by Rose Rushe
“The legion is here! It’s in the bag” – Duc de Magenta, 1859
IT is a fortuitous milestone. 30 years as “a weekend festival organised by readers for readers”, and this Kate O’Brien Weekend is early excitement for City of Culture year.
Proper order that funds filtered in to bring the 2014 event to four days and two bases, operating out of 69 O’Connell Street and Lime Tree Theatre.
It is also rechristened as The Limerick Literary Festival to reflect status. The line out is mighty: Saturday February 22 alone will see the individual power of husband and wife writers Claire Tomalin and Michael Frayn, Irish starpower in Frank McGuinness, Anne Enright and Prix de l’Europe winner Peter Cunningham; Costa Award nominee Selina Guinness, Professor Elaine Fox and our Laureate na nÓG, Siobhan Parkinson.
In February last year at the launch in O’Mahony’s Booksellers, City of Culture board members Pat Cox and Bill Whelan were supportive, especially in the light of wife Denise Whelan’s service on the O’Brien committee. In a twist befitting a novel, the Whelans had bought O’Brien’s former Roundstone home a long time ago for respite.
The tight committee has hooked Amélie de Mac-Mahon, Duchess of Magenta to launch the 30th celebration on Thursday February 20 (magenta being the colour of Limerick’s Culture designation).
Marie Hackett, a French woman herself and key to the Kate O’Brien project for a dozen years, explains the Duchess’ Limerick connection.
“Her lineage is fascinating, really. At the time of the Treaty of Limerick 1690, young Catholics found themselves dispossessed of land and many went overseas, to Bordeaux especially. Jean-Baptiste de Mac-Mahon went to Burgundy where he studied medicine and married into the nobility”.
Reader, flick forward generations to his grandson General Patrice Maurice de Mac-Mahon becoming third president of France, a great war hero and royalist. “Having distinguished himself in the Battle of Sedan [and Magenta, Italy], Napolean III gave him the title Duke of Magenta”.
Forward centuries again to: “The 4th Duke of Magenta came to Limerick in 1992 and University of Limerick gave him an honorary doctorate. It is his wife, Amélie de Mac-Mahon and her son Maurice, the fifth Duke who are coming to Limerick to open this literary festival”.
As the venerable General said at the Battle, “The legion is here! It’s in the bag”.
What a coup for this persevering committee, along with literary lions such as Michael Longley. There’s international resonance from Finghin Collins at a Lime Tree Theatre recital and Edna O’Brien introducing her latest on Sunday February 23. She will be in conversation of Mike Murphy who presented RTE television’s ‘The Arts Show’.
Read all about it on www.limerickliteraryfestival.com, source of tickets for host venues.
