Historia Live is coming to Ireland! If you enjoy historical fiction (or just good writing) join us in Dublin on 18 October for a free author event with four well-known Irish authors.
The Historical Writers’ Association (HWA) and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature have teamed up to bring you Historia Live Dublin, an exciting new series of literary events featuring bestselling authors of historical fiction.
The first, ‘Wicked Ireland‘, will feature Siobhan MacGowan, Andrew Hughes and Niamh Boyce, in conversation with Hazel Gaynor.
It will be held in Pearse Street Library, 139–144 Pearse St, Dublin 2, on Wednesday, 18 October, 2023, from 6.30pm onwards. Historia Live Dublin is free to attend.
Go to the event page for further information and to register for tickets.
Hazel, an HWA member and New York Times bestselling author of 10 historical novels, is Historia Live Dublin’s event programmer. She was on the panel for the first Historia Live event, held in June in London, and saw an opportunity to bring a similar programme of historical fiction events to writers and readers in Ireland.
She told us: “We have a fabulous annual programme of literary festivals and events in Ireland, and I believe we can add to that by bringing historical fiction into the spotlight, and giving readers and writers of historical novels their own programme of engaging and informative live events.
“Ireland has such a rich historical past, and a wealth of talented writers whose fascinating novels bring events from Irish history, and from historical events around the world, roaring to life. I’m excited to bring readers and writers together in this new series of events.”
The authors
Siobhan MacGowan
Siobhan has been a journalist and musician and has appeared on TV and radio numerous times.
She published her first novel, The Trial of Lotta Rae, in 2022. Her second, The Graces, came out in June, 2023. She’s currently working on a third book.
In The Graces, Rosaleen Moore, a seer and a healer, was sought after for her gifts of prophecy and healing by fashionable society, the mighty of Dublin Castle and mercurial political agitators alike.
On the anniversary of her death, pilgrims walk the Way of the Rose to St. Kilian’s Abbey and its bell tower which so lured her in life. Although a shrine, the bell tower has seen tragedy – a heinous crime to which the monastery’s once-beloved Abbot, now imprisoned, has confessed. Then, in 1918, a deathbed revelation by Rosaleen casts doubt on the Abbot’s word.
Andrew Hughes
Andrew, a qualified archivist, is the author of The Convictions of John Delahunt, which came out in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Bord Gáis Irish Crime Book of the Year. His second novel, The Coroner’s Daughter, was published in 2018. It was named as the One Dublin One Book choice for 2023 by Dublin City Council and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.
In The Coroner’s Daughter, set in 1816, Abigail Lawless, the 18-year-old daughter of the Dublin city coroner, has grown up surrounded by the books and instruments of her father’s profession. He, in turn, has encouraged her inquisitive mind.
When a young nursemaid to a prominent family kills her newborn baby and is then found dead, apparently by suicide, Abigail accidentally comes across a message from the maid’s seducer and is determined to find out more, pushing against the restrictions society places on young women. But her investigation becomes increasingly dangerous as she uncovers the secrets of both a Christian sect and a rationalist organisation.
Niamh Boyce
Niamh writes poetry, novels and short fiction. In her bestselling novels, she has fictionalized real-life criminal trials.
Her bestselling debut, The Herbalist (2013), won Debut of the Year at The Irish Book Awards and was an inaugural Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair winner. Her second novel, Her Kind, published in 2020, was based on the Ireland’s first witchcraft trial was and nominated for the EU Prize for Literature.
In Her Kind, it’s Kilkenny in 1324. A woman finds refuge with her daughter in the household of a childhood friend, who gives her a job as a servant — and warns her to hide their old connection. But in aligning herself with a powerful woman, Petronelle and her child are in more danger than they ever faced in the savage countryside.
Hazel Gaynor
Hazel is an award-winning New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail and Irish Times bestselling historical novelist. Her debut, The Girl Who Came Home, was awarded the 2015 RNA Historical Novel of the Year, and her novels have since been shortlisted for the 2016 and 2020 Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year, the 2019 HWA Gold Crown Award, and the 2021 Grand Prix du Roman Historique. Her new novel, The Last Lifeboat, was published in June, 2023.
In The Last Lifeboat it’s Liverpool in 1940, and Alice King in aboard the SS Carlisle to escort a group of children to Canada as overseas evacuees. Meanwhile in London, as the Blitz bombs rain down and the threat of German invasion looms, Lily Nicholls anxiously counts the days for news of her son and daughter’s safe arrival.
But when disaster strikes in the Atlantic, Alice and Lily – one at sea, the other on land – will quickly become one another’s very best hope. The events of one night, and the eight unimaginable days that follow, will bind the two women together in unforgettable ways.
Get your tickets for Historia Live Dublin at Eventbrite.
Copies of the authors’ books will be available to buy at the event and there will be time to meet the authors and get your books signed.
Historia Live in London next takes place on Thursday, 21 September, and we’re planning another event for November.
