The countdown has begun to the second North Belfast Festival – Look North!
Look North takes place from Friday 24 Feb – Sunday 26 Feb with an intensive weekend programme of over 40 events and activities taking place over one weekend!
The Festival is all about celebrating North Belfast’s rich cultural heritage and the wealth of creativity to have emerged from that part of the city.
The Look North 2023 Festival Programme includes local authors such as Geraldine Connan, who with her mother Beryl has penned the acclaimed generation spanning memoir The Russian The Russian Tailor of Belfast. Malachi O’Doherty will be in conversation with Duncan Morrow about his book Can Ireland Be One? Local journalism legend Jim McDowell leads a panel discussing “The Rise and Fall of Belfast’s Fleet Street”. There are guided cultural tours around some of North Belfast’s most iconic landmarks such as Belfast Orange Hall, the Carlisle Circus church that houses the Indian Community Centre, Clifton Street Cemetery, and a very special tour that takes participants back through the years around the historic area of Belfast’s Sailortown.
There is live music, debate, screenings and creative writing workshops in some of the most evocative venues in the city of Belfast, including The American Bar, St Joseph’s Church, Clifton House and Duncairn Arts Centre.
Literary panels including “Celebrating the Short Story” (featuring Wendy Erskine and Anne Devlin), on the subject of Anna Burn’s seminal novel “MIlkman” (with Jan Carson) and Bernard Laverty’s “Blank Pages and Other Stories (led by Paul McVeigh). Look North also presents a very special event celebrating The Women of North Belfast with Dr Myrtle Hill. Our resident poet Niamh McNally has also written a specially commissioned poem in homage to North Belfast which she will premier at a John Hewitt inspired Poetry event at Cassidys Bar.
Elsewhere a packed programme includes talks, walks, workshops, poetry, song, crime fiction and the Look North! Short Story Awards.
Lord Mayor of Belfast Tina Black says that Look North was a festival for “all of the city and beyond”
“Everyone is welcome at these genuinely inclusive events, taking place in no fewer than 19 venues, including the beautiful Duncairn Centre and the stunning Ulster University campus. I’d like to congratulate all the festival partners led by the John Hewitt Society, with input from many individuals and community, voluntary and church groups. It’s wonderful to see what we can achieve when we work together and truly collaborate.”
For full programme details and further information, go to www.northbelfastfestival.com
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