Event type: Talk

In the Window: Meet the Maker – Corinne Price

The Bluecoat Display Centre and Liverpool Irish Festival are delighted to announce our 2025 maker: Corinne Price; continuing our annual In The Window partnership. This event provides visitors with the chance to speak with the artist directly, about their work, general practice, ambitions and achievements. Centred on Corinne’s ceramics, which layer pigment into the clay itself, visitors will benefit from a guided question and answer session, being able to ask additional questions. Refreshments will be provided on arrival.

Friends of the Bluecoat Display Centre will receive a 10% discount on all purchases during the event.

Booking is needed. Please call +44(0) 151 709 4014, to book a place, or stop by the gallery to reserve a space with a member of staff. This event has a recommended donation price of £10 per ticket, providing a speaker fee for Corinne. See our exhibition listing for more details about Corinne.

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#LIF2025 Launch

Meet the Festival team and artists from the #LIF2025 programme.

Hear about the programme and meet with friends. The Centre, the spiritual home of the Irish community in Liverpool, provides a convivial space in which to toast ‘fáilte’ (welcome) to all those who join us, have helped us and will be with us for Festivals ahead. Book ahead to claim your free arrival refreshment!

Be among the first to claim your free Brave Maeve treasure map and meet Stu Harrison — the illustrator and storyteller that brought Liverpool’s real life Brave Maeve to 2D!

We’ll have speeches, music and entertainment to mark the arrival of #LIF2025, with other surprises along the way.

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Literary Salon featuring Eimear McBride

Multi-award-winning novelist Eimear McBride chats to literary critic (and Irish literature fan) David Collard in an informal, friendly tête-à-tête.

Speaking to the Festival theme of ‘arrivals’, David Collard and Eimear McBride will discuss Eimear’s latest novel — The City Changes its Face — and her recent film debut (as a director) A Very Short Film About Longing (currently available on BBC iPlayer). Eimear (born in Liverpool to Irish parents) moved with her family to Ireland as a toddler. Her arrival on the literary scene was a long time coming – it took nine-years to find a publisher for her first novel A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. Subsequently she has been internationally lauded for her unique blend of experimentation and very contemporary female-centred storytelling.

The author of two additional novels The Lesser Bohemians and Strange Hotel, as well as the non-fiction work Something Out of Place: Women and Disgust, Eimear held the inaugural Creative Fellowship at the Beckett Research Centre (University of Reading), during which she wrote Mouthpieces; three short powerful plays on the female experience. Her debut directorial work A Very Short Film About Longing (DMC Films/BBC) screened at the 2023 London Film Festival. Eimear is the recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Goldsmiths Prize, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Kerry Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

David Collard is the author of About a Girl (CB Editions) and Multiple Joyce and A Crumpled Swan (both published by Sagging Meniscus) and writes for the Times Literary Supplement. He curates and hosts the weekly online salon The Glue Factory.

Recorded exclusively for #LIF2025, this is the first of a series of Festival-linked Literary Salons we will run with David in the coming years.

Image credit: Kat Green (detail only).

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Art, Change and ‘Public Good’: OPEN SPACE

 

Calling question: What ‘good’ can participatory or socially engaged arts do in partnership with public and government agencies?

About this event:

“Culture is not just about the provision of goods and services to the sovereign consumer but a crucial aspect of citizenship and the empowerment required for the flourishing of human capabilities, of spiritual freedom”

Justin O’Connor, Culture is not an industry: Reclaiming art and culture for the common good

The power of the arts, culture and creativity is undeniable. Engagement with participatory, community and socially engaged arts is a transformative experience for many.

Aiming for change, this work often includes partnerships with public and government agencies such as hospitals, social care settings, the prison and probation system, and in education. 

Yet, these settings have been hit hard under austerity, leading to cuts to provision, staffing shortages and weakened infrastructure. Inequality is also rife across these contexts and perpetuated by unfair policies which leave the most vulnerable worse off. 

This event will reflect on what is possible in these contexts.

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This open space event is part of Collective Encounters’ Radical Retrospectives Festival, celebrating 21 years since the founding of the company. 

Radical Retrospectives aims to look back over more than histories that are meaningful for our communities and imagine the future of theatre for social change in Liverpool City Region and beyond.

Event Format: Open Spaces are participant-led events where the agenda and discussion are driven by those in the room. At the beginning of the event guest speakers will introduce some key ideas, principles and practices behind the theme and offer provocations for discussion. Together we set the agenda and you will be able to move freely between conversations.

Ticket Cost: £5.00

We also have a small number of bursary places available for those with limited funds, please email info@collective-encounters.org.uk

Access:

This event will take place in the Black-E which has step free access to the main entrance and an accessible lift to all levels. For more information see the Black-E accessibility statement: https://www.theblack-e.org/the-black-e-facilities/the-black-e-accessibility/

If you require BSL interpretation, please get in touch no later than two weeks before the event. If you have any other access requirements please email info@collective-encounters.org.uk

 

 

Archive Launch (In-person)

Join Collective Encounters as we launch our new digital archive, celebrating 21 years of theatre for social change in the Liverpool City Region.

This evolving archive brings together the voices, memories and stories of the many people who have shaped Collective Encounters. It reflects on what cultural memory means and how we tell, preserve and question our shared histories.

The launch includes a live performance from Heritage Police, who invite us to interrogate who decides what counts as heritage—and what gets left out.

All are welcome to come along, explore, and reflect on what it means to build a shared cultural memory.

We will also be hosting an online launch event on the same day, find out more here.

 

Ulysses: Shared reading

Often seen as dauntingly academic, James Joyce’s Ulysses is by contrast a book of life. 

Published in 1922, Ulysses is one of the most revered of novels; “the book to which we are all indebted” according to TS Eliot. It is Joyce’s reconstruction of Dublin, through memory, which has become a national Irish epic. Set over the course of a single day — 16 June 1904 — the day of Joyce’s first date with Nora Barnacle, Ulysses is a tribute to his lifelong partner.

Structured to mirror the episodes of Homer’s Odyssey, the novel contains all of life, from the quotidian (daily) to the sublime. Catholicism, bar room song, toilet habits, philosophy, horse racing, infidelity, advertising slogans, gossip, sex and death all appear between its covers. Some said it was ‘not fit to read’. “If that is so”, said Joyce, “life’s not fit to live”. 

Ulysses gives readers three major characters and — with its Modernist style — access to their inner worlds. In Stephen and Bloom Joyce gives us youth and experience, intellect and practicality in attempt to marry those opposites. And yes, Molly gives us the second most famous soliloquy in literature.

You are invited to read the novel, chapter by chapter, whether it be your first time or a re-reading. Led by Ulysses enthusiast Jim Stanton, readers will discuss each chapter as a group, in a comfortable setting. Together you will build a democratic understanding of a democratic novel, in the knowledge that the more you each put into your understanding, research and openness to the language, the more you’ll gain collectively. Though each may read in isolation, the group will gain from a collaborative reading of Joyce’s unsurpassable novel.

The group will meet monthly on the fourth Monday of the month, through until Oct 2026. New paperback copies of Ulysses can be bought on Amazon for £3.99.

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Scotland Road Walking Tour

This 2-hour walk through the former heartland of Liverpool’s Irish community considers schools, statues and graveyards.

It explores what remains of the area’s rich heritage, rousing some old ghosts along the way.

Led by historian Greg Quiery, this walk explores the dense history of a world-famous district. Featuring stories of heroic men and women; footballers and rock stars; two hidden statues; a graveyard and the legends of ‘Dandy Pat’ and James Carling. The walk ends at St Anthony’s Church, a short bus ride from town.

Those interested in this walk, may also be interested in the in-person South Liverpool walk (see event listing and book early to avoid disappointment) or the self-guided Liverpool Irish Famine Trail liverpoolirishfaminetrail.com, accompanied by the Festival’s books Revive and Reveal, available online at liverpoolirishfestival.com/shop.

This in an outdoor walk in October; please be weather prepared, comfortable and hydrated.

Ticket holders should join Greg outside Liverpool Central Library ready for the walk start time.

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South Liverpool walking tour

On this 2-hour walk you’ll discover Irish connections to many of the historic Hope Street and Rodney Street buildings, hearing from some of the colourful characters who populated them.

Led by historian Greg Quiery, early booking is recommended to avoid disappointment.

Anyone interested in this may also like the in-person Scotland Road walk (see event listing) or the self-guided Liverpool Irish Famine Trail liverpoolirishfaminetrail.com, accompanied by the Festival’s books Revive and Reveal, available online at liverpoolirishfestival.com/shop.

This is an outdoor walk in October; please be weather prepared, comfortable and hydrated. 

Ticket holders should join Greg at the Liverpool Irish Famine memorial in the garden of St Luke’s Bombed Out Church for the walk start time.

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The History of Art

Join Dr Anna Maddison to learn the history of Art using examples from The Atkinson’s collection.

3 Sessions: Thursday 11/18/25 September. 11am – 1pm.

The Atkinson’s collection has works of art dating from the 17th to the 21st centuries and is currently concentrating on collecting more contemporary art.

Highlights of the 20th century collection include several paintings by Walter Sickert and fellow members of the Camden Town School such as Charles Ginner as well as paintings by Scottish Colourists, namely Arthur Melville, JD Fergusson and Samuel Peploe. Key works from World War I include a painting of a mounted trooper by Alfred Munnings and a battle scarred landscape by Paul Nash. The collection of 20th century British sculpture is small but very high quality and includes good examples by Henry Moore, Elisabeth Frink and Jacob Epstein.

These sessions will also be looking at a number of works currently on display as part of The Atkinson’s 150th Anniversary Exhibition.

 

Tony Birtill memorial lecture/ Léacht bliaintiúl in Tomós Antón Birtill

Conradh na Gaeilge Learpholl, in partnership with the Liverpool Irish Festival, are pleased to present the annual Tony Birtill Lecture.

On 21 Oct 2021, Liverpool (and Ireland) lost a great Irish Language supporter; Tony Birtill. He made an invaluable contribution to the conservation, promotion and teaching of the Irish language on Merseyside for over 30 years. A Gaeilgeoir (fluent Irish speaker) and walking enthusiast, Tony was also a keen historian and language activist. His widely acclaimed book Liverpool – A Hidden History gives a very incisive insight into the lives and living conditions of Irish emigrants living in Liverpool in the aftermath of the Great Famine (1845-1852).

This year’s memorial lecture is in two parts and will be delivered by local historian Greg Quiery and Dr. Eoghan Ahern from the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies. Greg’s talk will be about the establishment of the Great Hunger commemoration memorial in the gardens of St Luke’s Bombed Out Church in 1998 and Dr. Ahern’s talk will be about the impact of the Famine on the Irish language. Join us to hear to Greg Quiery and Dr. Ahern deliver two most interesting talks.

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