Writer and artist Sara Baume covers wide ground in this spellbinding audio-visual essay.

Ultimately, it’s a show about our obsessions and passions – the multitude of rituals that fill our daily lives with meaning.

The Alphabet of Birds is the second stage show from arts magazine and production company Holy Show, generously supported by The Arts Council of Ireland and the Western Development Commission.

Writer: Sara Baume
Musicians: Howlbux – Irene Buckley and Elaine Howley
Featured Artists: Natalia Beylis, Gary Coyle, Laura Fitzgerald
Films Director: Jamie Goldrick
Creative Director: Brendan Mac Evilly

The Alphabet of Birds Trailer

IASIL22 at Belltable

The annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures comes to the University of Limerick in the week of 25^th July 2022, for the second time in its 52-year history. The largest professional organisation in the field, the conference brings together Irish studies scholars from all over the world, with Brazilian and Japanese, as well as European and North American universities particularly well represented.

This year’s conference theme “Intersectional Irelands” speaks not only to the growing diversity of Irish literary research but to the rapid changes in Irish culture and society in recent decades: http://www.iasil.org/2021/10/cfp-iasil-2022-intersectional-irelands-university-of-limerick-25-29-july-2022-uni-of-limerick/ It is particularly apt that our conference this year is held in Limerick, a city that prides itself on its diversity and the strength of local community solidarities.

Keynote speakers at the conference, whose research on topics including early modern Ireland, multiracial representations in Irish cinema, Jews in Irish literature, and postcolonial literatures in France and Northern Ireland, reflect different elements of the multi-cultural and multi-lingual society we inhabit and study today. Throughout the week, contributions from an impressive programme of contemporary Irish writers including Sara Baume, Blindboy Boatclub, Sarah Clancy, Helena Close, Emily Cullen, Felispeaks, William Keohane, Rosaleen McDonagh, and Donal Ryan, will amplify these ideas.

Our approach to reading 21^st-century Ireland is illuminated by The Alphabet of Birds, an intersectional production in both form and content. Combining the narrative virtuosity of Sara Baume, alongside creative practioners in film and the visual arts and a live score from Howlbux, this presentation from Holy Show Productions might have been designed with our conference in mind.

We are delighted to have the support of Belltable and University of Limerick Arts Office in bringing this event to our international conference audience and to a wider Limerick public – we look forward to seeing you there on the night!