Mary Robinson was the first woman President of Ireland; a pioneering former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; former Chair of The Elders; a passionate advocate for gender equality, women’s participation in peace-building, human dignity and climate justice. Mary’s current work includes her role as Guardian of the Planetary Boundaries, elevating the science of the nine planetary boundaries to call … Read More

Max Porter is the author of four novels, including the Sunday Times #1 bestseller Shy, the Booker Prize longlisted Lanny, and the multi-award winning Grief is the Thing with Feathers. His work has been translated into 36 languages. Porter’s screen adaptation of Shy, starring Cillian Murphy, was released by Netflix in October 2025, and the screen adaptation of Grief is … Read More

Alex Clark is a journalist and broadcaster, often seen in the pages of the Guardian, the Observer and the TLS, and heard on BBC R4 programmes such as Front Row and Open Book. An experienced chair of live events, she has worked as an artistic director at the Bath Festival and is a Patron of the Cambridge Literary Festival. She has … Read More

Following on from The Man in the Woman’s Shoes and I Hear You and Rejoice, both of which enjoyed both critical and popular acclaim at previous outings in Ireland, London and New York, Mikel Murfi now brings his new show The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey on tour throughout Ireland.  This new piece, the third in the series, finishes out … Read More

Nicole Flattery’s books include the short story collection Show Them a Good Time and the novel Nothing Special. Her work has appeared in The Stinging Fly, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books and Harper’s, amongst others. Her forthcoming novel Everything is Nice, Everything is Lovely will be released in 2027.

Paul Howard is an author, playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for creating rugby jock Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, who has been the subject of 24 novels and sold more than 1.5 million copies in Ireland. He was part of the writing team behind the BAFTA- and IFTA-winning TV show, Bad Sisters. Winner of a record five Irish Book Awards and … Read More

Mark O’Connell  is a journalist, essayist, and literary critic from Dublin. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorkerblog, a books columnist for Slate, and a staff writer at The Millions. His work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, the Sunday Times Magazine and the Observer.

Lisa Hannigan is a versatile Irish folk singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and voice actor, whose solo musical career has spanned 18 years.  Hannigan released her debut album, Sea Sew in 2008, which earned her nominations for a Choice award in Ireland and a Mercury Music Prize in the UK. Since then Lisa has released Passenger (2011) and At Swim (2016) to huge … Read More

Lara Marlowe was born in California and studied French at UCLA and the Sorbonne, then International Relations at Oxford. She started her career as an associate producer with CBS’s 60 Minutes programme, then shifted to print media with the Financial Times and TIME Magazine. She has reported for a host of broadcast and print media and was a staff foreign … Read More

Fintan O’Toole is one of the foremost social and political commentators of his generation, a columnist with The Irish Times, and advising editor of the New York Review of Books. His most recent book We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland since 1958 was named as Book of the Year in Ireland and as one of the ten best … Read More