Huge interest as online Cúirt festival opens

The director of the Cúirt Festival of Literature, Sasha de Buyl, was having dinner on Tuesday evening when it dawned on her that, had circumstances been different, she would have been welcoming guests to the opening night of the popular annual event.

But these are not normal times. After all public gatherings were cancelled in March due to Covid-19, the resourceful Sasha, who is in her first year as Cúirt director, immediately turned her attention to salvaging this year’s festival. She knew it couldn’t be held as normal due to the lockdown, so she decided to have an online gathering.

“I’ve been so focused on what’s happening with that, I hadn’t time to think about what would have been the opening night,” she says.

Eleven events are being held until this Saturday, April 25, all online. Participants include leading fiction writers, Anne Enright, Kevin Barry and Eimear McBride, as well as US poet, essayist, teacher and activist, Carolyn Forché and Jamaican novelist, poet, essayist and short-story writer Kei Miller.

Much to Sasha’s delight, authors and readers have been happy to accompany her on this journey into the unknown.

“There has been so much goodwill,” she says. “People are excited to have something that’s taking the shape of a literary festival.”

While other online events are taking place at present, Cúirt is a curated programme and “has the shape of a festival”.

All events are free and people have the option to book events ahead of schedule. As of mid-week, there were more than 2,500 tickets booked. Sasha knows that not everyone will tune in on the day but she’s impressed by the level of interest. And by the fact that people are willing to donate. All the readings and conversations are free, but people can subscribe if they wish, and again by mid-week, €3,000 had been donated.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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