Brigidsfest on Tour: Berlin 6th February 2026

The Embassy and Consulates General of Ireland in Germany, in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Munich, present…

Brigidsfest 2026 – Authors on Tour

Brigidsfest, the popular Irish literary festival hosted yearly at the Embassy of Ireland in partnership with Literature Ireland has been growing since the inaugural Brigid meets Berlin in 2019. This year authors will go on tour! Starting from the Consulate General in Munich, writers will travel to the Consulate General in Frankfurt and finish in the Embassy in Berlin, presenting and discussing their new works.

The Brigidsfest tour will take place in Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin from the 3rd – 6th February featuring authors Vona Groarke, Wendy Erskine, Cathy Sweeney, Katriona O’Sullivan and Patricia Forde (please note variations in line-ups through the individual event links).

This Eventbrite is for tickets for the Berlin event on 6th February 2026.

Berlin – 6th February 2026

18:00-20:00

Cathy Sweeney

Cathy Sweeney is a writer from Dublin Ireland. In 2020 her collection of short stories, Modern Times, was published by The Stinging Fly Press in Dublin and by W&N in London. It was translated into Italian and published by Il Saggiatore in Milan. Her debut novel, Breakdown, was published by W&N in January 2024. It was translated into Dutch and published by Zwartjes & Labović in Rotterdam. A German translation is forthcoming with Dörlemann Verlag. Cathy is represented by Matthew Turner at RCW and is supported by The Arts Council of Ireland.

Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke is an Irish poet. She has published fifteen books, including nine collections of poetry with the Gallery Press, most recently Infinity Pool, shortlisted for the 2025 T.S. Eliot Prize.

Hereafter: The Telling Life of Ellen O’Hara – a poetic account of Irish women domestic servants in 1890s New York, which arose out of her time as a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library 2018-19, won the 2024 Michel Déon Award.

Her Selected Poems was awarded the 2017 Piggott Prize for Best Irish Poetry Collection. Recent poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry (Chicago), The Poetry Review, New York Review of Books, and the TLS.

2017 recipient of the Irish Literary Hall of Fame Award, she is a member of Aosdána, (Irish Academy of the Arts), and of the U.K.’s Royal Society of Literature.

Former editor of Poetry Ireland Review and poetry critic for the Irish Times, she is Writer in Residence at St John’s College, Cambridge (2022-26), and has recently been inaugurated as Ireland Professor of Poetry (2025-28).

Wendy Erskine

Wendy Erskine is a Northern Irish author and full-time secondary school English teacher known for her acclaimed short story collections and debut novel. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has won several awards for her writing.

Wendy Erskine’s first collection, Sweet Home (2018), published by Stinging Fly/Picador was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award (‘Inakeen’). Her second short story collection, Dance Move (2022), also published by The Stinging Fly Press and Picador, was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and received the Edge Hill Readers' Choice Award.

Her debut novel, The Benefactors (2025), published by Sceptre, explores themes of money, status, and class in a polyphonic style. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the An Post Book Awards.

*This event will be photographed and filmed.

*Valid photo ID is required.

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Host or Publisher Embassy of Ireland, Germany