April 2023

The 2023 Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend takes place from Thursday, 27th April to Sunday, 30th April in Dugort on Achill Island.

Heinrich Boll was born in Germany in 1917. He lived and worked in Achill, residing in a cottage in the village of Dugort.

A local committee, the Heinrich Boll Foundation in Germany, the Boll Family and Mayo County Council maintain the cottage and administer the residency programme.

The event will include lectures, guided walks, poetry readings and writing seminars.

Thursday 27th April

• “A Kind of Scar? In the Footsteps of Eavan Boland” in St. Thomas’ Hall, Dugort, from 8.00 pm.

Friday 28th April

• Official Opening, St. Thomas’s Hall, Dugort. From 6.30 pm and registration
• Chairperson’s Opening Address Dr Kathleen Smyth, at 7.30 pm.
• Official opening, Address by Ambassador Cord Meier-Klodt, German Ambassador to Ireland
• Micheal O’Briain: Achill’s rich natural heritage, a valuable link in the special places for biodiversity in Europe at 8.00 pm.
• Art O’ Suilleabhain. Dánta grá-grá don saol, don naúr agus don duina, with translations.

Saturday 29th April

• Guided Walk in Landscape with Micheál O’Briain at ****10 am, meeting point at Achill Rovers F.C. Pitch, The Valley.
• “Climate Change, Coastal Erosion and Achill”
• Heinrich Böll Cottage open to the public from 2 pm to 5 pm
• Writers seminar with Mary O’Malley in St Thomas’s Hall, Dugort, at 2 pm
• Environmental Panel Discussion in St Thomas’s Hall, Dugort, at 3 pm.
• Reading by Judith Mok, The State of Dark in St Thomas’s Hall, Dugort, at 5 pm.
• Reading by Roman Ehrlich in St Thomas’s Hall, Dugort, at 8 pm.
• Discussion; Joyce/Böll Europeans St Thomas’s Hall, Dugort, at 9 pm.

Sunday 30th April

• Guided Walk in Landscape with Eoin Halpin at 10 am
• Reading: Eoghan Daltun, An Irish Atlantic Rainforest at 2 pm
• Reading from Achill Writers Groups, Music by Laoise Kelly, Diarmuid Gielty and John Butler at 3 pm.