Inaugural Patrick MacGill Festival taking place in Glenties
The festival features screenings and talks dedicated to celebrating, revitalising and honouring MacGill’s life as a writer
The inaugural Patrick MacGill Festival is set to take place in Glenties.
The Festival will feature a rich and varied weekend of events, starting on Friday, October 23. Over the two days, the festival is dedicated to celebrating, revitalising and honouring his life as a writer and ensuring his work remains accessible to new generations.
On Friday evening, Child of the Dead End, a 2009 drama documentary about MacGill’s life, will be screened at The Highlands Hotel. Introduced by the director, Desmond Bell, it explores MacGill’s life and work, weaving together dramatic reconstruction, film archive and narration by actor Stephen Rea, who plays MacGill as an old man looking back on his life.
The script draws on MacGill’s early work and his war novels, as well as his personal archive of letters and incidental writing, to reveal a man struggling to provide a voice for working and marginalised folk like himself but haunted by his own contradictions.
Day two will begin with a guided walk through the historic landscape of Glenties, followed by talks exploring MacGill’s extraordinary life and times by MacGill scholar José Manuel Pulido and Donegal writer Frank Galligan. With a PhD in Irish Literature and having written his thesis on MacGill, Pulido will host a talk titled A Man of Many Parts. Galligan’s talk, titled Patrick MacGill: 'Trench' warfare...from shovel to rifle, will contrast MacGill’s writings about hard labour and 'digging' in Ireland and Scotland with his observations on the digging of trenches in World War One.
A gala concert featuring a host of local musicians and performers will follow. Titled A Night for Raking, the event will feature new songs based on MacGill’s poems and children performing dramatic extracts based on his works. The event will also include recitals of two MacGill poems and an appearance by local poet Charlie Boyle. Winners of the poetry and short story competitions for schools in the area will be announced during the day and evening of 24 October.
Tickets for the Patrick MacGill Festival, including screening, lectures and Saturday evening’s gala concert, can be purchased here.