Cúirt International Festival of Literature, Galway Ireland

In April 2026, I attended the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway, whose theme, Finding the Words, explored the ways writers shape how we see the world, what we notice, and what matters most. 

Galway’s superb literary venues in Old Town are hard to beat. The medieval bones lay bare in front of you as I strolled from the Town Hall Theatre to the intimate Mick Lally Theatre on Druid Lane, once a former tea storehouse in one of the city’s oldest quarters, gathering writers, actors, comedians and readers in a celebration of language, storytelling and of course, the joy and sorrow of human complexities. 

At the Town Hall Theatre, I secured third-row seats to Alan Davies in conversation with Jan Carson about White Male Stand-Up, his candid follow-up to Just Ignore Him, tracing fame, comedy, family history, and the lingering echoes of childhood trauma. 

Ardal O’Hanlon (pictured left), a well-known Irish actor (Father Ted), comedian and author of A Plot to Die For, kept the entire room laughing with his Irish-set mystery of a Tidy Towns rivalry, family entanglement and murder in the small-town Abbeyford. 

In the black box of the Mick Lally Theatre, talented Galway-based authors Edel Coffey (pictured with me, left) and Mary Costello discussed their latest novels: Edel’s propulsive thriller In Glass Houses and Mary’s profound, heart-wrenching A Beautiful Loan. 

I only wish I had also been able to hear Liz Nugent speak about The Truth About Ruby Cooper, as her unsettling new novel tops the charts. Her themes were similar to The Past Still Breathes: family secrets, addiction, rupture, and the way one event can reverberate across decades. But W. B. Yeats’ country was calling, and so too were Connemara, County Mayo, and the rugged northern sweep of the Wild Atlantic Way.

I have just finished Edel Coffey’s In Her Place, another razor-sharp New York thriller, and am now about to begin In Glass Houses, partly because I’m so familiar with the city’s landscape and capers. There is a reason she is the most celebrated crime writer in Ireland!

In between a glass of Guinness or two …

At Marsh’s Library in Dublin, the past sits silently amongst its oak shelves. I spent quite some time perusing the rare manuscripts, marveling at the caged reading areas (designed so people couldn’t steal books) and wandering along the corridors of the hushed rooms of Ireland’s oldest public library.

Its “Gulliver 300” exhibition caught my eye for a very special reason, not only because it honoured three centuries of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels — a masterpiece of satire, scale and human absurdity that is still relevant in its teachings today. For me, it will always be a favourite childhood book - one I remember my dad reading aloud to me long before I understood the author’s brilliance and wit..

During my time in Ireland, I followed the literary thread north-west. Poet W. B. Yeats’ country was calling. I drove 1600km through Ireland, from Connemara, County Mayo, and the wild northern reaches of the Atlantic coast in Sligo and then south through the Burren, to Cork and back up to Kildare and Dublin.

Ireland was always for me about the Lit Fest, and never just a place to launch and sell The Past Still Breathes. Instead it became one long, beautiful conversation — rich with laughter, kindness and sharp Irish intelligence that will, without question, wander straight into my next book.

Kirstyn Lewis on Radio Starr Belfast

In conversation with radio host Hamish Beaton, I reflected on some of the songs that defined my life, the writing of my debut memoir, institutional power, coercive control, silence, and, of course, its effect on our mental health.

Special thanks go out to Sinéad Green, Éabha Campbell, and Hamish Beaton on Radio Starr, the Belfast platform broadcasting from the Oh Yeah Music Centre / Cathedral Quarter orbit, with a strong emphasis on independent music, culture, women, non-binary and underrepresented voices. Recorded in their Belfast studio, April 2026.

This summer, The Past Still Breathes begins its American journey in New York. I’ll be taking the memoir into book clubs, podcasts, women’s gatherings and intimate conversations across the USA — a self-funded tour shaped by story, courage and connection. Dates coming soon.