Volunteer

Description

Limerick Literary Festival is seeking volunteers to help out over the weekend of the festval, helping with welcoming guests and speakers, helping out with front of house, merchandise and information. Volunteers should be bright, friendly, outgoing and an interest in literature is a bonus! Volunteers will in turne be able to attend events free of charge. 

The Festival will run in Limerick February 21st, 22nd and 23rd at the Belltable, O’Connell Street. The event continues to honour the life and works of the Limerick author, Kate O’Brien while attracting prominent participants from all over the world. It originally started as The Kate O’Brien Weekend in 1984 to mark the tenth anniversary of her death. We continue to celebrate the legacy of Kate O’Brien each year and her impact as a writer 41 years later

Building on this significant history, the Limerick Literary Festival seeks to promote Limerick nationally as a place of literary excellence and to provide a platform where readers can meet their favourite authors and other readers.

The 2025 Festival will be opened with an intimate evening of words and music by featuring talented Limerick Opera Singer Sarah Ellen Murphy accompanied by pianist Irina Dernova. This will officially open what is to be a full weekend programme featuring novelists, Diarmuid Johnson, Anna Abney, Rose Servitova, Karen Fitzgibbon, Christine Dwyer Hickey and Delphine Minoui. Poets Ciarain O’Driscoll, Lionel Poiraudeau, Jo Slade and Vivienne McKechnie will be reading from a selection of their poetry as part of a special twinning initiative by the Quimper/Limerick twinning committees. This event brings together the works of French and Irish Poets in recognition of the special relationship these twin cities share.

There will also be the ‘Heaney in Translation’ event, a special evening combining words and music presented by Niall MacMonagle, this reading is presented in association with Poetry Ireland and was first produced by Poetry Ireland to mark the publication of The Translations of Seamus Heaney, edited by Marco Sonzogni and published by Faber and Faber. It will feature renowned actor Eleanor Methven as well as musicians Zoe Conway and John Mc Intyre.

The festival will include in its Sunday programme the presentation of the 2025 Kate O’Brien Award for a debut novel or short story collection from a female Irish author, the winner of the Award will be chosen from the shortlist announced Jan 13th.  Finally the Festival will close on Sunday the 23rd with an interview with the internationally renowned author, journalist and broadcaster David McWilliams.

Is training provided?: Yes

Tasks that the volunteer(s) will be expected to undertake:

Welcoming guests and speakers

front of house, showing people to thier seats, toilets, coffee shop etc,

manning the infomration desk/merchnadise stand

Skills required for this role:

friendly outgoing

Details of time commitment needed for role:
The festival takes place over a weekend, Friday afternoon to Sunday Evening so we have multiple time spots available

Minimum time commitment per week:
2 hour p/week