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WATCH 2026 Limerick Literary Festival in Honour of Kate O’Brien gearing up for 42nd edition
2026 Limerick Literary Festival in Honour of Kate O’Brien gearing up for 42nd edition. Pictured is 2024 Kate O’Brien Award winner, Aoife Fitzpatrick with committee members Vivienne McKechnie and Marie Hackett. Photo via limerickliteraryfestival.com
The 2026 Limerick Literary Festival in Honour of Kate O’Brien is set to launch its full programme on Monday, January 12
Councillor Maria Donoghue will launch the programme for The Limerick Literary Festival on Monday, January 12th at 5.30 pm in O’Mahony’s Bookshop, O’Connell Street, Limerick.
The Festival will run in Limerick through February 27, 28 and March 1 at the Belltable, O’Connell Street. The event continues to honour the life and works of the Limerick author, Kate O’Brien, while attracting prominent participants from all over the world.
It originally started as The Kate O’Brien Weekend in 1984 to mark the tenth anniversary of her death, the festival continues to celebrate the legacy of Kate O’Brien each year and her impact as a writer 42 years later
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Building on this significant history, the Limerick Literary Festival seeks to promote Limerick nationally as a place of literary excellence and to provide a platform where readers can meet their favourite authors and other readers.
The 2026 Festival will open with two free events on Friday February 27th, Poet Gustav Parker Hibbett in conversation with Niall MacMonagle in the afternoon followed by an intimate evening of words and music as Laureate for fiction Éilís Ní Dhuibhne enjoys a lively conversation with Limerick writer Sarah Gilmartin as part of her ‘The Island of Imagination – A Literary Tour of Ireland’ programme of events for the Laureate year 2025/2026.
This will officially open what is to be a full weekend programme for the Limerick Literary Festival in Honour of Kate O’Brien as it returns for 2026. The packed programme ends with broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan discussing her recently published autobiography.
Over three days of literature, poetry, music and art, the festival will feature novelists Muriel Barbery, David Park, Eoin McNamee, Grainne O’Brien, alongside poet Gustav Parker Hibbett and Professor of Psychiatry Veronica O’Keane.
Organisers said, “We will host perennial favourites, the Kate O’Brien Hour featuring a rehearsed reading of O’Brien’s work for stage ‘Distinguished Villa’ by the College Players, Desert Island Books and the presentation of the 2026 Kate O’Brien Award for a debut novel or collection of short stories from an Irish female author, which now comes with an increased E5000 prize sponsored by Bill and Denise Whelan.
“In addition to our usual programme for 2026 we have a special event, ‘A Life of Her Own’ Reflections on the life and work of Maeve Kelly: Writer, Feminist Activist, Advocate for the Voiceless.”
The festival is supported by the Arts Council, Limerick City and County Council Festival and Events, the Arts Office, the French Embassy in Ireland, RTE supporting the Arts and O’Mahony’s BookSellers.
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