Granard Booktown Festival

Come see me at this year’s @granardbooktown.bsky.social

Our 2026 Programme is LIVE!
All tickets go on sale this Monday at 9am via our website granardbooktownfestival.ie

📚This year marks our fourth festival and it's our biggest to date! 20+ talks, 35+ authors, writers and poets, 3 writing workshops, 1 film screening, in 4 venues over 4 exciting days!

📣 Come join us this Saturday in Granard Library at 1pm for the official launch of our 2026 programme with festival co-director John Connell

We can’t wait to share the full programme for this year’s festival and discuss the brilliant events taking place in Granard this April!

We are delighted to announce a special Thursday evening screening of Pat Collins’s masterful adaptation of John McGahern’s much-loved novel, “That They May Face the Rising Sun”
📆 Thursday April 16th, 8pm
📍Granard Library
🎟️ Tickets €7.50 +booking fee
All tickets will be on sale March 2nd

We are delighted to introduce a brand new series to the Granard Booktown festival this year, our Writing Workshop Series

We are lucky to have writers Aoife Barry, Claire Keegan and Stephen Sexton leading these three workshops

📍Cnoc Mhuire on Sat April 18th

🎟️ Tickets on sale early March

🎉 We're thrilled to announce that we've been selected as a County Finalist in the Arts & Culture Category of the @NationalLottery Good Causes Awards 2025! 🎉
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🙌 This nomination isn't just for us – it's for everyone in the community who's been part of the festival. 🙌 From volunteers and staff.

📣 Kneecap statement repost from X:

It was so cool to be involved in this gem of a festival in Granard, despite whatever has happened to my Longford accent

And thank you to our great sponsors

A huge thank you to our funders The Arts Council, Longford County Council, Longford Tourism and Creative Ireland

And finally for our final event of Granard Booktown 2025, John Banville in conversation with Belinda McKeon 📚

Award winning Irish crime writer, Liz Nugent was joined by journalist Emma Tracey for our penultimate event here at the Granard Booktown festival 📕

Cauvery Madhavan was joined by author and journalist Aoife Barry to discuss her latest book The Inheritance which was published in 2024 📚

Scottish writer Karen Campbell was joined by fellow author Anne Griffin over in the Sacred Heart School. Karen is the author of nine novels. Karen discussed her latest book This Bright Life. Her previous novels include Paper Cup, The Sound of the Hours, Rise and This Is Where I Am.

We were joined by authors Conor Niland and Gavin Cooney behind the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, The Racket. Author Mark Tighe led the discussion with the co-authors where they chatted about the story of pro tennis’s 99%, the players who roam the globe in hope of climbing the rankings

Over in the School, Bridget Hourican was joined in brilliant conversation with author and journalist Aoife Barry where Bridget discussed her book Finding Mangan 📚

Multidisciplinary artist Luke Casserly joined writer and artist Dani Gill in Granard Library, where they discussed Luke’s recent production for the Abbey Theatre

We opened our third and final day here in Granard Library with a beautiful and moving “Granard Miscellany” 📚 Writers from the Granard Writer’s Group read out some of their latest work and were accompanied by music from local, talented Granard musicians

Thank you to everyone who came out to our final day here in Granard! We had another jam packed day of talks so lets have another walkthrough of what went on here in Granard 📚 #GranardBookTown

Great to see Conor Niland and @gcooney93.bsky.social at @granardbooktown.bsky.social

Conor’s book the Racket - about the travails of a lowly Irish tennis player - is *really* good

Multidisciplinary artist Luke Casserly joined writer and artist Dani Gill in Granard Library, where they discussed Luke’s recent production for the Abbey, Distillation. Described as being a performative journey, Distillation takes you to the Irish bog landscape through scent #GranardBookTown

The Granard Writer’s Group sitting and standing for a group photo

Woman playing harp, hands on strings

Sister Maeve Brady reading her written work, blurred crowd in the foreground

A view of a full audience in the Library hall

We’ve opened our third and final day here in Granard Library with a beautiful and moving “Granard Miscellany” 📚 Writers from the Granard Writer’s Group read out some of their latest work and were accompanied by music from local, talented Granard musicians #GranardBookTown

Just taking a wee morning stroll before my event @granardbooktown.bsky.social in Ireland today. Am surrounded by lochs, and feel very at home. Gorgeous!

And a huge thank you to our sponsors

A huge thank you to our funding partners
The Arts Council,
Longford County Council,
Longford Tourism and
Creative Ireland

And another thank you to our brilliant venue partners Granard Library, Fay’s Bar and Sacred Heart School

And lastly, we had an extraordinary finale with Carole Cadwalladr joined in conversation with Bryan Dobson. A fascinating discussion with two journalistic greats on the future of journalism, democracy and much, much more. This has been day two #GranardBookTown

📘Peter Geoghegan discussed his latest book Democracy for Sale: Dark Money with fellow Longford native Shaunagh Connaire

📚A fascinating discussion with Afghan-Canadian journalist and author Nelofer Pazira-Fisk in conversation with journalist and filmmaker Shaunagh Connaire

⚽️ Miguel Delaney discussed his book States of Play with Gavin Cooney

We had poetry and pints in Fay’s, joined by three local poets Mary Melvin Geoghegan, Darragh Coady and Louise G Cole who read some of their latest works 📚

Stinging Fly editor and writer Lisa McInerney chaired a brilliant discussion between three debut authors, James Roseman (Placemakers), Louise Hegarty (Fair Play) and Elaine Garvey (The Wardrobe Department) 📗📕📘