The rains cleared in the Sunny Southeast over the weekend and Waterford city saw an influx of over thirty of Ireland’s top authors, journalists and bloggers for the third annual Waterford Writers’ Weekend.
The city was awash with literary talent who took to a variety of venues to share their knowledge, stories and skills. Some of the highlights included a talk on sporting memories with ‘the memory man’ Jimmy Magee at the Medieval Museum, Jimmy spoke of his fondest memories in Irish sporting history to a packed house of sports fans.
Inspiring everyone in the room at the medieval Museum Debbie Deegan founder of the ‘To Russia With Love’ charity, which has helped over 5,000 Russian orphans improve their lives spoke of her story and her experiences in Russia, from the intricacies of soviet-style bureaucracy, to the threat of violence from international criminals.
Tarquin Blake author of the books Abandoned Mansions of Ireland took to the podium at the Medieval Museum on Saturday afternoon where he illustrated his talk with numerous photographs and the histories of houses in County Waterford, including: Ballysaggartmore House, near Lismore in County Waterford, which was home to the infamous Arthur Kiely.
A series of panel discussion events and a variety of workshops, from ‘Making Social Media Work for You’ to ‘Breaking into Screen Writing’ and Children’s Writing Workshops amongst others were hugely popular. A full programme of free events was also on offer across the city from free lunch-time readings to genealogy workshops and an open mic night.
Commenting on the third annual festival weekend, Katherine Collins, Festival Director for the Waterford Writers’ Weekend said, “We are delighted with the numbers we have had to the events at the festival this year and indeed the general buzz and excitement across the city over the weekend, and that was all about books! This event is organised by the team at the Waterford City Library and this year’s programme was the most ambitious to-date so we are hugely proud of how it has certainly captured the imagination of all of our visitors. We’re already looking forward to an even bigger festival next year.”