LISMORE FESTIVAL:THE EXPLORERS Ranulph Fiennes and Tim Severin are the keynote speakers at this year's Immrama travel-writing festival, in Lismore, Co Waterford, next month.
Now in its eighth year, the festival will also premiere a documentary on Lismore's own Dervla Murphy, Ireland's most successful travel writer. Who Is Dervla Murphy?features a rare interview with the author, now in her late seventies.
Garret Daly of Mixed Bag Media, which commissioned the film with Waterford County Council, described Murphy as an enigma in the publishing world. “She doesn’t accept advances on her books, leaving her to write what she wants, when she wants. The film explores what makes this successful author the strong individual Irish woman she is, who broke through the parameters of her times to set off around the world in search of something different.”
Fiennes, who hosts a presentation on June 12th, holds several endurance records; he also climbed Mount Everest at the age of 65. He has written 18 books, including a bestselling autobiography.
Severin has written award-winning books about his many travel adventures, which include sailing a leather boat across the Atlantic (see Manchán Magan, back page), captaining an Arab sailing ship from Muscat to China and steering a replica galley along the route taken by Jason and the Argonauts.
Other highlights of the festival, which runs from June 10th to 13th, include appearances by the travel writers Jan Morris, Pico Iyer and Damien Lewis.
* lismoreimmrama.com
