The moment you have all been waiting for is nearly here! We're close to finalising the details of the programme for the 2016 edition of the Allingham Arts Festival, but here are some of the events we can already confirm.
Once again, the Allingham Festival will bring the finest of local and national talent to Ballyshannon over the weekend of November 3rd - 6th. Proceedings begin on Thursday night as Valerie Cox delivers the Allingham Lecture, focusing on the plight of refugees. This topic is once again picked up on Friday afternoon as the Change Makers Project deliver a workshop on the issue of migration in the modern world.
One of our guest writers is none other than Anne Enright, Man Booker prize winner and inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction, who will participate in a public interview with Sinead Gleeson on Saturday Nov. 5th, as well as judge the Allingham Flash Fiction competition. Our poetry judge is Afric Mc Glinchey, who will also deliver a poetry workshop as part of our day of literary events on Saturday 5th. This will include two exciting new events for writers in the north west, the Allingham Literary Lunch and Wild Atlantic Writers. Poetry will be represented on Friday Nov. 4th too as Mick Delap will read from his latest collection of poetry, 'Opening Time'.
We have the documentary feature 'Toughest Place to be...' and a Q&A with the producer and director, recent IFTA nominees Garry Keane and Jamie D'Alton (Motive TV) on Saturday the 5th. Kenneth Fox returns to his home town to discuss aspects of the film 'The Fighting Prince of Donegal', which will be screened again in the Abbey Centre for the first time in 40 years! We'll finish off our film events on Sunday with the traditional Kids Movie in the Abbey Centre.
Anthony Begley will deliver this year's Emerson Lecture as part of the Donegal Historical Society's annual programme of events. On Saturday, the History Ireland Hedge School returns to Allingham. Music and history combine on Friday evening with Caoimhín Mc Kee's latest production in memory of Eamonn Ceannt.
Craft & Design are an integral part of the Allingham Festival, and this year we have another brilliant programme of workshops for all, in conjunction with Local Hands: woodturning, crochet, felt-making, stone carving, blacksmithing, watercolour cottage painting, fairy house building, and more to be confirmed.
The Allingham Songwriting Contest culminates in the Live Final in Dicey Reilly's on Friday night, which promises to be a great evening of new and varied music. The Saturday Night Concert guarantees another wonderfully varied night of entertainment from a wide range of performers: Niall Gallagher, Siobhan Calpin, Niamh Currid, Amy Gillen, Kieran Quinn & Seamie O'Dowd headlining. The Songwriter's Circle on Sunday afternoon will bring together some of the finest local song writers.
Printed programmes will be available at our Festival Launch in the Abbey Centre on Saturday October 15th with Paddy Cullivan's Dark Secrets of 1916. Full details of all our events will be published on allinghamfestival.com in the next week or two.
Online booking for all events will be available from early October. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news.
See you in November!