Clair Wills and Vona Groarke

The acclaimed cultural historian and critic Clair Wills reads from her captivating and provocatively clear-sighted memoir, Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother’s Secrets, a book about the troubled and secretive legacies of the Irish Mother and Baby Homes system as experienced within her own family. Clair will be joined by a supreme figure in contemporary Irish poetry, Vona Groarke, whose two most recent books, the groundbreaking immigration themed Hereafter: The Telling Life of Ellen O’Hara (NYUP), and her widely praised Woman of Winter (Gallery Press), a translation of the ninth century Irish poem ‘The Lament of the Hag of Beare’, entail profound meditations on memory, writing as meaning making and recovery, and on women’s struggles with patriarchy and inequality.

An unmissable opportunity to encounter these two extraordinary writers together, and to hear them reflect on a mutual affinity that is partly based on the depth and sensitivity of their accounts of their own and other women’s lives.

Readings will be followed by discussion and Q&A.

'Missing Persons by Clair Wills is a history shaken by intimacy - a brave and rigorously humane book' - Seán Hewitt

‘An extraordinary, moving achievement’ - Doireann Ní Ghríofa

‘Hereafter would be heartbreaking if it weren’t so beautiful. As it is, it lifts the heart.” – John Banville

'Hereafter is a groundbreaking way of investigating a traumatic period in history, not only Irish history, but American history too.' – Colm Tóíbín

Please be aware that all events at Listowel Writers' Week will be recorded and photographed for promotional and archival purposes. Your presence constitutes consent to be filmed or photographed. Thank you.

Listowel Writer's Week: where readers celebrate, and writers find their flow

Listowel Writer's Week is Ireland's oldest literary festival, and one of its most prestigious. Famously hospitable, the beautiful North Kerry town of Listowel is internationally renowned as a wellspring of literary inspiration and heritage. The 2024 Listowel Writer's Week festival programme, exploring the theme Mother Nature, has been curated by the poet Martin Dyar.

See writersweek.ie for full details.

Sponsored by the Arts Council.