What does it mean to be Irish — here, now and across the generations? On Sat 17 Oct, Liverpool’s magnificent Central Library becomes a space for exactly that conversation.
Four events. Four voices. One remarkable day.
We begin with an energising creative workshop with Wicklow’s celebrated writing collective. Then we move to a gripping novel set on the Northern Irish border. Afterwards, to a searching exploration of inherited diaspora identity before we travel to a gloriously chaotic punk memoir from the mean streets of multicultural Manchester… The #LIF2026 Central Library author day brings together writers who are funny, sharp, politically alive and utterly unafraid to tell the truth about what it means to carry Irishness with you through the world.
Each event is free and can be attended individually, but together they build into something greater: a full day of literature that is rooted in I Am Here, Liverpool Irish Festival’s 2026 theme of self-actualisation, belonging and the many ways we claim our place.
The four talks are outlined below. When booking, please select the correct tick for the event(s) you;d like toattend or book an all day ticket to come to them all.
Talk outlines:
Talk 1 – 10:30am: A writer’s decade in Ireland: How Irish is my writing?
After a decade living in Ireland, how deeply has the country entered the writing of Portuguese author Vitor Vicente? When does a place begin to shape the writer who observes it?
Led by travel-writer Vitor Vicente, this interactive session explores how living in Ireland has influenced his work, identity and understanding of belonging. Drawing on books inspired by Irish people, places, art and everyday life, Vítor will consider what it means to write about a country as both an outsider and someone who has gradually made it home.
Connecting directly with the Festival’s I Am Here theme, the session will invite participants to reflect on the places that have shaped their own voices.
Open to writers of all experience levels, including those attending a creative-writing workshop for the first time.
Vitor has presented at the #LIF2024 (The Art of Departure) and is a member of the Witty Wicklow Writers.
Talk 2 – 12:00pm Sue Divin presents Runaway Road
Ezra is 16. He’s no stranger to crossing the line, but this time it’s really bad – and there’s no going back.
His only hope of escape is to cross another line, the Northern Irish border, but that will mean leaving behind the only thing that really matters, his little sister, Evie.
Evie is 9 and sees it differently. Ezra took her into care, into safety, the last time they ran away. Why shouldn’t she go on the run with him now?
Author bio: Sue Divin is a Derry-based writer with Armagh roots. Writing with wry humour and emotional punch, her critically acclaimed novels are popular with teens and adults alike. Published in May 2026, Runaway Road (Macmillan), is on The Irish Times Best fiction of 2026 list. Set in Northern Ireland and Donegal in 2023, it explores themes of family and belonging, identity, borders, youth justice and anti-racism.
Her debut, Guard Your Heart, described as ‘A Romeo and Juliet set in Derry 2016,’ was Carnegie listed and is used internationally in many contexts. Her 2nd novel, Truth Be Told, ‘Parent-trap meets Derry Girls’, shortlisted in The Irish Book Awards and is on Ireland’s national curriculum.
With a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies and a career in peace-building, Divin’s writing often touches on diversity, reconciliation, borders and the legacy of the Troubles today. Her writing has been described as ‘Profoundly powerful, subtle and effective’ (The Guardian), ‘Compelling’ (Irish Times) and ‘Laced with dry wit, emotion and self-deprecating humour’ (Irish News). See and hear Sue in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U2tjPjIOXo
Talk 3 – 1:30pm We Are Here: Doug Devaney and Black Vinyl
Drawing on his debut novel Black Vinyl, writer and podcaster Doug Devaney explores how contemporary understandings of Irish diaspora identity are shaped as much by inheritance as by place.
Responding to I Am Here, We Are Here as a starting point, the talk considers how family stories, music, memory, faith and cultural traditions continue to influence lives long after migration itself has passed from living memory.
Referring to literature, popular music, community history and insights from his online series The Plastic Podcasts, Doug reflects on the ways identities are carried, adapted and reimagined across generations.
Doug’s talk will combine readings from Black Vinyl with wider reflections on cultural memory and belonging, and invite audiences to consider not simply where we are, but what we inherit, what we carry forward, and how stories continue to shape our understanding of ourselves and the communities we inhabit.
Talk 4 – 3:00pm PJ McKeown and By Acting the Fool
Born in 1965, PJ McKeown describes himself as “a never to get out of the garage punk rocker, an alternative to the alternative comedian, an obscure radio presenter, a failed playwright and a nearly man social sciences lecturer”.
He is, and has always been, the author of his own downfall.
Volume Two of his memoirs finds PJ as a human jukebox of a boy with the fire of punk in his belly. It’s 1976, he’s an 11-year-old mod who’s been devoted to Quadrophenia since 1973. Some of the lads at his new secondary school don’t like his Mick Jagger haircut. His Irish Anarcho-Syndicalist dad and crypto-Phalangist Irish mum remind us that the Manchester-born PJ is Irish and proud. “Eye-rish,” as they say in his city.
The Troubles loom like a dark cloud. Every “spectacular” brings fresh anti-Irish racism. But Tony Wilson, John Peel and his brother-in-law Mark introduce him to punk and suddenly everything shifts. Johnny Rotten is second-generation Irish, so PJ is a punk. He tells his mum The Banshees are an Irish folk band just to get to the gig. The art-class punk gurus aren’t convinced; he’s still too into the sixties. Half punk, half mod. A pod.
Sharp, funny and genuinely moving, McKeown guides us through the great dichotomy of having the craic on the mean streets of multicultural Cheetham and the green fields of mono-cultural Galway. It’s a memoir Roddy Doyle might have been proud to produce, if his parents had emigrated in the 1940s. A life full of laughter, anguish, comradeship and betrayal in equal measures… and he even has the audacity to throw in a soundtrack.
