Celebration of Hopkins' work

The Annual Monasterevin Hopkins Festival takes place on the weekend of July 29 and 30, at Moore Abbey, celebrating the life and work of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Hopkins (1844 – 1889) was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and a Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame established him among the leading Victorian poets. His experimental explorations in prosody and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator.

The festival begins on Friday, July 29, with the inaugural lecture taking place at 7.30pm by Dr R.K.R. (Kelsey) Thornton, co-editor of The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Then at 8.30pm, in the Moore Abbey Concert, local singer Emer Dunne will sing from her wide repertoire including a selection of classical, contemporary, gospel, and traditional.

Saturday’s packed schedule begins at 10am with a lecture by Ms Niamh Brown on ‘Hopkins’s Energetic Anxiety’, before Dr Anne-Marie Millim gives a lecture on ‘Productive Emotion in Hopkins’s Diary’ at 11.30am. After lunch, at 2pm there will be a lecture from Professor Brian Cosgrove on ‘From Dawn to Dusk: Versions of Nature in Hopkins and Thomas Hardy’.

After this paper, depart for Monasterevin House, where Hopkins spent vacations as a guest of the Cassidy family, for a poetry reading by Richard Halperin.

Then at 4pm, participants will be invited to read their favourite Hopkins poem, before the festival concludes at 4.30pm with a poetry reading by Kate Dempsey and Paddy Bushe.