In a new twist to the Dublin: One City One Book festival, Dublin and Belfast join together in a Two Cities One Book initiative as part of Dublin’s 2016 commemoration programme. Lia Mills’ novel Fallen, published by Penguin Random House, is this year’s chosen book and tells the story of Dubliners against the backdrop of the dramatic events of World War 1 and Easter Week 1916. Event highlights include a Two Cities One Book Day in Belfast which includes coach to Belfast with lunch in Belfast City Hall followed by a tour of the Ulster Museum on Saturday, April 16th.

An tArdmhéara Críona Ní Dhálaigh launched the programme of more than 70 events today in the Mansion House, Dublin.

The flagship event will be on April 20th in Findlater’s Church, Parnell Square. All Sorts of Wild Reports will feature dramatised descriptions of Easter Week in Dublin taken from diaries and letters of a diverse group of women who experienced the Rising at first hand, with actors Catherine Byrne, Rose Henderson, Jennifer O’Dea and Kerrie O’Sullivan and musicians and singers of the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

The Road to the Vote in Newman House, St Stephen’s Green on Monday, April 18th, will see Anna Carey, Nell Regan and Jeanne Sutton engage in a lively discussion, chaired by Rick O’Shea, on the suffragette movement in both Dublin and Belfast in 1916.

There is still time for students to enter Write Here, Write Now 2016, A Story of Ireland, an all-Ireland creative writing competition organised by Hot Press magazine. Check out www.hotpress.com

The festival is organised by Dublin City Council's Public Library Service and this year is a joint initiative with Libraries NI (the library authority for Northern Ireland). Readers in both Dublin and Belfast will create one big book club as they read the novel and enjoy the packed programme of events in both cities. Many events are free and full details are now available on www.dublinonecityonebook.ie/programme

Frank O’Connor celebration

The moment you grab somebody by the lapels and you’ve got something to tell, that’s a real story, the Irish writer Frank O’Connor told The Paris Review in 1957.

O’Connor’s brilliantly accomplished stories continue to attract international scholarly attention and deserve yet more notice at home, according to Prof Claire Connolly, Head of School, School of English, UCC.

A symposium will be held at UCC this Thursday, March 10th, to mark the 50th anniversary of his death and celebrate his legacy. All are welcome to the events and admission is free.

A major figure in both critical and creative contexts, Frank O’Connor was born Michael O’Donovan in Cork in 1903. He went on to become one of the foundational writers and theorists of the short story in the twentieth century, though critics have yet to fully chart the significance of O’Connor as writer, translator, autobiographer, playwright and letter writer, in Ireland and America.

Funded by an Irish Research Council New Foundations award and supported by UCC School of English, the event will feature papers by scholars including Dr Paul Delaney (TCD), Dr Ellen McWilliams (University of Exeter), Prof Frank Shovlin (University of Liverpool) and Prof Alan Titley (UCC).

“Frank O’Connor was a man of many voices – a master of the poetic realist short story, a superlative translator of Irish language poetry, a formidable public intellectual, and an inspiring lecturer. The UCC symposium builds on and contributes to the growing research field of Frank O’Connor Studies, while importantly assessing his impact and legacy at national and international levels,” commented Dr Hilary Lennon, School of English, UCC.

Topics to be explored on the day include Frank O’Connor’s short stories, his letters, translations of Irish language poetry, and his place in this history of Irish periodical publishing.

The day will also feature the presentation of more than 700 original O’Connor letters, generously donated to UCC Library by O’Connor’s son, Prof Emeritus Oliver O’Donovan FBA (Edinburgh University).

A group of distinguished Irish and American writers will gather to mark the event: Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Danielle McLaughlin, Mary Morrissy, and Brendan Matthews will read from a selection of O’Connor stories and discuss his craft and technique.

“With these events, UCC develops its special relationship with the life and writings of Frank O’Connor. O’Connor’s brilliantly accomplished stories continue to attract international scholarly attention and deserve yet more notice at home,” said Connolly. “As we mark the centenary of 1916 and begin to reflect upon the years of war and revolution to come, it is good to remember the rich variety of dissenting voices heard in Ireland in the aftermath of revolution and independence.”

The final event will be a public lecture, The Normal Heart: Frank O'Connor's Ordinary Lives, by Fintan O'Toole, columnist and literary editor of The Irish Times, in Boole 2 Lecture Theatre at 6pm. All are welcome to the events and admission is free.

Sabina Coyne Higgins new patron of Story House Ireland

The Story House Ireland has announced Sabina Coyne Higgins as its second patron. The arts and education activist, actor and feminist, who is married to President Michael D Higgins, joins writer Jack Harte.

Set up in 2015 by Margaret O’Brien and Nollaig Brennan, The Story House Ireland is a five-day, not-for-profit, residential writing centre which has introduced the Arvon model to Ireland. A typical week consists of morning workshops with one-to-one tutorials in the afternoon, group meals and plenty of time and space to write.

You can contact The Story House by emailing thestoryhouseireland@gmail.com or you can follow them @TSHIreland or on Facebook. Visit their website on www.thestoryhouseireland.org

Poets of 1916

Thomas MacDonagh and Padraig Pearse: Two Teachers, Two Poets, One Revolution is the title of a join talk on Monday, March 28th, at 2pm, in the J M Synge Theatre, Trinity College Dublin.

Prof Gerald Dawe, poet and professor of English at Trinity College Dublin and author of War & War’s Alarms will address he role of the poetic imagination in the politics of the Easter Rising.

Dr Nerys Williams, poet and lecturer in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin, will reflec ton what lessons can be learned from the poets of the revolutionary period on the basis of the language of their poetry.