Events to suit all at DNLF 2026
This Wednesday, October 7, sees the opening of the 2026 Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival. With 19 events over 13 venues in the Nenagh and Dromineer area, this year’s DNLF has one of the strongest lineups yet with events to suit everyone.
There’ll be poetry on Wednesday night in Una Powell’s with Jan Brierton, Nicola Clare, Conor Killeen, Raphael Olympio, and on Friday in Nenagh Arts Centre with Three Pillars Poetry Press, whose mission is to provide new poets with an opportunity to publish their poetry in pamphlet form.
For crime fiction fans, Cormac Quinn will discuss his novel Murder on Lough Derg with Jackie Lynam on Thursday night in Lough Derg Yacht Club (sponsored by The Wine Buff).
Paul Howard will be in conversation with Ryan Tubridy on Friday in Nenagh Arts Centre about his new comic novel A Nation Once Again, and on Saturday in the same venue, Will Govan will perform Neil Titley’s one-man play about Oscar Wilde, Work is the Curse of the Drinking Classes.
The other fiction event is A Sense of Place: Debut Novelist Showcase with Neil Tully, Barbara Leahy & Jessamine O’Connor in partnership with The Irish Writers Centre on Saturday in Nenagh Heritage Centre. Comedian and writer Justine Stafford will discuss her new book : The Irish Art of It’ll Be Grand, on Saturday in The Castle, O’Rahilly Street with Aoife, and they’ll be joined by Harpist Clodagh Moylan
And the same evening in Nenagh Arts Centre, broadcaster and historian Myles Dungan will deliver a lecture on The Plot against Ireland. In the late nineteenth century using blatant fabrication, espionage, and the help of The Times newspaper, the grandest members of the English political elite conspired to discredit Charles Stewart Parnell.
For foodies, on Saturday Peter Ward, proprietor of Country Choice, will be in conversation with author, chef, scholar and linguist Mairtín Mac Con Iomaire, author and academic Dorothy Cashman and three times James Beard award-winning chef Robb Walsh in the Abbey Court Hotel.
On Sunday in Tullamore Park, Doireann Ní Ghríofa will read from her latest book Said The Dead with live music by Linda Buckley followed by a conversation with Rick O’Shea.
Dara Waldron, author of A Sheepdog Named Oscar, and musician, will be joining Hothouse Flower Fiachna Ó Bhraonáin for afternoon tea on Sunday in the Abbey Court Hotel.
The closing event will be Music & Conversation with Brendan Begley in Nenagh Arts Centre. In what promises to be a very special bilingual event Brendan Begley will bring his extraordinary music and stories in conversation with Brian Morrissey.
Other events include the annual Lough Derg cruise on the QU-EE-TU with biographer Granuaile the pirate Queen, Anne Chambers; a discussion about land, tradition, farming and wildlife with Jane Clarke, Catherine Cleary and Anja Murray in Muintir ne Tíre Hall, Ballycommon.
There’ll also be poetry and fiction workshops with Victoria Kennefick and Patrick Holloway, and for anyone with concerns about life online, Mark Little will be discussing his new book ‘The Last Good Day on the Internet’.
Booking from www.DNLF.ie.