The Cúirt International Festival of Literature (pronounced ) is an annual

literary festival A literary festival, also known as a book festival or writers' festival, is a regular gathering of writers and readers, typically on an annual basis in a particular city. A literary festival usually features a variety of presentations and readings ...

held since 1985 in

Galway Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a City status in Ireland, city in the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lo ...

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. The

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word ''cúirt'' means "court". The festival consists of a variety of events taking place over the course of a week each April with attendances and contributions from Irish and international writers. It includes readings of poetry and fiction, discussions, poetry slams, book launches, masterclasses, spoken and musical performances, multimedia events, theatre, and visual art. It was originally a poetry festival but its scope has broadened to include other forms. The festival is sponsored by

Údarás na Gaeltachta Údarás na Gaeltachta (; meaning "Gaeltacht Authority"), abbreviated UnaG, is a regional state agency which is responsible for the economic, social and cultural development of Irish-speaking (Gaeltacht) regions of Ireland. Its stated purpose is t ...

; the

National University of Ireland, Galway The University of Galway ( ga, Ollscoil na Gaillimhe) is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland. A tertiary education and research institution, the university was awarded the full five QS stars for excellence in 201 ...

; the Arts Council;

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;

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;

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;

Foras na Gaeilge (, "Irish Institute"; ) is a public body responsible for the promotion of the Irish language throughout the island of Ireland, including both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was set up on 2 December 1999, assuming the roles ...

. Charlie Byrne's hosts the festival's pop-up bookshop in the Town Hall Theatre each year.

History

The Cúirt Filíochta Idirnáisiúnta na Gaillimhe (Galway's International Poetry Festival) of 1986 was held on 12–15 March. It featured

John Cooper Clarke John Cooper Clarke (born 25 January 1949) is an English performance poet, who first became famous as a "punk poet" in the late 1970s. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he released several albums. Around this time, he performed on stage with sev ...

Ian Crichton Smith Iain Crichton Smith, ( Gaelic: ''Iain Mac a' Ghobhainn''; 1 January 1928 – 15 October 1998) was a Scottish poet and novelist, who wrote in both English and Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow, but moved to the Isle of Lewis at the age of two ...

Paul Durcan Paul Durcan (born 16 October 1944) is a contemporary Irish poet. Early life Durcan was born and grew up in Dublin and in Turlough, County Mayo. His father, John, was a barrister and circuit court judge; father and son had a difficult and forma ...

Douglas Dunn Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE (born 23 October 1942) is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He is Professor of English and Director of St Andrew's Scottish Studies Institute at St Andrew's University. Background Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Re ...

Gerald Dawe Gerald Dawe (born 1952) is an Irish poet. Early life Gerald Dawe was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and grew up with his mother, sister and grandmother. He attended Orangefield High School across the city in East Belfast, a leading progres ...

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (; born 1952) is a leading Irish poet. Biography Born in Lancashire, England, of Irish parents, she moved to Ireland at the age of 5 and was brought up in the Dingle Gaeltacht and in Nenagh, County Tipperary. Her uncle, Mo ...

, Sorley MacLean,

Eavan Boland Eavan Aisling Boland (24 September 1944 – 27 April 2020) was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role of w ...

, founder Fred Johnston,

Eva Bourke Eva Bourke (born 1946) is a German-born Irish poet. Biography Bourke was born in Germany but has lived for much of her life in Galway, Ireland. She studied German Literature and History of Art at the University of Munich. Towards the end of the ...

, Thomas McCarthy, Kathleen O'Driscoll,

Rita Ann Higgins Rita Ann Higgins (born 1955) is an Irish poet and playwright. Early life A native of Ballybrit, Galway, Higgins was one of thirteen children in a working-class household. She went to Briarhill National School, and Sisters of Mercy Convent, Galw ...

Patrick Deeley Patrick Deeley (born 1953) is an Irish poet. Patrick Deeley was born in Loughrea, County Galway "Righteousness and Justice" , anthem = () , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Galway.svg , map_cap ...

Pat Ingoldsby Pat Ingoldsby (born 25 August 1942 in Malahide, Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish poet and TV presenter. He has hosted children's TV shows, written plays for the stage and for radio, published books of short stories and been a newspaper columnist. ...

, and John Hogan. Cuirt Festival 1986 Poster

By the 2010s, the festival was starting to feature what would have once been fringe events as a large proportion of its main programme. However, the 2010 festival (25th anniversary edition) had

John Burnside John Burnside FRSL FRSE (born 19 March 1955) is a Scottish writer. He is one of only three poets (the others being Ted Hughes and Sean O'Brien) to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same book (''Black C ...

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; born May 9, 1938), known as Charles Simic, is a Serbian American poet and former co-poetry editor of the ''Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for ''The World Doesn't ...

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

and

Gerard Smyth Gerard Smyth (born 1951) is an Irish poet, born in Dublin in 1951 and began publishing poetry in the late 1960s when his first poems were published by David Marcus in the New Irish Writing Page of The Irish Press and by James Simmons in The Hon ...

among others. Yet

Eyjafjallajökull Eyjafjallajökull (; ), sometimes referred to by the numeronym E15, is one of the smaller ice caps of Iceland, north of Skógar and west of Mýrdalsjökull. The ice cap covers the caldera of a volcano with a summit elevation of . The volcan ...

's eruption proved a disruptor as many participants were stranded on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean. The 2011 festival was held on 12–17 April. The 2012 festival was held on 23–29 April. Rosita Boland of ''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...

'' described as "a baffling piece of programming" a history discussion in Middle Street's Mechanics Institute during which historians Niall Whelehan, Sonja Tiernan and John Borgonovo presented academic papers to the audience; "the event had no connection with literature or even with the arts in its most general form. The event was more the kind of presentation you'd expect to hear at an academic conference or a history society meeting", though gave approval to the presence at other events of internationally recognisable writers such as

John Banville William John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry J ...

Lydia Davis Lydia Davis (born July 15, 1947) is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes short (one or two pages long) short stories. Davis has produced several new translations of ...

Ruth Padel Ruth Sophia Padel FRSL FZS is a British poet, novelist and non-fiction author, known for her poetic explorations of migration, both animal and human, and her involvement with classical music, wildlife conservation and Greece, ancient and modern. ...

and

Manuel Rivas Manuel Rivas Barrós (born 24 October 1957 in A Coruña, Spain) is a Galician writer, poet and journalist. Biography Manuel Rivas Barrós began his writing career at the age of 15. He has written articles and literary essays for Spanish newspa ...

. Boland, in a separate article for the newspaper, lamented that many "will undoubtedly be applying their craniums with vigour to the nearest wall at the prospect" of a "pop-up collaborative poetry studio" in a pub, "but the Poetry Depot is on the official programme, and it's happening twice". The 2013 festival was held on 23–28 April. It featured

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

and

Michael Longley Michael Longley, (born 27 July 1939, Belfast, Northern Ireland), is an Anglo-Irish poet. Life and career One of twin boys, Michael Longley was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to English parents, Longley was educated at the Royal Belfast A ...

at the same event (in what turned out to be one of Heaney's last appearances a few months before his death), as well as

Edna O'Brien Josephine Edna O'Brien (born 15 December 1930) is an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short-story writer. Elected to Aosdána by her fellow artists, she was honoured with the title Saoi in 2015 and the "UK and Ireland Nobel" D ...

. The 2014 festival was held on 8–13 April. The 2017 festival commemorated the Hibernophile French writer

Michel Déon Michel Déon (; 4 August 1919 – 28 December 2016) was a French novelist and literary columnist. He published over 50 works and was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Prix Interallié for his 1970 novel, '' Les Poneys sauvages'' (Th ...

, who had died at the age of 97 shortly beforehand. In 2018, Sally Rooney, Daniel Woodrell, Bernard MacLaverty, Juan Pablo Villalobos, Declan Kiberd and Forward Prize winners Sinead Morrissey and Daljit Nagra were announced as taking part. On 30 March 2020, the organisers said that Cúirt—scheduled for between 20 and 25 April—would not proceed "in its physical form" in 2020 due to the incurable virus rampant throughout the country; however, only a small selection of the advertised events (including the

Eilís Dillon Eilís Dillon FRSL (7 March 1920 – 19 July 1994) was an Irish author of 50 books. Her work has been translated into 14 languages.

centenary commemoration) were officially "postponed" and full ticket refunds were offered. On 6 April, Cúirt announced it would be holding the world's first completely digital literary festival between 23 and 25 April, with events to be held at traditional venues such as the Town Hall Theatre, Nun's Island and Charlie Byrne's Bookshop, and broadcast for free through

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

(though it requested donations to support the writers involved).

Cúirt New Writing Prize

The Cúirt New Writing Prize is awarded at the festival and the winners receive cash prizes of €500. The winners in 2012 were Kevin O'Shea for poetry and Eamon Kelly for fiction. The winners in 2013 were Caoilinn Hughes for three poems from her collection, ''Gathering Evidence'' ("Rational Dress", "Two Roundelets", and "Airbowing in Second Violins"), and Hugo Kelly for his short story, "There It Is". In 2014, the winners were Colm Scully, for poetry, and Philip Connor, for fiction, and each won €500. The Young Cúirt winner was Saffron Lily, who won €100.New Writers Prize 2014
Cúirt, 2014. Retrieved: 2014-04-13.

References

External links

Official website

Cúirt on Twitter

Cúirt on Facebook
* Annual festival programmes
20132014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuirt International Festival Of Literature 1985 establishments in Ireland Annual events in Ireland Culture in Galway (city) Irish literary awards Poetry festivals in Ireland Recurring events established in 1985 Spring (season) events in the Republic of Ireland Tourist attractions in Galway (city)