Impressive line-up announced for John Hewitt International Summer School for 2023

The John Hewitt Society is delighted to announce that it is returning to the Market Place Theatre and Arts Centre Armagh for a full week’s culture and creativity, entertainment and discussion.

This year’s John Hewitt International Summer School will take place on July 24-29 with the theme, “The State we’re in: Back to the future”, inspired by Hewitt’s 1958 poem “An Irishman in Coventry”.

The poem memorably reads: “A full year since I took this eager city, / the tolerance that laced its blatant roar…/…as image of the state hope argued for…”

Commenting on the theme, Tony Kennedy, chair of the John Hewitt Society said: “Hewitt saw his move to the English midlands in the 1950s to establish the Herbert Museum, Coventry as a realisation of the society he’d argued for, with the values he saw as progress – free education, health and welfare, reduced social and financial inequality, greater diversity and mutual tolerance, and strong support for the arts in a city twinned with Dresden, Germany, both icons of peace, reconciliation and progress towards European unity.”

He continued: “With that post-war consensus broken down and the rejection of the European ideal, an increase in inequality and poverty, renewed inflation, and a land war raging in Europe, we will hope during the week to explore how we can find a way forward towards Hewitt’s optimism of 60 years ago. Can poets, playwrights, artists and activists take us to that ‘state of hope’?”

The opening talk will be delivered by Bobby McDonagh, former Irish ambassador to the UK, with other speakers featuring Professor Jon Tonge, Dr Olena Snigyr from Ukraine, a Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies in Florence, Owen Reidy, General Secretary of the ICTU, and Dr Connal Parr.

Armagh writer Stuart Neville will host the Crime Fiction Special with international bestselling writers Lee Child and Andrew Child both participating.

Other celebrated authors featured this year include Joseph O’Connor, Denise Mina, playwright Frank McGuiness, Billy O’Callaghan, Caleb Azumah Nelson, and Sarah Moss. Belfast author Jan Carson will host a discussion with debut novelists, Priscilla Morris and Michael McGee.

Neil Hegarty, co-editor of the recent No Alibis Press collection of essays, “Impermanence”, will chair a discussion with contributors Jan Carson, Susan McKay and Nandi Jola.

The strong poetry programme includes Frank McGuinness, Will Harris, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Gail McConnell, Michael McKimm, Maureen Boyle and Emma Must.

The Summer School will include two panels - the Slugger O’Toole blog panel chaired by Alan Meban featuring Megan Fearon, Lee Reynolds, and Jon Tonge, and a panel discussing women’s contributions to society with Monica McWilliams, Bronagh Hinds, Bethany Moore and Fionola Meredith.

Evening entertainment will include music by Irish trad/folk musician Jack Warnock in concert, along with two plays – Fishamble Theatre Company’s production of “KING”, starring Pat Kinevane, and “Becoming Marvellous” with Cathy Carson.

As usual there will be creative writing classes, three of which are supported by the Open University. These help to develop new generations of aspiring writers, some of whom will give readings during a showcase event at the end of the Summer School.

The Visual Arts is always an important element of the line-up and this year there will be an exhibition of paintings by Vikkie Patterson, “Hell or High Water”, in the Market Place Gallery, and “The Yellow Houses of Budapest”, an exhibition of photographs by Armagh born Nigel Swann, on display on the Foyer Walls.

Dr Joseph McBrinn, a lecturer at Ulster University, will give a talk on the relationship between the painter John Luke and the poet John Hewitt.

Full details of the programme are available at johnhewittsociety.org.