Event type: Comedy

Performing live, the Sprockets take-no-prisoners.

Take some good-time revolutionary spirit, add a pinch of psychedelic flavour, simmer it down with some indie soul and you get close to the cosmic vibe of The Hot Sprockets, five blood brothers drawn together by a mutual love of Rock ‘n’ Roll. An inherent ability to ‘get the party started’ has captivated audiences in the USA, Canada, UK, and Europe. With two critically acclaimed albums under their belt, Honeyskippin’, and Brother Nature (which shot straight into the top 10 of the National Irish Charts) the Sprockets recently released their third album Dream Mover. Listeners can expect to hear an earthier soulful psychedelic side, whilst sonically, it marks a huge leap forward for these independent rockers!

£13/£10 + 7.5% booking fee.

Presented by the Liverpool Philharmonic for #LIF2018

Joanne Ryan’s acclaimed, multi-award winning show is a funny, tender and moving exploration of reproduction in 21st-Century Ireland.

Mixed animation with stand-up, monologue and hilarious recorded interjections from Ryan’s mother, Eggsistentialism takes a light-hearted but unflinching look at one of life’s most compelling dilemmas: should making a life for oneself involve making another?

Eggsistentialism is presented with support from the Culture Ireland GB18 programme and Arts Council England.

Celebrating their 30th year in 2018, one of Ireland’s biggest acts, Kíla, play their only Autumn UK event at Liverpool Irish Festival. 

“One of the most beautifully euphoric live experiences” BBC World Review

“Softly spoken off stage and complete lunatics on it, Kíla have torn up the rulebook with their wantonly eclectic mix of styles, Brilliant!” Hot Press

Kíla have played in over 30 countries on 5 continents, even playing at Possibilities, the event that welcomed the Dalai Lama to Ireland.

Kíla‘s eight members come from the differing musical backgrounds of trad, classical and rock, resulting in a fresh blend of freewheeling instrumentals, furious jigs and primal rhythms transcending traditional boundaries of Irish music. Bristling with passion and energy, their nineteenth album Alive Beo is an exciting trip into the universe of a Kíla gig, with Rónán, Rossa & Colm Ó Snodaigh, Dee Armstrong, Brian Hogan, Dave Hingerty, James Mahon & Seanan Brennan.

Having collaborated with renowned artists including U2, The Dubliners, Shane MacGowan, Sinead O’Connor, Glen Hansard, The Corrs, Christy Moore, Damien Dempsey and a host of other artists, Kíla have worked extensively in TV and film, most notably on the soundtracks for animations The Secret of Kells (screened at #LIF2015) and Song of the Sea.

Doors 6.30pm, Bill Booth, 7.15pm, Hermitage Green 7.50pm, Kíla 8.50pm

Kíla are presented by Liverpool Irish Festival and funded by Liverpool City Council’s Festival Enhancement Fund.

£21.50.

Does what it says on the pump-clip!

This Irish Craft Beer Festival, run by well-loved owners of Kelly’s Dispensary in their sister hostelry, will see a number of small Irish brewers represented. Served alongside traditional soft drinks -such as Cidona and Club Orange- and a menu including Irish stew, potato and leek soup and crisp sandwiches (with proper Irish bread)

Does what it says on the pump-clip!

This Irish Craft Beer Festival, run by well-loved owners of Kelly’s Dispensary in their sister hostelry, will see a number of small Irish brewers represented. Served alongside traditional soft drinks -such as Cidona and Club Orange- and a menu including Irish stew, potato and leek soup and crisp sandwiches (with proper Irish bread)

Grab a coffee and enjoy a read.

A drop-in space to hold discussions and impromptu seisiúns (sessions), the Materials Library invites you to enjoy the fully accessible space, free Wi-Fi and delicious bistro menu, whilst chatting over Irish newspapers, texts, maps and children’s books all with a Liverpool or Ireland focus. Straddling Hope Street, between the Catholic and Protestant cathedrals, Everyman is the ideal cultural hotspot to browse a festival brochure, pick up a bite to eat and encounter some of the city’s performance artists.

This private view gives you a first glimpse of this extraordinary exhibition, which offers a unique insight in to the domestic life of contemporary Liverpool Irish Travellers.

It uses work made by the community, supported by work from internationally acclaimed, American photographer Jona Frank (High School, Right, The Modern Kids).

Irish Travellers have been residents of the UK for centuries. Afforded distinct ethnic minority status in 2000, Irish Travellers have often been misrepresented and maligned in the media. Rarely is an authentic internal voice from within the community heard in its own right, and even more infrequently from women. This exhibit provides space for these voices to be heard beyond the usual confines.

Jona Frank’s imagery, taken in Tallaght (near Dublin) in the 1990s, served as a catalyst to explore one of Liverpool’s Irish Traveller communities, providing an ‘historic’ backdrop to compare and contrast the visual representations the community make of themselves today, from a location they have occupied for over 40 years.

Focussing on the domestic, these images show what home life looks like and reveal some of the day-today preoccupations of contemporary Irish Travellers. More information about this project will follow in ou news pages.

The exhibition will take place in two locations. The first opens at The Brink as part of The Art of Falling Apart as part of the Liverpool Mental Health Festival, the second at George Henry Lee’s as part of #LIF2018. Check liverpoolirishfestival.com for updates

The Brink private view will take place from 4pm-5.30pm, Thurs 11 Oct 2018. The George Henry Lee’s private view is listed in our events.

It’s the Travelling Life is a collaboration between Liverpool Irish Festival, Irish Community Care, the Liverpool Mental Health Consortium and the Irish Traveller community. Delivered as part of the Liverpool Mental Health Festival and Liverpool Irish Festival it has received project funding from Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England and Liverpool City Council. It is presented in partnership with The Brink, Art In Liverpool and IB18.

Ft. Bill Booth and Catherine Cook

Opening the festival with a taste of home (Irish stew), a glass of the black stuff and migration stories told by poets and performers and sung by Bill Booth and followed by Catherine Cook.

The launch shares plenty of new beginnings (such as TG4’s Gaeil UK), stories that cross the globe and a broad sampler of what #LIF2018 has to offer.

Meet the team, bring your friends and family and start as you mean to go on!

This event will be free, but we would like people to RSVP.

 

Calling all Irish navvies and nurses
With special guest, former Navvy-turned-artist, Irish Presidential Award winner, Bernard Canavan and Rosemary Adaser of the Mixed Race Irish Group in London.

The idea for a distinctive new “Irish Legacy Project” was sparked by the success of a week-long display of paintings hung for St Patrick’s week in the grandeur of the Upper Waiting Hall of the House of Commons. The exhibition: “Irish Builders of Modern Britain” was sponsored by Labour MP, Chris Ruane and featured the distinctive work of a former Navvy – the County Longford-born artist and philospher, Bernard Canavan. His paintings tell the story of the Irish in Britain in a trade mark style, getting to the heart of the migrant experience: “Memories behind and who knows what ahead”.

Project founder, Ruane, who represents the Vale of Clwyd in Parliament is proud to be the son of an Irish Navvy. While “Navvies and Nurses” remain the most readily identified Irish migrants, the project aim is to raise awareness of the Irish contribution across the whole spectrum of society and cultural endeavour. This is only possible with active support and involvement across the country. In July, the project held its first round table discussion in London and the organisers are now delighted to follow that up with a discussion as part of this year’s Liverpool Irish Festival, to which we would like to extend a personal invitation. This particular session will be run by the project’s coordinator, Martin Collins.

The Irish Legacy Project – working with the All Party Irish in Britain group in parliament – will provide a focus and work across the spectrum to engage in dialogue with Irish centres, local groups, academics and students. The project aims to reach across different generations and reflect all sections of our diverse community. We are interested in museums, archives and Irish studies, in art galleries, film, language, music and sports.

We welcome you to bring your thoughts and ideas.

Sally Rooney, Lisa McInerney and Anthony Joseph have already enjoyed considerable critical success and are clearly writers to watch in future. Alex Clark presents them here as part of New Voices.

These three exciting figures – from a new generation of writers – will be talking about and reading from their work with Alex Clark, distinguished Guardian and Observer critic and Bath Literature Festival Director.

Sally Rooney’s acclaimed debut novel, Conversations with Friends (‘Salinger for the Snapchat generation’) was a Sunday Times, Guardian, Observer, Daily Telegraph and Evening Standard Book of the Year. Rooney was the winner of the Sunday Times/Peters Fraser and Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award 2017 and was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize 2018, Folio Prize and Desmond Elliott Prize. Her second novel, Normal People, is published in September 2018.

Lisa McInerney’s debut novel, The Glorious Heresies, won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016 and the Desmond Elliott Prize. Her work has featured in Winter Papers, Stinging Fly, Granta and on BBC Radio 4, and in the anthologies Beyond The Centre, The Long Gaze Back and Town and Country. Her second novel, The Blood Miracles, was published in 2017.

Anthony Joseph is a poet, novelist, musician and academic. He is the author of four poetry collections, and a novel, The African Origins of UFOs. As a musician he has released six critically acclaimed albums. His seventh, People of the Sun, is released in summer 2018, alongside his second novel, Kitch, a fictional biography of calypso icon Lord Kitchener. His epic, experimental novel, The Frequency of Magic, is due in 2019. He is the University of Liverpool’s Colm Tóibín Fellow in Creative Writing.

The Liverpool Irish Festival is proud to support this event, which is sponsored by The Institute of Irish Studies at University of Liverpool as part of the Liverpool Literary Festival.

£8/£6.

NB – This event was previously marketed as New Voices with Colm Tóibín, who can no longer attend. we trust that bookers will still be excited to see these new authors. If any bookers have any issues with this change, we would apprcaite you contacting the Liverpool Literary Festival directly using events@liverpool.ac.uk

 
Image features Lisa McInerney portrait and Sally Rooney portrait, the latter by Jonny I Davies.