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25 - 28 June 2026
To celebrate our rich natural hinterland, we are delighted to host two artist-led workshops on the beautiful Killyconny Bog, located on the border between Meath and Cavan and extending across 191 hectares of raised bog.
Killyconny Bog is designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC). It forms part of a network of 12 peatlands known as the Living Bogs, which have received funding to support re-wetting works, protect and restore the natural environment, and raise public awareness of the vital role bogs play in addressing climate change, supporting biodiversity, and safeguarding our shared heritage. For more information, visit: www.killyconnybog.ie
The workshops will be led by professional local artists. Participants will meet at Mullagh Heritage Centre, where they will be introduced to the bog before travelling by bus to the workshop location. Attendees are asked to bring a fold-away seat and a packed lunch. Basic art materials will be provided, though participants are welcome to bring their own. The workshops will conclude at approximately 3.00pm, with transport by bus returning attendees to the Heritage Centre.
To celebrate our rich natural hinterland, we are delighted to host two artist-led workshops on the beautiful Killyconny Bog, located on the border between Meath and Cavan and extending across 191 hectares of raised bog.
Killyconny Bog is designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC). It forms part of a network of 12 peatlands known as the Living Bogs, which have received funding to support re-wetting works, protect and restore the natural environment, and raise public awareness of the vital role bogs play in addressing climate change, supporting biodiversity, and safeguarding our shared heritage. For more information, visit: www.killyconnybog.ie
The workshops will be led by professional local artists. Participants will meet at Mullagh Heritage Centre, where they will be introduced to the bog before travelling by bus to the workshop location. Attendees are asked to bring a fold-away seat and a packed lunch. Basic art materials will be provided, though participants are welcome to bring their own. The workshops will conclude at approximately 3.00pm, with transport by bus returning attendees to the Heritage Centre.
We all know he didn’t actually perform hip hop on his way to the top, but how much has the hit musical Hamilton distorted our view of one of the founding fathers of America’s (imperilled?) democracy? Be in the room where it happens when Dr. Liam McNiffe offers his own take on the real Alexander Hamilton and, among others, the charismatic Irish-born spy Hercules Mulligan.
Petitioning the court system and military service in the Revolutionary War were among the liberation strategies used by enslaved individuals to attempt to secure their freedom. This talk will discuss those strategies, as well as leading African American intellectual and political voices during the Founding Era’s early years.
America’s most divisive war of the 20th century led to widespread anti-war demonstrations, violent clashes between protesters and police, and the demonization of peace activists as unpatriotic. With the collapse of the Democratic Party’s political dominance, the war contributed to the rise of the Right, reconfigured the meaning of patriotism, and proved the breeding ground for today’s political extremism.
While Irish involvement in the US War of Independence was significant it paled by comparison with the commitment of the Irish diaspora in the USA to that country’s tragic Civil War. The Irish-born cohort in the Union army was at least 180,000 and 20,000 joined the Confederate army. No one knows more about Green, Blue and Grey than Damian Shiels, author of The Irish in the American Civil War, The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant Experiences in America and Green and Blue: Irish Americans and the Union Military 1861-1865.
The POW/MIA flag flies over all US government buildings. It is the emblem of a pernicious myth – the conviction that at the end of the Vietnam War the U.S. abandoned thousands of its own to the enemy. This conspiracy theory, Robbyn Swan (The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 & Osama bin Laden) will argue, fed a culture war that shapes a suspicious, cynical and divided U.S. today. Trump’s MAGA is a direct consequence of a collective failure to rescue history from the grasp of scoundrels.
This insightful documentary follows Green Party leader, Minister Eamon Ryan during his final 18 months in government as he advocates globally for climate justice while battling public resistance, online abuse and far-right pushback to the Irish Green’s ambitious climate plans at home. Interwoven is his tender relationship with his autistic son, Tommy, reflecting his persistence, empathy, and belief that lasting change - whether in politics or family - requires patience and hope. Running Time: 1h 38m, followed by a Q&A with Neasa Ní Chianáin & David Rane.
The American gangster archetype, personified by men like Al Capone, has long captivated the public imagination. The real stories of the voracious gangsters of the vast underworld are often more outrageous than fiction and are also an essential part of the saga of outsider groups in America. Join Hindsight@Hinterland regular Tony Bucher for a lurid journey through the lives of America’s great crime bosses.
In the 19th century the USA came, saw, conquered, and bought — acquiring millions of square miles of north American territory in the process. Hindering this ‘manifest destiny’ were the inconvenient native American nations who had occupied the land for centuries. Myles Dungan (How the Irish Won the West) tells the story of how some of those nations resisted and were crushed.
Join Loreto Guinan, Heritage Officer Meath County Council and Mark Smith, KPW Creative Associate/ Print Studio Technician and listen to the fascinating story of the new Kells Printing Works. Find out about the wonderful paper collection & it's painstaking conservation, catch the Last Dance poster exhibition & hear the fascinating stories behind the newly restored Victorian printing presses.
Rus Bradburd has authored five books that examine how sports, politics, race, and culture collide. This talk will trace the roots of racial and political resistance sparked by American athletes--and examine some of the sports books and writers that changed the world.
The idea that journalism should ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable’ belonged to Irish American writer Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936), creator of the comic political commentator, the Roscommon barman ‘Mr. Dooley’. Barely overlapping with Dunne’s career was the life of another great newspaper columnist, ‘Myles na Gopaleen’ (Brian O’Nolan). In this talk Dr. Catherine Flynn of UC Berkeley brings together these two great Irish humorous voices.
Step back into the sex-soaked years of the 1960s, with Professor Glen Gendzel, when America’s prudish culture fell apart, rules were rewritten, and taboos went mainstream. Come meet Albert Kinsey, Hugh Hefner, Helen Gurley Brown, the Hippies, and other sexual revolutionaries. Learn about the Pill, the Double Standard, Free Love, Casual Sex, Gay Liberation, and how American morals and values were permanently transformed in one sultry decade.
World premiere screening of Where Angels Listen two beautiful short films produced as a creative and affectionate response by some of Ireland's most celebrated contemporary artists to the life and works of Slane poet Francis Ledwidge. Curated by award winning playwright Deirdre Kinahan and featuring Oisin Leech musician (The Lost Brothers); Steve Wickham musician (The Waterboys); Perlee; Lewis Kenny Poet /Spoken Word and Kwaku Fortune Actor. Joining us live on the night for some music, discussion and readings will be acclaimed writers Dermot Bolger & Deirdre Kinahan, County Arts Officer Gerardette Bailey and musicians Steve Wickham & Perlee. Dermot Bolger will read a new work commissioned specially to mark the occasion.
With his unique gift for musical comedy and joke-infused storytelling, Fred Cooke has returned with his new show “Clown to Earth”. Expect comical chaos from a dad who’s just delighted to be out of the house and not at home covered in yoghurt. Sit back and enjoy this award-winning comedian talk marriage, kids, and playing dead on Netflix. As seen on Netflix, RTE’s Tommy Tiernan show, and Dancing with the Stars.
Continuing the annual process that has already produced two staged plays (Striking Back, and The Bee Keeper of Aleppo) renowned dramatist Matthew Spangler will outline how he would go about adapting the work of one of our Hinterland guests. This year Matt will be joined onstage by Patrick Freyne to ‘adapt’ Patrick’s debut novel Experts in a Dying Field.
The digitisation of the 1901 and 1911 censuses has been an astonishing success and has turned us into a nation of amateur genealogists and citizen researchers. We’ve had to wait a while for the sequel but it’s here at last. In April the 1926 Census, the first census of the Irish Free State was publicly released by the National Archives. Its Director, Orlaith McBride (editor) and Gregory Walls (contributor) of The Story of Us: Independent Ireland and the 1926 Census will be here to answer all your census questions.
Charleen Hurtubise, originally from Michigan and now long settled in Dublin, reflects on personal memory, belonging and the quiet dislocations that shape a life. Author of The Polite Act of Drowning and Saoirse (2026), she discusses how place, identity and unresolved displacement inform her fiction. Charleen will be in conversation with Sophie Grenham.
