Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend returns in Achill

Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend returns to Achill in early May


THE eleventh annual Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend, talks place on Achill Island from Friday May 2 to Sunday May 4. This year’s event continues a series of lectures and talks as well as guided walks in the landscape of Achill Island.
Registration for the weekend talks place on Friday May 2 at 7pm at the Cyril Gray Memorial Hall, in Dugort. Details and postal registration available at  www.heinrichboellcottage.com/    
The 2014 weekend will be formally opened by Berlin-based Irish Times journalist, Derek Scally. Born in 1977 in Dublin, Scally was raised in Raheny on the city’s north side. He took a BA in Journalism at Dublin City University and did his Erasmus semester in Berlin’s Humboldt University. After working in Dublin and New York, he moved to Berlin in 2000 where he began working for various media outlets, including Deutsche Welle - the German foreign news service - and Die Welt daily. In the summer of 2000 he began freelancing for The Irish Times and took over as the newspaper’s Berlin correspondent in December of that year. Since then he has been the newspaper’s man in Berlin,reporting mainly on politics and current affairs but also on business, arts and European affairs. From his base in Berlin he writes regularly on Poland, Austria and Switzerland.
A focus of the weekend will be on travel writing and this will get underway with a talk by Dea Birkett, ‘Women Travellers Through the Ages –  Difficult Journeys by Extraordinary Women, which will look at the works of  travel writer and novelist Honor Tracy, who lived for many years in Achill.  
Dea Birkett is an award-winning writer and journalist, author of seven books including ‘Serpent in Paradise’ (about her time on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific), Spinsters Abroad’ (‘subtle, acute, fascinating - The Sunday Times), ‘Jella’. ‘A Woman At Sea’ (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award) and ‘Off the Beaten Track’.
Also reading over the weekend are Hugo Hamilton, from his new novel ‘Every Single Minute’ and in discussion with Derek Scally. Mary Russell, well-know travel writer, German novelist Birgit Vanderbeke, who is one of Germany’s most  successful literary authors, will also feature while Mary Russell will deliver a creative writing seminar.
Dr Gisela Holfter from UL will give a lecture on German writers travelling in Ireland in the twentieth century;  ‘Not only Böll – 20th century travel  literature on Ireland from a German perspective’.
She will also formally open an exhibition of archival photograph material ‘Heinrich Böll And Family’ from the Böll family collection, and landscape painting; ‘Paintings Of Achill Island’ by Alex McKenna at the Western Light Art Gallery,  Keel.
Rene Böll will give an illustrated talk ‘Heinrich  Böll and his family’s fight for Humanity’ touching on how Heinrich Böll and his family were independent in their thinking; they didn’t belong to the right or the left and because of this, Heinrich Böll could speak about liberty for persecuted people, in Russia and in Chile at the same time.
Guided walks in the landscape will be led by Eoin Halpin , with a talk by Rev Patrick Comeford, focusing on The Achill missionary buildings at Mweelin – history, origins and people. Guided walks on Saturday and Sunday include lunch each day.  
For further details check out www.heinrichboellcottage.com / www.achilltourism.com/artsweekend call 087 7720192 or 086 2325516. or e-mail hbollachill@anu.ie
This weekend event is organised with support of the Goethe-Institut Irland. The  
Achill Heinrich Böll Association is funded by Mayo County Council and The Arts Council of Ireland and receives donations from members of the public.