So many possibilities at the Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival

Huge array of topics savoured in 19th staging of event

‘Oh, my life is changing every day/In every possible way’

It was fitting that the 19th Dromineer Literary Festival would conclude with local singer Lisa Manning's version of the Cranberries' classic song Dreams as the festival had opened with Anything is Possible, an insightful look into the life and dreams of Nenagh award winning filmmaker Nicholas Ryan-Purcell, who has just published his new book on dealing with autism.

The book title, Anything is Possible – Learning to Live with my Autism, is taken from his 2018 documentary This is Nicholas – Living with Autism. Nicholas was interviewed in Nenagh's tourist office by Noelle Lynskey from Portumna's Shorelines Festival, with special guest Adam Harris, CEO of ASIAM.

Among the audience were members of the A-Team, who recently held a fundraising concert in St Mary of the Rosary Church to go towards setting up an autism club in the area. The audience heard heartfelt - yet heartwarming - stories of people dealing with autism but never giving up on their dreams.

This was followed in Nenagh Arts Centre with journalist and writer Shane Hegarty interviewing Paul Howard, creator of Ireland's favourite rugby pain-in-the-neck, Ross O'Carroll-Kelly. Howard was very quickly reminded that he was now in Red Army terrain as festival chair Geraldine McNulty introduced him onstage in a Munster jersey.

What followed was a hilarious insight into how Ross came about, where Howard gets his inspiration from (just be careful what you say if you are ever in Avoca Handweavers for lunch!), and where Ross's future lies after his stint as manager of the Ireland's women's rugby team. Howard hinted at Ross being retired after another two books, much to the disappointment of his followers in the audience, with what he said might be an ‘Eastenders moment’. However, the retirement notice came with the caveat that Ross was retired once before only to make a comeback.

A packed line-up on Saturday saw Drangan's Mary Wilson of RTÉ's Morning Ireland host a conversation with Hilary Dully, who has edited a memoir of Irish revolutionary Máire Comerford, On Dangerous Ground, based on Comerford's diaries. They were joined on Zoom from Indiana by Julie Morrissy, creator of the podcast Radical! Women and the Irish Revolution. What we got was a fascinating overview of a radical period in Irish history and the part women played, only to be written out of the story later in the new State. Comerford, who only died in 1982, once wrote that after the Rising, it was the only chance women had to be a part of the leadership of the country. Her dream failed to a large extent, and Morrissy, whose interest lies in Cumann an mBan, highlighted that that there was no plaque to nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell on Moore Street and no place for the role of the women in Irish history education.

Wilson pointed out that Dully and Morrissy's work would now resurrect the memory of those women and the time was right to give them the recognition they deserved.

MUSIC IN THE CASTLE

One of the highlights of this year's festival was the marking of the 230th anniversary of the gathering of harpers in Belfast in 1792 at which Edward Bunting collected many tunes that would otherwise be lost to the traditional canon. In the beautiful and historic surroundings of Nenagh Castle, poet and harpist Emily Cullen, who hails from Farney Castle outside Thurles, and musician Eileen O'Brien from Newtown, Nenagh, daughter of the legendary Paddy O'Brien, played some of that music which put Irish traditional music firmly in the pantheon of European classical music. It probably wouldn't be too far wrong to say that Irish music didn't return to the concert hall setting again until Sean Ó Riada's Mise Éire and even after that there was a huge gap to the work of Clonmel's Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin.

The festival committee marked the occasion by commissioning a piecewritten in collaboration between Emily and Eileen, and both enthralled the audience with Sionnainn – A Suite, a combination of poetry and music which pays homage to the Queen of Rivers and appeals to this and future generations to keep it safe: “Will you abandon your delta of indifference and listen, truly listen,” spoke Cullen.

It was a special moment that will be cherished by those lucky to be there.

The festival always gives a voice to emerging artists and this year it was the turn of Edel Coffey, Aingeala Flannery and Conner Habib – three writers coming from different perspectives but whose debut novels have received widespread acclaim, who were interviewed in the arts centre by book blogger Mairead Hearne. Edel revealed that her book, Breaking Point, though set in New York, is based on an actual tragedy that happened in Tipperary; Aingeala's The Amusements follows the fortunes of two families in Tramore, and Conner's Hawk Mountain is a horror story based around bullying and set in New England.

DONAL RYAN CONVERSATION

Saturday night in the arts centre was a crowning homecoming for local author Donal Ryan, who read from his recently-published The Queen of Dirt Island. During his onstage conversation with Mary Wilson, the writer discussed the craft of writing, characterisation, how and where he writes, how he was influenced by his teacher at Nenagh CBS Martin Slattery and how local journalist and RTÉ sports presenter Damian Lawlor told him at school: “You are a writer”.

In what was a witty conversation in front of a packed house, the self-deprecating Donal said: “I don't want anyone to think I am great.”

Attention turned to the River Shannon and Lough Derg in the Muintir na Tíre hall in Ballycommon on Sunday with travel writer Paul Clements in conversation with John Connell about his book, Shannon Country: A River Journey through Time, which retraces the journey filmmaker and writer Richard Hayward made along the entire length of the river in 1938 and the release of a documentary, Where the River Shannon flows down to the Sea in 1940 which was shown in cinemas. The black and white film, a rather romanticised look at Ireland in a Pathé News style, was shown in Ballycommon, and surprisingly revealed how little has changed physically along the Shannon in the past 80 years.

The tables were then turned and Paul interviewed John, author of the Cow Book and his latest work, The Stream of Everything, a canoe journey along the 30 miles of the Camlin River in Longford, on board the Ku-ee-Tu launch as part of a trip around in Dromineer Bay. John reflected that the Shannon had never been ‘commodified’ and that people had turned their backs to the river in the 1970s and ’80s.

Noting the absence of hotels along the river he said: “When a hotel closes down, a town dies. There is a lot of dilapidation in small towns. Ireland seems to have no interest in its built heritage.”

However, there was a note of optimism with the publication of a masterplan for the Shannon and the development of blueways, greenways, canoeing and paddling along the Shannon.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH COUNTRY HOUSE

Another one of those rare moments came on Sunday afternoon with Fact & Fiction in the beautifully restored Solsborough House outside Nenagh where Terence Dooley and Martina Devlin discussed the Big House through Dooley's Burning the Big House: The Story of the Irish Country House in a Time of War and Revolution, and Martina's historical novel, Edith, based on Edith Sommerville, of Sommerville and Ross fame, as she battled to save Drishane House in west Cork at a time when the IRA were burning such places. Astonishingly, 300 houses out of around 4,500 were burned out between the years 1912 and 1923. Chaired by Nenagh PhD student Caitlin White, the two discussed how the owners of these Big Houses were not Irish in Ireland or British in Britain, but that many felt they had something to contribute to the new Ireland after independence. As Martina pointed out, Edith Sommerville always felt Ireland was her home, even after her brother was murdered by the IRA in the 1940s. “The Big House played a complicated role in Irish society,” said Devlin. The festival finished with afternoon tea in the Abbey Court Hotel and the poetry of Birdhill native Michael Durack and the strains of Lisa Manning singing about Dreams.