Louise Kennedy | Trespasses
Fri 6 Mar 2026 | 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Hot on the heels of the TV adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s hugely successful debut novel Trespasses, set in 70s Belfast, we’re delighted to welcome her to the stage to discuss her award-winning book alongside fellow Sligo resident Vona Groarke, a poet, Ireland Professor of Poetry, and writer in residence at St John’s College, Cambridge.
About the book:
There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever. As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead. In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like ‘petrol bomb’ and ‘rubber bullets’. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together. Trespasses is an unforgettable debut of people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times.
In conversation with Vona Groarke.
Venue: Pembroke Auditorium (Pembroke College)
Duration: 1 hour
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Author Biography
Louise Kennedy is the award-winning author of acclaimed short story collection The End of the World is a Cul de Sac. Her stories have appeared in journals ranging from the Stinging Fly to Wasifiri and she has also written for the Guardian, Irish Times, BBC Radio 4 and RTE Radio 1. Louise Kennedy was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Audible short Story Award in both 2019 and 2020. Just a few of Louise’s accolades for Trespasses include winning the McKitterick Prize 2023, the British Book Award for Debut Fiction 2023, the An Post Irish Book Award for Novel of the Year in 2022, and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023. Before starting her writing career, she spent nearly 30 years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo.
Chair Biography
Vona Groarke has published fourteen books with The Gallery Press, including nine original poetry collections, and two translations from the Irish, most recently Woman of Winter (2023), a version of the much-loved Irish poem usually known in English as, ‘The Lament of the Hag of Beare’. She published Hereafter: the Telling Life of Ellen O’Hara with New York University Press (2022). A Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library 2018-19; former editor of Poetry Ireland Review and selector for the UK’s Poetry Book Society, she has taught at the University of Manchester since 2007. She is the current Writer in Residence at St John’s College, Cambridge, and otherwise lives in Co. Sligo in the West of Ireland.
