“The long and illustrious list of women who challenged the status quo – and changed Irish society in the process – had no more eloquent an exponent than Nuala O'Faolain”
The Guardian
"There is nothing much wrong with me except I am dying," said Nuala O’Faolain in the middle of an unforgettable interview on the Marian Finucane Show. It was a remark typical of a writer and journalist celebrated for her courage, honesty and wit. O’Faolain was at the forefront of the feminist movement in Ireland in the 1970s and, over a thirty year career that included Plain Tales (her award-winning series of interviews with “ordinary” women), she never relinquished her belief in social justice. Her Irish Times columns, in which she wore her extraordinary breadth of learning lightly, covering everything from birdwatching to the travails of the clergy, made her a household name in Ireland. But it was her memoir Are You Somebody?, exploring her traumatic upbringing, that brought her international success and turned her into a bestselling writer.
To mark the fifth anniversary of her death, Dublin Writers Festival gathers close friends, traditional musicians like Robert Harvey (flute) and Tanya Murphy (fiddle) and fellow journalists including Marian Finucane (RTÉ Radio), Conor Brady (former Irish Times editor), Grainne O'Broin, Anthony Glavin, Sean MacConnell, Sheridan Hay, Aideen Friel, Dermot Bolger and Noirin Hegarty (former Sunday Tribune editor), to celebrate her life and achievements in an evening of music, talk and wine. A portion of the ticket proceeds will be donated to the Irish Hospice Foundation