An afternoon featuring two of the most potent talents writing in Ireland today.

Kerri ní Dochartaigh was born in Derry-Londonderry at the very height of the Troubles. One parent was Catholic, the other was Protestant. In the space of a year they were forced out of two houses and when she was 11 a homemade petrol bomb was thrown into the family home.

Terror was in the very fabric of the city, and for families like hers, the ones who fell between the cracks of identity, it seemed there was no escape. In her hugely acclaimed memoir Thin Places, Kerri examines how nature kept her sane and helped her heal; how violence and poverty are never more than a stone’s throw from beauty and hope; and how we are, once again, allowing our borders to become hard, and terror to creep back in.

Annemarie Ní Churreáin is a poet from the Donegal Gaeltacht. Her publications include Bloodroot (Doire Press, 2017) and Town (The Salvage Press, 2018).

Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved Seating

 

Covid protocol – CQAF small venues*

CQAF is committed to facilitating the return of live entertainment and the gradual reopening of events. We are making every effort to provide a safe environment for our audiences, artists, volunteers and staff.

Current conditions of entry are:

·Temperature check on arrival at the venue.

·Please wear a mask while queuing for indoor events and if you have to leave your seat to move around the venue. No masks necessary when seated.

·Visitors to the venues will be allocated seats as per their booking. (Please email us if there’s someone you’d like to sit with.

·1m physical distancing in line with government guideline.

·Please do not come to the event if you’re displaying any of the symptoms of Covid 19. Email us at info@cqaf.com and we’ll happily refund your tickets.

We hope you enjoy the festival. We will review these conditions of entry if COVID-19 guidelines are updated prior to the event.

* This applies to The Black Box, Oh Yeah Music Centre, The Sunflower, Deer’s Head Music Hall, The American Bar, Ulster Sports Club, 1st Presbyterian Church, The Dark Horse

One of our online only events, we’re delighted to broadcast this conversation hosted by Hugh Odling-Smee.

Séamas O’Reilly’s mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten brothers and sisters and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry.

It was the 1990s; the Troubles were a background rumble (most of the time),and Séamas at that point was more preoccupied with dinosaurs, Star Wars and the actual location of heaven than the political climate.

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is a book about a family of argumentative, loud, musical, sarcastic, grief-stricken siblings, shepherded into adulthood by a man whose foibles and reticence were matched only by his love for his children and his determination that they would flourish.

It is the moving, often amusing and completely unsentimental story of a boy growing up in a family bonded by love, loss and fairly relentless mockery.

‘A heartfelt tribute to an alarmingly large family held together by a quietly heroic father’
-Arthur Mathews

‘Not only hilarious, tender, absurd, delightful and charming, but written with such skill as to render it unforgettable’
– Nina Stibbe

‘A rare and beautiful book’
– Marian Keyes

‘Tender, sad and side-splittingly funny’
 – Annie MacManus

 

Covid protocol – CQAF small venues*

CQAF is committed to facilitating the return of live entertainment and the gradual reopening of events. We are making every effort to provide a safe environment for our audiences, artists, volunteers and staff.

Current conditions of entry are:

·Temperature check on arrival at the venue.

·Please wear a mask while queuing for indoor events and if you have to leave your seat to move around the venue. No masks necessary when seated.

·Visitors to the venues will be allocated seats as per their booking. (Please email us if there’s someone you’d like to sit with.

·1m physical distancing in line with government guideline.

·Please do not come to the event if you’re displaying any of the symptoms of Covid 19. Email us at info@cqaf.com and we’ll happily refund your tickets.

We hope you enjoy the festival. We will review these conditions of entry if COVID-19 guidelines are updated prior to the event.

* This applies to The Black Box, Oh Yeah Music Centre, The Sunflower, Deer’s Head Music Hall, The American Bar, Ulster Sports Club, 1st Presbyterian Church, The Dark Horse

We’re delighted to bring back the pioneer of Dylan Studies, Michael Gray, author of Song & Dance Man III: The Art Of Bob Dylan and The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia.

This time he’ll be discussing, and playing, his choice of the greatest tracks Dylan ever left off his own albums  –  not outtake versions of album tracks, but songs Bob recorded at the sessions and then rejected altogether… and yet are major works.

His books may be immense but there’s nothing dry about Michael’s talks, and he has been in demand on North American college campuses and in the UK & Ireland at arts theatres, arts centres and festivals.

Michael Gray has appeared at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio, the University of Texas at Austin, was a keynote speaker at Dylan Conferences at the universities of Vienna, Bristol, Cardiff, Munich and Southern Denmark. He has spoken at the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, the University of Oslo, York Festival of Ideas, three times at Goldsmiths College London, and arts festivals from Bath to the Shetlands.

Michael Gray’s events are always lively, spontaneous and acute, and offer a thoroughly entertaining, fresh account of Dylan’s achievement.

Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating

 

Covid protocol – CQAF small venues*

CQAF is committed to facilitating the return of live entertainment and the gradual reopening of events. We are making every effort to provide a safe environment for our audiences, artists, volunteers and staff.

Current conditions of entry are:

·Temperature check on arrival at the venue.

·Please wear a mask while queuing for indoor events and if you have to leave your seat to move around the venue. No masks necessary when seated.

·Visitors to the venues will be allocated seats as per their booking. (Please email us if there’s someone you’d like to sit with.

·1m physical distancing in line with government guideline.

·Please do not come to the event if you’re displaying any of the symptoms of Covid 19. Email us at info@cqaf.com and we’ll happily refund your tickets.

We hope you enjoy the festival. We will review these conditions of entry if COVID-19 guidelines are updated prior to the event.

* This applies to The Black Box, Oh Yeah Music Centre, The Sunflower, Deer’s Head Music Hall, The American Bar, Ulster Sports Club, 1st Presbyterian Church, The Dark Horse