Donal Ryan and Nuala O'Connor Share a Stage.

We are thrilled to have a return visit to Allingham from multi award winning author Donal Ryan. Since his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, took the literary world by storm in 2012 his career has been on an upward curve. He has been longlisted for the Booker Prize for The Spinning Heart and From a Low and Quiet Sea. He has also picked up numerous awards including six Irish Book of the Year Awards, Costa Book Award, the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award among others.

In June this year his latest novel, Heart be at Peace became an instant best seller and won the Orwell Prize for political fiction. A wonderful reader and storyteller Donal Ryan will be interviewed by fellow best selling author Nuala O Connor.

A fascinating conversation awaits us.

Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8th 3.30 pm Admission €15

Trad

BREAKING NEWS!

We're very excited (only extreme excitement can drive us to using all that upper case) to announce a last minute addition to this already much-anticipated event.

After the film showing there will be a very special Q&A with Lance Daly, the writer and director, and Patrick O'Neill, executive producer. Please abandon any other plans you may have for Thursday evening and join us.

Trad is the title of a wonderful film directed by Lance Daly (Black ’47) which premiered to huge acclaim at the Galway Film Fleadh this year. Initial positive reviews were confirmed when it was announced as recipient of the Audience award.

Over the course of 95 minutes we follow the story of gifted young fiddle player Shona McAnally and her young brother Mickey as they leave their home in Donegal and join a troupe of wandering musicians and embark on a journey of adventure, romance and musical exploration.

The cast includes Sarah Greene, Peter Coonan, Aidan Gillen and newcomers Megan NicFhionnghaile and Cathal Coade.

As a reviewer on the LetterboxD website put it, the film is… “…really tightly structured, but also feels so organic, exciting and unpredictable; it couldn't be further from formulaic. Trad by name, but the exploration of Irish music here is complex and multifaceted, exploring it in its purest forms, and in interactions with rock, rap, dance and American folk.”

This film will delight audiences and is brought to us courtesy of Patrick O Neill and Wildcard Distribution who have always been great friends of our Festival.

November 6th, 8.00PM, in the Abbey Arts Centre, Theatre 1 Admission €7

This is not a Movie

In light of today's (Monday's) news from Gaza, we feel it important to reference a very special event in this year's festival. We have already announced Nelofer Pazira's Allingham Lecture to launch this year's event.

On Saturday, November 8th, we offer the opportunity to see 'This is Not a Movie'.

Nelofer was one of the writers of this rarely seen film tracing the work of her late husband, Robert Fisk, arguably one of the greatest ever writers on the politics and people of the Middle East.

At a time when journalism and journalists are under threat as never before, this film (movie or not) should give us all pause.

It will be seen in the Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon, admission €10 with proceeds going to a cause of Nelofer's choice, to be announced later.

Setting and Weather and Afric McGlinchey

Poet and memoirist Afric McGlinchey will lead an immersive creative writing workshop at the 2025 Festival on “Setting and Weather as Metaphor”.

The two-hour workshop for 15 participants will be held from 9:30 to 11:30 am in Kilbarron House, Ballyshannon on Saturday morning 8th November. Admission €10.

An Irish-born poet, freelance book editor and mentor for the Munster Literature Centre, Afric McGlinchey spent her formative years and early childhood in Zambia and Zimbabwe. She has published poetry collections including The Lucky Star of Hidden Things and Ghost of the Fisher Cat, and a memoir titled Tied to the Wind. She is the recipient of many awards and testimonials.

Afric McGlinchey will launch her new collection titled À la Belle Étoile at the Literary Lunch, also on 8 Nov 2025.

Please download details of the workshop and reserve your place by emailing allinghamfest@gmail.com with 'Creative Writing Workshop' in the subject line.

Tom and Monica do it again!

OK, so who's been paying attention?

Back on June 28 we were delighted to announce that two great friends of the Allingham Arts Festival, Tom Sigafoos and Monica Corish, both had books out which had made it to the Fiction Longlist for the prestigious Carousel Awards for Irish Independent Authors, 2025, under the patronage of Paul Lynch. We were so excited for them as this is a very significant achievement.

Well, they've only gone and made the Short List!

Yes, between them they hold 33.333% of the Short List. Of course we can't hope for one over the other so we can only pray that the judges do the honourable thing and announce them as joint winners during the gala occasion on October 10th in Chapters Bookstore in Dublin.

Copies of LeafLight Moon are available at A Novel Idea, Ballyshannon and at the Liber Bookstore, Sligo.

Congratulations and best wishes to them both.