Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper’s correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. Several of his books have been made into films and television series, including Operation … Read More

John Lloyd CBE is a broadcaster and writer, best known as the producer of The News Quiz, To The Manor Born, Spitting Image, Blackadder and QI. He presents Radio 4’s The Museum of Curiosity. He helped Douglas Adams write the first series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and appeared as ‘The Voice of The Book’ in the 40th … Read More

Iain is a multi-award winning journalist and human rights campaigner and has reported from over two dozen conflict zones worldwide. Today he runs the London based charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), but prior to that he worked for the BBC ITN and the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. He has written for the Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs … Read More

AUDREY MAGEE was born in Ireland and lives in Wicklow. Her first novel, The Undertaking, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, for France’s Festival du Premier Roman and for the Irish Book Awards. It was also nominated for the Dublin Literary Award, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, has been translated into ten languages and is being … Read More

Mariella Frostrup is a UK based journalist, television presenter, and a highly acclaimed interviewer. She has presented a variety of different TV shows as well as making guest appearances in Have I Got News For You, Absolutely Fabulous and Coupling. In 2004 she wrote Dear Mariella: an Indispensable Guide to Twenty-First Century Living and has written for The Guardian, The … Read More

Liam O Maonlaí was born and raised in Dublin. His first songs were taught to him by his father in his native language, while his mother was an accomplished pianist who was guided by her own father in Galway as she grew up. Liam was educated mostly by Connemara teachers, who left a strong impression on his outlook on life … Read More

Katherine Rundell is a Fellow of St Catherine’s College, Oxford. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than thirty languages, sold over two million copies and won multiple awards. Rundell is the author, for adults, of Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure, … Read More

Two giants of the Irish trad scene, Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny are uniting for an evening of great music, a mixture of traditional songs, and originals composed by Andy.  Between them, Irvine and Lunny have been at the helm of legendary bands like Sweeney’s Men, Planxty, The Bothy Band, Mozaik, LAPD and recently Usher’s Island. Their unique style of … Read More

Misha Glenny is the Rector of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. During the revolutions in Eastern Europe of 1989 and the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Misha was the BBC’s Central Europe Correspondent for which he won a Sony Gold Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting. The award winning journalist and historian is also the author of … Read More

Lord David Puttnam is Chair of Atticus Education, an online education company founded in 2012 that delivers audio-visual seminars to students around the world. Until October 2021, he was a member of the House of Lords for 24 years, where he pursued an active role in a variety of areas, from educational and environmental issues to digital skills. Most recently, … Read More