The Facebook page of the Listowel Writer’s Week is asking for stories of the annual literary event in North Kerry. Here’s my post:

Last year, visiting family in North Kerry, my wife and I attended Paul Durcan’s 1 June reading at the Arms Hotel. The lovely Feale shimmered outside the ballroom window behind the poet as he read “On the First Day of June.” He said, “In Cork and Kerry/On the first day of June on the island of Ireland/Through the black rain the sun shone.” It was magical, of course, and afterward I really didn’t mind the 30-minute queue to have Durcan sign his book for my wife while she and the cousins secured a corner of the pub. The magic was just beginning!