This September sees the fourth edition of FIILI, dedicated to the theme Literature as Resistance.

Co-organised by Michela Linda Magri, Director of the Italian Institute of Culture, and authors & co-curators Catherine Dunne and Enrica Ferrara, the festival will highlight the work of Italian poets and writers Laura Pugno, Daria Bignardi, Giuseppe Catozzella, Viviana Fiorentino, Antonella Lattanzi, Tommaso Pincio, and Nadeesha Uyangoda.

Irish writers and poets in conversation are Michael Cronin, Martina Devlin, Martin Doyle, Wendy Erskine, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, Gustav Parker Hibbett, Caitríona Lally, Paul McVeigh and Paul Murray.

Tickets for Friday’s event can be booked at this link:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/festival-of-italian-and-irish-literature-in-ireland-2026-day-1-tickets-2000998618734?aff=oddtdtcreator

Tickets for Saturday’s event can be booked at this link:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/o/fiili-association-121653234067

For more information and the full programme, please visit the FIILI website: https://www.fiili.ie/programme/

Irish PEN/ PEN na hÉireann is proud to present one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers, Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC.

She will discuss recent developments in censorship – from prosecutions of Hong Kong booksellers and authors, to restrictions on books with LGBTQ+ themes in US public libraries, to Israeli police raids of an East Jerusalem bookshop and the confiscation of Palestinian books – and how we can fight back.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers. Over the past 25 years she has acted in many landmark cases internationally, in the UK and Europe, including representing bereaved families of the Hillsborough Disaster and the 7/7 London Bombings, and in test cases which have changed laws on children’s rights, for survivors of abuse, and on access to abortion in Northern Ireland. Internationally, Caoilfhionn’s work for wrongfully imprisoned people has seen her take on governments around the world, and she has secured the freedom of over 85 wrongly imprisoned journalists, bloggers, cartoonists, musicians, businesspeople and activists. She is the world’s leading expert on accountability for deaths of journalists and regularly acts for bereaved families of journalists killed for their work. Caoilfhionn was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2017 for her “outstanding contribution to the protection of human rights,” for devising a mass advertising campaign to highlight positive human rights stories. In 2023 she was awarded the President of Ireland’s Distinguished Service Award and in 2025 she was Irish Tatler’s International Woman of the Year.

Supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.

You can book your ticket at the following link:
https://dublinbookfestival.com/event/day-of-the-imprisoned-writer-2/

Please note that this event is booking out fast.

The international Historical Novel Society has an annual conference every year, alternating between North America and Europe.

For the first time ever, it was held in Ireland this year from 21st to 23rd August at Maynooth University. The organising committee, spearheaded by Irish PEN member Katherine Mezzacappa, was made up of the small group of writers of the Irish chapter of the HNS, who gather quarterly for a meal and conversation in Dublin.

On 21 August, 250 historical novelists from all over the world descended on Maynooth to hear from speakers such as Prof Terence Dooley who spoke about an Anglo-Irish ascendancy family, their lifestyle, marriage struggles, and eventual demise. He finished by detailing the sources he had used to document their lives. Also, Booker prize winner John Banville was interviewed by Katherine. In addition, attendees went to dozens of individual workshops and talks on topics of interest to historical novelists.

Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann was delighted to partner with the Historical Novel Society and have a stand at the Conference Bookshop. Katherine introduced us at the opening of the conference and made an impassioned pitch for us. Shauna Gilligan, Therese Hicks, and Deaglán de Bréadún distributed Irish PEN bookmarks, information sheets, and membership applications, while chatting with interested attendees at the conference. It is hopeful that our numbers will show an increase in the near future.