LIMERICK is set to celebrate its dark side as the city will host Ireland’s first major gothic conference and festival from October 22 to 25.
The ‘Locating the Gothic’ conference and festival will celebrate Limerick itself as a gothic location.
With its fascinating, gory, and gothic mix of history, literature, art, and folklore, Limerick enlivens the gothic imagination with tales of battles and sieges, river monsters, ghosts, cannibalism and a long-standing city curse.
The festival is the brainchild of Maria Beville, English lecturer at Mary Immaculate College, and Tracy Fahey, head of Fine Art and Postgraduate Studies at Limerick School of Art and Design, who first met at the ‘Studies in Gothic Fiction’ conference in San Diego in 2012.
“It’s amazing how receptive people have been in the city,” says Tracy Fahey.
“We’re so happy to be organising the first large gothic conference and festival in the country, and grateful for the help we have received from Limerick City of Culture 2014, and our colleges, LSAD and MIC, to get a chance to put Limerick on the international gothic stage.”
The programme includes a two-day international conference as well as a number of cultural, social and artistic events such as a performance of Conor McPherson’s ‘The Weir’ and an evening of Gothic chant.
Events will also include ghost tours, a play, films, horror writing workshops, a zombie walk, Day of the Dead printmaking, exhibitions, and a book launch.
See www.locatingthegothic.weebly.com for more information, or follow ‘Locating the Gothic’ at www.facebook.com/locatingthegothic.
