IN CONVERSATION | Keith Ridgway and Patrick Freyne on Dooneen

We are delighted to welcome Keith Ridgway for a discussion on his original new novel, Dooneen. Join us as Dooneen takes us into a strangely timeless Dublin alive with song, rumour, ghosts, and an unmistakable sense of isurgency… Keith Ridgway will be in conversation with Patrick Freyne, author of Experts in a Dying Field. All are welcome to attend.

Attendance is free but booking is essential.

PRAISE FOR DOONEEN

“It has an immersive quality that is hard to shake once you’ve emerged - and Ridgway’s line-by-line writing is as good as ever…. But where the book stands out most is Ridgway’s writing about love…. [W]hat Dooneen leaves us with, after its eccentricities and unfathomables, is a simple understanding, as expressed by Philip Larkin - that what will survive of us is love.” - John Self, The Times

“The powerfully imagined world of Dooneen is a telling testimony not only to Ridgway’s compulsive interest in the possibilities of creative prose but also to the capacity of great writing to bear witness to the corrosive cant of the entitled and the subversive decencies of the maligned.” - Michael Cronin, Irish Times

“There’s a Kafkaesque quality to his bewilderment in these mordantly funny early scenes where everything feels charged with foreboding… ingenious.” - Rory Kiberd, Irish Independent

ABOUT

KEITH RIDGWAY is the author of The Long Falling , which won both the 2001 Prix Femina Etranger and Premier Roman Etranger. His collection of stories Standard Time won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. His second novel, The Parts , alongside his novella, Horses , was short-listed for the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award 2003. His novel, A Shock (2021), was shortlisted for the 2021 Goldsmith Prize and was awarded the 2022 James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. His new novel, Dooneen , will be published in 2026/7. He lives in London.

PATRICK FREYNE is a short story writer, novelist, essayist and journalist based in Dublin. He is a feature writer with the Irish Times and he has won the Critic of the Year award at the NewsBrands Ireland Journalism Awards three times. His work has also appeared in The Dublin Review and Banshee. His first book of essays, OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea , was published by Penguin and was subsequently longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize in 2021. Experts in a Dying Field is his first novel.