Longford's Booktown Festival see's another successful run

Founder of Granard Booktown Festival, John Connell, has hailed the third staging of the festival as ‘a huge success beyond our imagination’.

Some of the biggest names in writing and journalism gathered in Granard last weekend where there were countless sold-out events and a great atmosphere.

John reflected, “It was a real tour de force and there was a lot of smiling and happy people and that was the ultimate thing to see.

“The engagement with the community and that everybody had a good time and we're just blown away by the success of it and that people have embraced it and it's a wonderful thing, I'm tired but I'm very happy.”

And while the dust has scarcely settled on Booktown '25 John and his colleagues are already thinking about the 2026 line -up.

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The third Granard Booktown Festival has come and gone and suffice it to say has been the best one yet.

This year's festival had big names such as John Banville, Claire Keegan and Carole Cadwalladr.

Friday kicked off with a discussion between two Longford greats, Conor Gearty and Peter Geoghegan, two men with great experience in the areas of human rights and democracy.

Rebecca Tallon de Havilland and Dani Gill also shared their experience within their respective areas of writing in Fay’s Bar.

The special guest for Friday evening was Claire Keegan. An author who has not only taken Ireland by storm but the rest of the world, with her story‘Small Things Like These’ being adapted to film starring Cillian Murphy.

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Speaking to the incredibly talented Sinéad Gleeson, Claire enthralled the audience not only as a writer but with her incredible wit.

Saturday was equally successful, among the many events that were scattered throughout the day there were three particular standouts. These were the Emerging Writers Panel that saw three great novelists such as James Roseman, Louise Hegarty and Elaine Garvey.

Poetry and Pints followed shortly after with three brilliant local poets such as Mary Melvin Geoghegan, Darragh Coady, and Louise G Cole who recited their work to enthralled attendees.

Nelofer Pazira Fisk, wife of the Late Robert Fisk spoke with Longford Journalist Shaunagh Connaire in the Library. She discussed the editing process and work that went into publishing her husband's final work and the pain of picking it back up again. She also gave an incredible insight into the truth of the conflict in the Middle East.

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The special guest of the evening was Pulitzer Nominated Investigative Journalist Carole Cadwalladr. She sat down with Bryan Dobson to discuss the risk of allowing tech giants to access our data, Ireland's intertwined relationships with Silicon Valley giants and whether billionaires' involvement in politics is reversible.

Sunday kicked off with a free event from the Granard writers group and followed with multiple discussions from writers, poets alike such as Luke Casserly, Gavin Cooney, Conor Niland and Mark Tighe, Cauvery Madhavan ans many more.

The festival came to a close at 6:30pm with John Banville.

One of Ireland's greatest authors and a fascinating man in himself.

Each year booktown evolves to be bigger and better than the last with more and more visitors coming from far and wide to see these literary marvels in the flesh.

John Connell, the founder of Granard Booktown Festival spoke on this year's success.

“It was a huge success, beyond our imagination. There were countless sold-out events, a great atmosphere. We had some of the biggest names in writing and journalism joining us for the weekend.

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“It was a real tour de force and there was a lot of smiling and happy people and that was the ultimate thing to see, the engagement with the community and that everybody had a good time and we're just blown away by the success of it and that people have embraced it and it's a wonderful thing , I'm tired but I'm very happy.

“We had group signings for people, that was a lovely thing and the authors were so generous with their time to do group signings and stuff, so that was a wonderful thing.

“And people said to me that they really enjoyed it and they never thought to see the likes of some of the big names in Longford, so that was a great thing.

The booktown festival is a great chance for Irish authors especially locally based writers to strut their stuff and meet other people in their field.

“It's important to have arts in rural Ireland and, you know, Granard is proving that and people are coming out in great numbers. It was absolutely phenomenal.”

While this year's festival has just come to a close, John and his colleagues are already thinking about the 2026 line -up. And so too are many of the locals.

“They're asking me that already now. We have 12 months to figure that out. We have one or two ideas already but all will be revealed soon, and right now the team is taking a well-deserved break and we'll get back to work soon and start planning it out and hopefully we'll be able to provide another great festival next year.

“Just to say thank you to all our sponsors, both public, the council and our staff, etc, and private, because they're the ones who help make the festival a reality and we're so thankful to them all for helping make it a reality every year.

So, a huge thanks to them and a huge thanks to the public who came out in great numbers to support it.”