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Claire Messud in conversation with Paula Shields
Reviewing her last novel, The Woman Upstairs, Joanna Briscoe remarked that “Claire Messud should achieve literary giant status before too long” and her new novel may just be the book to propel her towards that exalted status. The Burning Girl, is a bracing and hypnotic portrait of the complexities of female friendship. Compact, compelling, and ferociously sad, the novel is at once a story about childhood, friendship and community, and a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about childhood and friendship. For Claire Messud, literary greatness beckons.
Recorded at dlr LexIcon Studio on Friday, 22 September 2017.
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/claire-messud-in-conversation-with-paula-shields
A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea: A Book’s Journey in Words and Pictures
Sarah Webb, Steve McCarthy and art designer, Emma Byrne in conversation with Elaina Ryan of Children’s Books Ireland.
To celebrate the launch of their new picturebook, which Sarah worked on while she was dlr Writer in Residence, Sarah and Steve talk about A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea: Rhymes and Songs from an Irish Childhood with Elaina Ryan of CBI and the book’s designer, Emma Byrne.
Recorded at dlr LexIcon Studio on Monday, 9 October 2017.
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/a-sailor-went-to-sea-sea-sea-a-books-journey-in-words-and-pictures
Bernard MacLaverty in conversation with Eithne Shortall
Sixteen years on from his last novel, Bernard MacLaverty reminds us why he is regarded as one of the greatest living Irish writers. His new novel, Midwinter Break, carries all the hallmarks of his signature style: pin-point accuracy, compassionate observation, effortlessly elegant writing and a tender, intimate, heart-rending story. It is also a profound examination of human love and how we live together, a real chamber piece of resonance and power. Forty years on from his first book, Bernard MacLaverty has written his masterpiece.
Recorded at dlr LexIcon Studio on Wednesday, 11 October 2017.
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/bernard-maclaverty-in-conversation-with-eithne-shortall
Jennifer Egan in conversation with Sinéad Gleeson
Mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful, with the pace and atmosphere of a noir thriller and a wealth of detail about organized crime, the merchant marine and the clash of classes in New York, Egan’s first historical novel is a masterpiece, a deft, startling, intimate exploration of a transformative moment in the lives of women and men, America and the world. Manhattan Beach is a magnificent novel by one of the greatest writers of our time, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Jennifer Egan.
Recorded at dlr LexIcon Studio on Friday, 17 November 2017.
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/jennifer-egan-in-conversation-with-sinead-gleeson
Fear, functionality and freedom: Electricity comes to Ireland
The curators of the Electric Generations exhibition and invited experts give short presentations on how electricity changed people's lives from the 1960s onwards.
Electric Generations: the Story of Electricity in the Irish Home - an exhibition examining the reception and understanding of electricity across the twentieth century through an array of advertisements, pamphlets, magazines and domestic objects. (A collaboration between the University of Hertfordshire, ESB's archives and the Institution of Engineering and Technology Archives.)
Recorded at dlr LexIcon Studio on Wednesday, 15 November 2017.
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/fear-functionality-and-freedom-electricity-comes-to-ireland
Positive Parenting 2018 Podcasts
dlr Libraries offer a number of talks that focus on supporting parents. In 2018 we recorded some of these talks as we are conscious it can be sometimes be difficult for parents to attend library events. Enjoy and please feedback if there is a talk you would like to see hosted regarding any aspect of parenting.
Recorded at dlr LexIcon on various dates in March and April 2018
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/sets/positive-parenting-talks-at-dlr-lexicon
The Good Friday Agreement, a talk by Tim Pat Coogan
Renowned historian and author Tim Pat Coogan gave a talk in Dalkey Library on Tuesday 10 April 2018 on the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement which was signed in Belfast on Good Friday, 10 April 1998.
Tim Pat Coogan is the author of many titles on Irish history and politics including The IRA, Ireland since the Rising, The Famine Plot, Michael Collins, to name but a few.
Recorded at Dalkey Library on Tuesday 11 April 2018
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/the-good-friday-agreement-a-talk-by-tim-pat-coogan
Ulysses on the South Dublin coast a talk with dlr library staff member Brendan Moriarty
Ulysses tells the story of a day in the life of Dublin; a day that began right here in our area. Brendan Moriarty, a dlr Library Assistant and veteran Joycean, talks us through the events and background of the first 3 chapters, known as the Telemachiad, which are set in Sandycove, Dalkey and on Sandymount Strand.
Recorded in Dalkey Library on Thursday 14 June 2018, as part of Bloomsday celebrations
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/ulysses-on-the-south-dublin-coast-a-talk-with-dlr-library-staff-member-brendan-moriarty
Sebastian Faulks in conversation with Edel Coffey
Sebastian Faulks is widely regarded as one of the finest novelists of his generation. His magnum opus, Birdsong, has sold over two million copies. His new novel Paris Echo follows Hannah, an American postdoctoral researcher studying the German Occupation of Paris in 1940-44; and Tariq, a Moroccan teenager who has run away from home. Faulks takes us back into the hidden Paris of the Dark Years, the Algerian war and the simmering discontents of the Banlieue, a haunted city of injustice and bad faith, of ghettos and betrayal.
Recorded in the Pavilion Theatre on Tuesday 4 September 2018.
Listen back here: https://soundcloud.com/dlr-soundcloud/dlr-voice-sebastian-faulks
Speeches of note, with editor Shaun Usher and a cast of leading Irish actors/readers
Speeches of Note is a celebration of oratory old and new. From Shaun Usher, the author of the international bestseller, Letters of Note, comes an obsessively curated and sumptuously produced collection of speeches from throughout the ages. Some are surprising, inspiring, hilarious; others are moving, comforting, enlightening. Some of these speeches changed the course of history; others are all but unknown, and many of them are Irish. All are extraordinary.
Recorded in the Pavilion Theatre on Saturday 22 September 2018.