Launch of milestone Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival

DNLF 2023 promotes Nenagh’s Choose Respect campaign

The newly-installed teepee on the grounds of the Abbey Court Hotel made a fitting setting for last week's launch of the 20th annual Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival.

There was a real sense of celebration ahead of this year's event - taking place from October 5-8 - put together this time by a committee of just six people. Chairperson Geraldine McNulty welcomed the attendance and traced the origins of the festival back to 2004 and the arrival of Tipperary Arts Officer Melanie Scott. Working with a small group of thespians in Dromineer, who wanted to occupy themselves with an event to stave off the winter, she helped organise the first literary festival.

Ms McNulty spoke of how that festival grew over the years to develop an excellent reputation as an intimate event by the shore of Lough Derg. The committee has striven to uphold that reputation and the ethos of a festival “for writers and performers to feel that they're celebrated and appreciated”.

In 2019, the oganisers changed the name of the festival to include Nenagh in reflection of the widespread community support and the running of attractions in the town's historic core. Ms McNulty mentioned how the DNLF also expanded to enable people who never published anything to work on their creativity through workshops. Last year the workshops included members of the A Team youth club for people with autism.

Cathaoirleach of Tipperary Co Council Cllr Ger Darcy congratulated all involved in the DNLF on reaching a significant milestone. Cllr Darcy said the long-running festival is a case in point of successive committees keeping an event alive because those involved have a real love for what they are doing. They had succeeded in developing a highly-regarded local event with an international outlook, one that showcases the Nenagh district to the outside world while contributing to the “cultural vocabulary” of the country.

SHATTER THE SILENCE

Choose Respect co-founder Marney O'Regan told those present about how he and Denis Finnerty started the campaign in response to last year's horrific killing of Ashling Murphy. Their campaign led to the printing of posters, signs, beer mats and book marks with messages calling on people to challenge abusive behaviour towards women. They visited around 40 businesses in Nenagh last December and connected with local schools.

The Choose Respect campaign now has its own website - chooserespect.ie - and there are plans for more signage in local sports grounds and businesses, further encouraging the ‘Call it Out’ mentality. Quoting Martin Luther King - “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends” - Mr O'Regan said the Choose Respect campaign seeks to “shatter that silence”. He had already spoken to like-minded people in Clonmel and Limerick, and he hoped the campaign would spread elsewhere in the country.

This year's DNLF invited local school students to write on the Choose Respect theme. Festival patron Donal Ryan presented awards to the winning students and praised them for their works.

Kathleen O'Meara read a poem she composed about Deirdre Ryan in the wake of the popular local woman's untimely death earlier this year.

Andrew McAvinchey read from a diary kept by his late father David, who, like Deirdre was a past member of the festival committee.

Mr Ryan told those gathered that he was honoured to become the festival patron. The award-winning author quoted four lines from Nenagh teacher Gary Scully's spoken word piece ‘Nenagh, Mo Stór’, which he described as the best recent tribute to Nenagh and all the great people that came from this part of the country.

Mr Ryan also read Dromineer writer Eleanor Hooker's poem ‘Skipping Stones’. He looked forward to next month's staging of the 20th DNLF, “a festival that ranks among the finest of its kind anywhere in the world”.

FESTIVAL PROGRAMME DETAILS

Visit dnlf.ie for the full programme of events.