A series of literary lunchtime lectures are currently running in the Tower Museum as part of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Island Voices programme.
This year the lectures will explore the theme of ‘home’ in the work of local writers from the English, Irish and Ulster-Scots traditions.
Island Voices features talks by Belfast-born Réaltán Ní Leannáin, Maureen Boyle from Sion Mills, and Alan Millar from the Laggan Valley in East Donegal, the series will explore identity and belonging within the context of our shared languages of English, Irish and Ulster-Scots.
Irish Language writer Réaltán Ní Leannáin opened the series with a lecture entitled ‘From Burgu to Belfast’.
The next lecture on Thursday, 24 October will feature Sion Mills writer Maureen Boyle speaking about ‘Writing ‘Strabane’ – Blessing a Town Into Poetry’.
In 2018 Maureen was commissioned by Radio 4 to write a poem on the town her family came from for a series called ‘Conversations on a Bench’.
In this talk, Maureen will explore the process of the poem’s creation, the motivation to write it, the research involved and the process of translating research into poetry.
The final lecture in the series features Alan Millar with his talk ‘Hame an awa – Scots wurds in Irish toonlands’. It will take place on Thursday, 28 November.
Born and reared in the Laggan of East Donegal, Alan Millar will explore the interconnections of locality and language running through his own work, using as his touchstone the glossary and subscribers list of Newton-Cunningham poet George Dugall’s ‘The Northern Cottage’, published exactly 200 years ago this year.
The glossary, filled with Ulster-Scots dialect still spoken today, is layered through with many words now lost to the Laggan, but still alive in other places, creating a sense of shared Scots language, running past into present, between Fintown and the Shetlands.
Encouraging people to attend the series of lectures Cllr Lilian Seenoi Barr, Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council said: “Home means something different to each individual. It doesn’t always have to be a place, home can be a feeling in your heart or even a memory of a time when you felt safe. Home is so important to us all and I would encourage everyone to go along to these lectures to see how central the theme is to all the voices which call our island home.”
Pól Ó Frighil, from Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Languages Team, which organises the event, added: “We are delighted to have these three incredible writers joining us for Island Voices this year.
“The backgrounds and life experiences of Réaltán, Maureen and Alan mean they each have a unique concept of ‘home’ and it will be wonderful to see how this has translated into their works.
“We hope that our programme of lectures adds to the greater public understanding of the unique literary traditions of English, Irish and Ulster-Scots.”
All talks in the series are free but booking is essential. Each one will begin at 1pm and there are light refreshments available from 12.30pm.
To book your place please contact the Tower Museum, T: (028) 7137 2411 or email [email protected]
Further information: Pól Ó Frighil, Languages Team, Derry City and Strabane District Council, [email protected]
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