And that’s a wrap on Belfast Book Festival 26. So many amazing conversations, new friends, old friends, a stack of newly acquired books, an enormous amount of cheese, and a timely reminder that despite everything I would not want to live anywhere else. Thanks to all who made the last 8 days possible
Being alive at all is the most extraordinary stroke of good luck any of us will ever experience, the physicist Alan Lightman writes: “The question is: What are we to make of the fantastically improbable fact of our existence, our moment of life?” theatln.tc/jTH0FIor
📸: Will Matsuda
The Dreyfus Affair was the first modern culture war ... a struggle in which the demonisation of opponents became so total that rectifying a plain injustice became impossible. Ruth Harris returns to the subject 16 years after her 2010 book. drb.ie/article/rere...
Issue 161 (Summer 2026) of the Dublin Review of Books (www.drb.ie) is now available. Essays and reviews by Edna Longley, Kevin Power, Luke Gibbons, Ruth Evans, Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, David O'Connor and Enda O'Doherty among many others. All on free access, as is our archive, all 19 years of it.
Antisemitism was endemic among a succession of extreme-right movements from the 1890s until Marine Le Pen, in the 2010s, realised that encouraging hostility to France’s more numerous Muslim community would be more electorally rewarding. Enda O'Doherty on the French ultras: drb.ie/article/slou...
While considering different versions of ‘modernity’, Enda Delaney does not trap himself into too narrow an understanding of the concept ... His focus throughout remains firmly on the impact on the lives of ‘ordinary’ people. Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh on 'Making Ireland Modern'. drb.ie/article/are-...
Sociologists, unlike historians, have long memories. My evidence for this – historians like evidence – is a sample of one, the former president of Ireland, Michael D Higgins. Liam Kennedy on a long-remembered difference of opinion. drb.ie/blog/michael...
‘Members of ethnic minority communities have asked their white friends to accompany or drive them to work, hoping it would reduce the risk of being targeted. With more protests announced for today, schools closed early.’
Luqman Saeed in Belfast, from the blog.
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ju...
Dublin Review of Books
Tonight at 8.30!
As it says in the Simpsons Truckasaurus episode, if you're not there you better be dead, or in jail. And if you're in jail, break out!
Dada Deux: A Joycean Cabaret - James Joyce Centre, Dublin, Ireland share.google/JYRZqS6oqEeu...
Dublin Review of Books
I’m delighted to be running a writing workshop at the Cairde Arts Festival, Sligo. If you’re interested, or know someone who might be, please pass the word on:
"This immersive creative writing workshop offers an introduction to fiction, poetry and memoir."
www.cairdefestival.com/2026/the-sha...
Dublin Review of Books
Dublin Review of Books
Rereadings 2: Dreyfus Returns - % Dublin Review of Books
Bloomsday Festival 2026 Thursday, 11 June 2026 at 8.30pm Kick off The Bloomsday Festival celebrations at The James Joyce Centre on Thursday, 11th June at 8.30pm with a Joyce-themed cabaret of readings, performance, music and natter, hosted by author David Collard. Celebrate the eccentric and avant-garde spirit of Dadaism and James Joyce with a special Bloomsday Festival cabaret of readings and songs! Last […]
