The impact of the first World War and the 1916 Rising on the Aran Islands is the theme of this year’s Liam and Tom O’Flaherty Festival which opens on Inis Mór on August 27th.
Historian and former Irish Press editor Tim Pat Coogan will give the keynote speech at the weekend festival,which will be opened by Patrick Pearse's grand-nephew Fearghas Mac Lochlainn.
The festival is held in memory of writer Liam O’Flaherty and his brother, Tom, also a writer and a left-wing activist and polemicist in North America.
The programme includes an interpretation in Irish of Liam O'Flaherty's last novel, Insurrection, performed by Máirín Mhic Lochlainn and Aisteoirí Chois Fharraige.
Liam O'Flaherty's experiences as a soldier in the first World War will be recalled with a reading in English of his short story, The Discarded Soldier.Tom O'Flaherty's short story, Na Líonta. Ar Círín na Breachlainne Móire (The Nets. On the Crest of Breachlainne Móire) will be read, and the Aran Drama Youth Group will present an award-winning sketch, Comóradh Fir Chróga 1916 (Celebrating the Brave Men of 1916).
Broadcaster Seosamh Ó Cuaig will discuss where the O’Flaherty brothers were in 1916, and how the Aran Islands were at the time.
