Celebrating the work of Michael Longley: Hosted by Paul Muldoon

Join Belfast Book Festival Patron Paul Muldoon to celebrate the work of the late poet Michael Longley. 

Paul will host a series of readings of Michael’s work, spanning the decades of his career. He will be joined by Susannah Dickey, Bernard MacLaverty, James Conor Patterson and Frances Tomelty. 

The readings will be followed by a drinks reception. 

Born in Belfast in 1939, Michael Longley studied classics at Trinity College Dublin and published his first collection No Continuing City in 1969. He published thirteen poetry collections, including Angel Hill (2017), The Candlelight Master (2020), The Slain Birds (2022) and his New Selected: Ash Keys (2024). His work received many awards, including the T.S. Eliot Prize, the PEN Pinter Prize and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

Paul Muldoon is the author of fifteen collections of poetry, including Moy Sand and Gravel, for which he received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Among his other awards are the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 2003 Griffin Prize, the 2015 Pigott Prize, and the 2017 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Born in County Armagh in 1951, he has lived since 1987 in the United States, where he is the Howard G. B. Clark Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. In 2022 he was appointed Ireland Professor of Poetry.

Susannah Dickey is a writer from Derry. Her debut poetry collection, ISDAL, was published in 2023 by Picador. It won the inaugural PEN Heaney Poetry Prize, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the John Pollard Prize, and was an Irish Times and The Guardian Book of the Year. Her third novel will be published in 2026 by Bloomsbury. 

Bernard MacLaverty was born and reared in Belfast but now lives in Glasgow. He has published six collections of short stories and five novels, the latest of which, Midwinter Break, won Novel of the Year in the Irish Book Awards 2017 and the Eason Book Club Novel of the Year. Glasgow’s Sunday Herald awarded him Writer of the Year in 2018. He has written versions of his fiction for other media - radio plays, television plays, screenplays, libretti for Scottish Opera. He is a member of Aosdana. 

James Conor Patterson is a poet from the north of Ireland. His debut collection bandit country (Picador) received an Eric Gregory Award in 2019 and was nominated for the TS Eliot Prize, the John Pollard International Poetry Prize and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize in 2023. He has worked as a books critic for RTÉ and currently makes his living as Digital Editor for The Irish Post.

Frances Tomelty is the daughter of Ulster Actor and Playwright Joseph Tomelty. She has played leading roles at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and The Royal Shakespeare, Royal National and Royal Court Theatres. She loves Radio and favourite broadcasts include Dr. Faustus and the series How Does That Make You Feel?. Her extensive TV appearances include Stewart Parker’s Catchpenny Twist, Iris and Ruby and Blue Money, as well as Catastrophe, Peaky Blinders, Silent Witness, All Creatures Great and Small and The Woman in the Wall. Upcoming appearances include Outlander, Karen Pirie and Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Monroe.