Irish Writers' Weekend: People in Time and Place

Louise Kennedy and Rosaleen McDonagh in conversation with Wendy Erskine.

In her new novel Stations, the follow up to the international best-selling and British Book Award winner Trespasses, Louise Kennedy follows her young cast back and forth from Belfast to London in the 1980s and over the decades that follow. A story of displacement, stretched loyalties and loss, which is ‘at its heart a love story, a furious, tender, potty-mouthed paean to loyalty and generosity of spirit.’ And in Contentious Spaces, by Irish Traveller activist and playwright Rosaleen McDonagh, we meet the families trying to stay united as they navigate an unknown future, in a story about identity and loyalty, shame and resilience, grief and love, and voices that refuse to be silenced.

Chaired by Wendy Erskine, author of Dance Move and The Benefactors: brilliant polyphonic stories of ordinary people through an extraordinary lens.

Part of the British Library Irish Writers' Weekend 2026.

Her acclaimed short-story collection, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac, won the John McGahern Prize. Her debut novel Trespasses has been translated into over twenty languages. A Sunday Times bestseller, it won Eason Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, Book of the Year for Debut Fiction at the British Book Awards and the McKitterick Prize. It was also shortlisted for several awards including the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize. In 2025, Trespasses was made into a limited TV series by Channel 4. Before starting her writing career, Kennedy spent nearly thirty years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo.