie’s biography, seeking to unravel family legend from fact. However, marriage and a move to South Africa halted the book.The news that Rosie—the Musical was going into production provided the catalyst for Gina to complete the biography. With exclusive access to private family papers and material from the Headfort Estate papers at the National Library, Rosie’s true story is ready to be told.

Gráinne Hurley

Gráinne Hurley is the author of  Gratefully and Affectionately : Mary Lavin and The New Yorker which draws extensively from letters between Lavin and thw magazine’s editor, Rachel McKenzie, as well as other New Yorker-related material, to explore the collaborative relationship between this writer and her editor, Lavin's own writing process, the inner workings (personnel, financial, political) and editing procedures of The New Yorker and the process of publishing a story from manuscript to print during its heyday.

Gray Brechin

Gray Brechin is an American geographer, architectural historian, and author. He received his Ph.D. from the UC Berkeley Department of Geography and is the founder and Project Scholar of the Living New Deal. Dr..Brechin is a frequent and popular speaker, especially on subjects related to the legacy of the New Deal and the history of  San Francisco.His best-known work is the magisterial Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (University of California Press, 1999).

Jack Lukeman

Jack Lukeman, usually simply known as Jack L, is an Irish songwriter, musician, record producer, vocal artist and broadcaster. Renowned for his stunning voice (“The most amazing voice”-Trevor Horn) and for his songswriting skills he has had massive singles hits with songs such as Rooftop Lullaby and Georgie Boy. Since the release of Wax in 1995 he has recorded sixteen albums, the best known probably being Metropolis Blue and the most recent being Echo On (2022). Jack has performed in venues such as Olympia Paris, the Albert Hall and the Lincoln Centre and has supported or played alongside the likes of U2, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Elvis Costello, Jools Holland and the late Marianne Faithful.

Jacqueline Connolly

In her gripping account of the murder of her sister, Oristown teacher Clodagh Hawe and her three nephews, Liam Niall and Ryan, Jacqueline Connolly tells of her family’s painful struggle to expose critical failures in the initial garda investigation, as they uncovered the terrible darkness behind Alan Hawe’s ‘pillar-of-the-community’ facade. Jacqueline also reveals many of the shocking, unpublished findings of the recent Garda Serious Crime Review, details that challenge our understanding of domestic violence and family annihilators, while laying bare a mass murder – Ireland’s largest murder-suicide – that was cold-bloodedly planned for a year in advance.

Jane Ohlmeyer

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, a member of the Royal Irish Academy, is a historian and academic specialising in Ireland and Empire. She is the Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History (1762) at Trinity College, Dublin and former Chair of the Irish Research Council, which funds frontier research across all disciplines. She is the author of a number of works, including Making Ireland English: the Irish aristocracy in the seventeenth century (2012). Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World (2023) is her most recent publication.

Joe McKenna

From Moynalty, enjoying retirement in Mullagh, Co. Cavan. Former Chartered accountant, with a lifetime working in the multinational sector, now involved with local voluntary organisations. Father to four daughters. Interested in local history and delighted to give my debut talk at Hinterland this year, on an extraordinary local unsung talent.

John Banville

Described by the Washington Post as ‘one of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today’, John Banville is probably Ireland’s most garlanded and celebrated writer. He has won numerous international awards, including the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea, and the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize. His most recent novel Mrs Osmond (2017) is a masterly ‘sequel’ to the canonical Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, in which Banville muses, in the style of the great American master, on the future of the free-spirited Isabel Archer. This will be his second appearance in Kells as that most eminent writer of literary fiction, John Banville. He has also appeared at our festival in his alternative guise, that of prolific crime novelist Benjamin Black.

John Boyne

John Boyne is the author of eighteen novels for adults, six for younger readers, and a collection of short stories. His 2006 novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, theatre, ballet, and opera. His many international bestsellers include The Heart's Invisible Furies and A Ladder to the Sky. He has won four Irish Book Awards, including Author of the Year in 2022, along with a host of other international literary prizes. His novels are published in sixty languages. In November 2023, John published the first of a four-novella sequence, Water which was followed by Earth and Fire. Air was published in May 2025. The full sequence will be collected in September 2025 in a single volume, titled The Elements.

https://johnboyne.com

John Creedon

John Creedon is a native of Cork. He joined RTÉ Radio 1 in 1987 and since his radio debut he has won both Jacob’s and PPI awards for his work. He currently produces and presents the highly popular and acclaimed nightly music-fest The John Creedon Show. John completed a diploma in Regional Studies at UCC, and his love of Irish folklore and culture has seen him take to the roads of Ireland to present Creedon’s Wild Atlantic Way, Creedon’s Epic East, Creedon’s Shannon and several series of Creedon’s Atlas of Ireland. In 2018, he spearheaded the National Treasures project, a collaboration between RTÉ and the National Museum of Ireland, which culminated in a television series and an exhibition of artefacts that celebrate the nation’s story. His first book, That Place We Call Home, was a bestseller. John lives in his native Cork with his partner, Mairead, and broadcasts mostly from the local RTÉ studios. In 2022, he was announced as Cork Person of the Year. His book, An Irish Folklore Treasury, which topped the Non - Fiction bestsellers list was honoured as the Best Irish Published Book of the Year at the 2022 Irish Book Awards. His memoir, This Boy’s Heart: Scenes from an Irish Childhood, is his latest work.

Ken Murray

Ken Murray is a journalist and broadcaster. He is the author of a number of books. He ghost-wrote All Kinds of Everything, the official biography of former MEP and Irish Presidential candidate Dana Rosemary Scallon. His most recent books, The Reavey Killings; British murder and cover-up in Northern Ireland and My Saxophone saved my life-the biography of Des Lee, survivor of the 1975 Miami Showband massacre have just been published. As a broadcast journalist he was Ireland correspondent for Euronews and Dublin correspondent for BBC Northern Ireland. He is now the presenter of the daily LMFM current affairs programme The Agenda. Ken holds a Masters Degree in Journalism from Dublin City University.

Kevin Barry

Kevin Barry is the author of three collections of short stories and four novels. City of Bohane (2011) was the winner of the 2013 International Dublin Literary Award. Beatlebone (2015) won the 2015 Goldsmiths Prize. His 2019 novel Night Boat to Tangier was long listed for the 2019 Booker prize and was named as one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times. The Heart in Winter (2024) his latest novel, was shortlisted in the Novel of the Year category for the  2024 An Post Irish Book Awards. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and in a number of other prestigious publications. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo.

Kevin Moran

Kevin Moran is a children’s author and primary-school teacher. From Castlebar, County Mayo, he now lives and works in Dublin. He was runner-up in the Staróg Prize for children’s fiction in 2023. He wrote his first book, ‘Ghost Invaders’, when he was six. It remains buried in an attic, unpublished.

March 2025 saw the publication of Kevin’s debut children’s novel - a funny, thrilling and action-packed adventure, set in Dublin (Marsh’s Library, Glasnevin Cemetery and St. Patrick’s Cathedral all making spooky appearances), with a group of four friends dealing with the challenges of 6th class, friendships, families, and some frightening otherworldly shenanigans from the darkest realms of Celtic folklore, including a 7ft monster that only speaks Irish.

When not writing, Kevin can often be found on the beach near his home in Dublin, being walked by his surprisingly strong golden retriever.

Kevin Rafter

Kevin Rafter is Full Professor of Political Communication at Dublin City University and the author/editor of over a dozen highly regarded books including Taoisigh and the Arts (2022), Resilient Reporting: Media & Elections in Ireland since 1969(2019) and The Irish Presidency: Power, Ceremony & Politics(2014) He has also written several political biographies and histories of Sinn Féin, Fine Gael,Clann na Poblachta and Democratic Left. His new book, Dillon Rediscovered, is a biographyof E.J. Dillon (1854-1933), a foreign correspondent at The Daily Telegraph. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Boston College in 2024 and was previously a leading political and broadcast journalist.

Lara Marlowe

Lara Marlowe was born in California and studied French at UCLA and the Sorbonne, then International Relations at Oxford. She started her career as an associate producer with CBS’s 60 Minutes programme, then shifted to print media with the Financial Times and TIME Magazine. She has reported for a host of broadcast and print media and was a staff foreign correspondent, based in Paris and Washington, for The Irish Times from 1996 until 2023. She continues to write a column for The Irish Times. She makes her permanent home in Paris, where she has covered five French presidencies. She was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 2006 for her contribution to Franco-Irish relations. Lara is the author of Love in a Time of War: My Years with Robert Fisk (Head of Zeus, 2021), Painted with Words (2011) and The Things I’ve Seen: Nine Lives of a Foreign Correspondent (2010). How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying: Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko’s Fight for Ukraine (Head of Zeus, 2024) is her latest work. 

Liam McNiffe

Dr Liam Mc Niffe is an historian, author, former teacher Eureka Kells, and retired Principal of St. Patrick’s College Cavan. He lectured part-time in Maynooth University History and Education Departments. He also lectures in Art History.  His publications include  A History of the Garda Síochána; Studies in Local History Meath (ed); A History of Williamstown Kells; Pounding Playing Praying; Traveller Genealogy; Roots and Routes on Traveller history and Peter Devlin, Memories (ed).

Lollie Mancey

Dr. Lollie Mancey is an internationally acclaimed anthropologist, futurist, and cultural strategist, whose work spans the intersection of technology, human culture, and innovation. With a PhD in Organisational Learning and a career dedicated to decoding societal and technological shifts, she helps global organisations, policymakers, and entrepreneurs navigate the profound changes driven by artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. As Programme Director and entrepreneurial specialist at University College Dublin’s Innovation Academy, Dr. Mancey empowers the next generation of innovators and business leaders with the tools to thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape.

A dynamic storyteller, Dr. Mancey’s captivating narrative skills earned her the title of Dublin Story Slam Champion and have made her a sought-after speaker at global conferences. She hosts a popular podcast, An Entrepreneur Like You, and co-presents RTÉ’s science programme Futureville, where she explores Ireland's technological future. Her monthly radio show on Dublin South FM further underscores her commitment to sharing knowledge and sparking dialogue on the most pressing challenges of our time.

Website: www.drlollie.ie

Martin Sixsmith

Martin Sixsmith is a British author and radio/television presenter, primarily working for the BBC. He has also worked as an adviser to Labour government and, by way of contrast, to Armando Ianucci’s BBC television political comedy series The Thick of It.  One of Sixsmith's best known books, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, was the basis for the 2013 film Philomena in which Sixsmith was played by Steve Coogan. His 2021 book, The War of Nerves, an account of the Cold War was shortlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Non-fiction. In 2022, Sixsmith co-wrote The Russia Conundrum: How the West Fell for Putin's Power Gambit, with the former oligarch and liberal opposition campaigner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Sixsmith's 2024 book, Putin and the Return of History examines the West's plans for a unipolar world following the collapse of Soviet communism and how this contributed to Vladimir Putin's growing antagonism towards Washington and NATO.

Martina Devlin

Martina Devlin is an author and newspaper columnist. She has written nine novels, two non-fiction books, plays and a collection of short stories. Her latest novel, Charlotte, explores Charlotte Brontë’s Irish connections. Other novels include Edith about the Irish R.M. co-author Edith Somerville; and The House Where It Happened about the 1711 Islandmagee witchcraft trial, which led to a plaque erected to commemorate those wrongly convicted following a campaign she initiated. Prizes include the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize and a Hennessy Literary Award, and she has been shortlisted three times for the Irish Book Awards. Martina writes a weekly current affairs column for the Irish Independent for which she has been named National Newspapers of Ireland commentator of the year, among other journalism prizes. She holds a PhD in literary practice from Trinity College Dublin.

https://martinadevlin.ie

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  before opening on Broadway in 2022. 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 last two have been adapted for stage by Matthew in collaboration with their authors and The Beekeeper of Aleppo toured the UK and Ireland last year.

Michael Harding

At this point in his career as a writer, actor and Irish Times columnist Michael Harding has little option but to succumb to the title ‘National Treasure’, in Irish terms an unofficial peerage or a knighthood at the very least. For a quarter of a century, since his Abbey debut with Strawboys in 1987 he has been a consummate playwright but more recently his focus has switched to more personal prose and memoir works such as Hanging With the Elephant and On Tuesdays I’m a Buddhist. As well as all that, in a nation of storytellers he is primus inter pares among raconteurs. (He did Latin and French at school). His latest work, I Loved Him From the Day He Died, has been in the Irish Times bestseller list since it was published last autumn.

https://www.michaelharding.ie

Myles Dungan

Myles Dungan is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster who currently presents the weekly RTÉ Radio 1 programme  The History Show. He is an Adjunct Lecturer in the UCD School of History and is the recipient of two Fulbright Awards. He has taught Irish history in UCD, Trinity College and the University of California, Berkeley.  He holds a PhD from Trinity College, Dublin and is the author of more than a dozen books on Irish and American history (including Four Killings, Conspiracy: Irish Political Trials, Irish Voices from the Great War, How the Irish Won the West and Mr. Parnell’s Rottweiler). He is also the author of two works for children, The Great Irish History Book and The Forgettables. His latest work for adults, Land is all that matters: the struggle that shaped Irish history, was published in 2024. His first (solo) crime novel, The Red Branch, set in the Irish community in San Francicso in 1883, will be out in October.

www.mylesdungan.com

Nerys Williams

Nerys Williams is a Welsh poet, academic, and Welsh language activist, born in Carmarthenshire and resident in Kells. Her first book of poetry, Sound Archive, was published in 2011, was nominated for the Forward Prize (first volume) and won the Irish equivalent, the Strong Prize. She is also a past winner of the Ted McNulty Prize. Her second volume Cabaret, was published in 2017 and also that year she was poet in residence at Passa Porta, Brussels as part of the Welsh Government’s Poetry of Loss / Barddoniaeth Colled centenary commemoration of Welsh language poet Hedd Wyn. Her ‘anti-memoir’ Republic was published by Seren Press in 2023.

Oisín Fagan

Oisín Fagan has had fiction published in The Stinging Fly, New Planet Cabaret and the anthology Young Irelanders. He won the inaugural Penny Dreadful Novella Prize for his novella The Heirophants. His debut collection of stories, Hostages, was published by New Island in 2016. His novel Nobber (2019) was named as one of the books of the year by the Guardian and the Daily Mail.  Eden’s Shore is his latest novel.

Patsy McGarry

Patsy McGarry is a contributor to the Irish Times having spent over 25 years as the paper's Religious Affairs Correspondent. He previously reported for Magill magazine, the Irish Press, the Irish Independent and the Sunday Independent. He is the author of First Citizen: Mary McAleese and the Irish Presidency. Well Holy God: My Life as an Irish, Catholic, Agnostic Correspondent is his latest work.

Paul Maher

Paul Maher is a Dublin-based Garda superintendent. He has, for many years, been centrally involved in the work of the Garda Historical Society (of which he was secretary) and the production of the official magazine of the society, The Garda Gazette.

Paul Nugent

Paul Nugent is an illustrator and author based in Dublin. An avid fan of visual story telling in all its forms, his work emphasises humour and accessibility above all else. He jumps at any opportunity to shoehorn a bad pun into his work.

Spring Chicken is Paul’s debut author illustrated book and his second book with The O’Brien Press alongside Murphy’s Law.

Penelope Shales-Slyne

Penelope Shales Slyne was born in London and moved to Zimbabwe as a young child.  Having also lived in Paris and Wales she is delighted to have definitively settled, at last, in Meath as a resident of Kells. She is a TV director with a long and distinguished pedigree at the helm of some of the most iconic British and Irish TV shows. In her long career she has worked on a Kenyan soap where she was lead director and mentored young Kenyan directors, as well as, Eastenders for the BBC, Coronation Street for ITV, Pobol Y Cym for S4C, (she is a fluent Welsh speaker) in the Outer Hebrides on a Gaelic soap, and RTÉ’s Fair City. She has also directed on Hollyoaks, The Bill and Grange Hill. She recently began her first ever stint on Emmerdale.

Philip Boucher Hayes

Philip Boucher-Hayes is a broadcaster and journalist. His work is primarily in the area of the twin climate and biodiversity crises. On television his documentary work includes Rising Tides, Hot Air and Future Shock: The Last Drop. On Radio he presents the climate change series Hot Mess on RTÉ Radio 1 as well as that station's rural affairs and farming programme, Countrywide. 

Richard Leray

Richard Leray has been practicing stencil illumination since 1991 and is a recognised master in this 14th century colouring and multiplication technique. He is listed in the inventory of Artistic Crafts in France. Working from his “Festina Lente” Studio in the beautiful village of Fontevraud l’Abbaye, he creates original works and reproduces designs from ancient documents, such as ancient Irish gospels – keeping alive these rare and delicate skills. Richard is also a master of visual poetry . Come and see examples of his illuminations and visual poetry and learn about the process and techniques of stencil illumination from a master of this delicate art. The Exhibition will launch on Wednesday 25th June at 7:30pm in Eureka House and will be open throughout the festival.

Roisín O’Donnell

Roisín O'Donnell is an award-winning Irish author. She won the prize for Short Story of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards in 2018, and was shortlisted for the same prize in 2022. She is the author of the story collection Wild Quiet, which was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Kate O'Brien Award. Her short fiction has featured in The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, the Irish Times and many other places. Other stories have been selected for major anthologies such as The Long Gaze Back, and have featured on RTÉ Radio. Nesting is her first novel published in 2025 to widespread critical acclaim. It became an instant Sunday Times bestseller and was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. It also featured as the inaugural pick for Ryan Tubridy's Bookshelf book club. She lives near Dublin with her two children.

Sarah Moss

Sarah Moss is a writer and academic and ‘a bike riding vegetarian feminist’(Irish Times 18/5/24). She has published nine novels, including Ghost Wall, Summerwater and The Fell as well as a number of non-fiction works and academic texts. Her work has been nominated three times for the Wellcome Book Prize. Her 2018 novel Ghost Wall was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and the Polari Prize, and was longlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction. She teaches Creative Writing at the UCD School of English, Drama and Film. Her most recent non-fiction work is the memoir My Good Bright Wolf (2024). She is also a weekly Irish Times columnist.

Schola Hyberniae

Consisting of eight female voices, Schola Hyberniae is Ireland's specialist chant and early music female vocal ensemble. The group has a particular interest in music derived from rare manuscripts and in connecting people, place, and heritage through ancient song. Schola Hyberniae performs nationally and internationally at symposia, conferences, festivals, liturgies, and recitals. Recent events include two sold-out shows at Bram Stoker Festival in Dublin last October and the launch of their concert series 'Chant in the Chapel', featuring guests artists and music in beautiful spaces.

Schola Hyberniae was founded and is directed by Dr Giovanna Feeley. To find out more, please visit  www.scholahyberniae.ie

Simon Price

Simon Price is a Welsh music journalist and author of Curepedia: An A-Z of The Cure (Top 5 music books of 2023   - The Guardian). He also wrote extensively for Melody Maker in the 80’s and is a regular contributor to The Quietus and The Guardian. He’s the author of Everything: A Book About Manic Street Preachers. It was named Book of The Year by NME and Rock Book of The Decade by the Guardian.

https://linktr.ee/simonprice

Síne Quinn

Síne Quinn holds an MPhil in Children’s Literature and is a Commissioning Editor at Merrion Press in Ireland. Síne also works as a creative writing facilitator with the Bookmarks programme at Trinity College Dublin – a writing programme for primary school pupils – and as a Book Doctor for Children’s Books Ireland.

Sophie Grenham

Sophie Grenham is a freelance arts journalist from Dublin who spent her formative years in Hong Kong. She has written for a variety of publications including the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, IMAGE and Social and Personal, and currently contributes to the Sunday Times Ireland and the Sunday Independent. Her short story, "14", was published in the inaugural issue of Tír na nÓg magazine.

T.J. McIntyre

Dr TJ McIntyre is an Associate Professor in the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin where his research focuses on issues involving information technology law, cybercrime, and civil liberties. He practises as a consultant solicitor with FP Logue Solicitors, specialising in data protection and technology law issues. He is a specialist adjudicator for the .ie Alternative Dispute Resolution Policy. He is chairperson of the civil liberties group Digital Rights Ireland and regularly appears in the national and international media discussing issues of law and technology. From 2010-2022 he was the Irish national expert on information society and data protection issues for the EU Fundamental Rights Agency research network.

Timothy O’Grady

Timothy O’Grady was born in Chicago. When he was twenty-two he migrated to Gola Island, off the coast of Gweedore in Donegal. Since then he has lived in Dublin, London, Spain and Poland. He is the author of eight books. His novels are Motherland, I Could Read the Sky, a collaboration with the photographer Steve Pyke, and Light. Monaghan (2024) is set in Belfast, the Irish borderlands and the two coasts of America. His non-fiction books are Curious Journey:An Oral History of Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution (1982), On Golf and Divine Magnetic Lands, an account of a return journey to the United States after thirty years of living in Europe, published in 2008. His book Children of Las Vegas, based on interviews with people who grew up in Las Vegas, was published in 2016.

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.

Tony Bucher

Tony Bucher grew up in Northern California and worked in a few startups in Silicon Valley and Asia during the dot-com era. He serves as President of the San Francisco Irish Literary and Historical Society, and regularly speaks on topics in California and Irish-American history at the Hinterland Festival and other august venues. He is descended from the notorious Gerritys of Duleek Co. Meath.

Ultan Courtney

Ultan Courtney is a local historian who has written extensively on the War of Independence in Meath. He lives in Lusk Co. Dublin. Both of his parents were from Meath and his father was involved in the War of Independence. He is a management consultant and Chairman of the Low Pay Commission and former Chairman of Dublin Bus. He is a Graduate of Trinity College, UCD, DIT and the Law Society School of Education.

Winnie Clarke

Winnie Clarke (pen name of Ann Devlin) is an American-Irish author residing in the border region between Newry and Dundalk since 1998. She holds dual degrees in Mathematics and German from Rutgers University, New Jersey. Clarke is a recipient of several prestigious scholarships, including Fulbright and Goethe Institut awards. Her academic achievements extend to membership in the National Honor Society. A dual citizen of the United States and Ireland, Clarke balances her writing career with co-managing a cleaning business in Newry alongside her husband.