Folkloric influence, storytelling traditions, and Irish Traveller writing

10 October, 17.00-18.00

Irish writing has deep roots in oral storytelling traditions dating back over 1,000 years. Many of those stories are folkloric, focusing on faeries, tricksters, and other fantastical beings. These elements and tropes also appear in Irish Traveller tales and writing—stories passed down in a community and group of people that are integral to Irish culture, who have also experienced discrimination and othering.

In his latest book Twiggy Woman, author Oein DeBhairduin has collected ghost stories rooted in the oral tradition of the Irish Traveller community. Like a flickering lamp, these eerie tales illuminate the threads between our mundane outer lives and the mysterious, wild and spooky visions of our inner worlds.

Local author Jean Kavanagh will lead a conversation with Oein about his writing and how Irish literature has been impacted and influenced by folklore, oral storytelling, and Irish Travellers.

Books by all the authors and panelists will be for sale throughout the festival.

Oein DeBhairduin is a creative soul with a passion for poetry, folk herbalism and preserving the beauty of Traveller tales, sayings, retellings and historic exchanges. He is the manager of an education centre and a long-time board member of several Mincéirí community groups, including having had the honour of being vice-chair of the Irish Traveller Movement and a council member of Mincéir Whidden. He seeks to pair community activism with cultural celebration, recalling old tales with fresh modern connections and, most of all, he wishes to rekindle the hearth fires of a shared kinship.

Jean Kavanagh is an Irish poet living in Oslo, Norway. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Irish Folklore and English Literature from UCD in Dublin, and a Master’s degree in Indigenous Studies from UiT, the Arctic University in Tromsø. 
In 2012, she was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. 
Her first book, Other Places (Salmon, 2014) was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award for Best First Collection in 2015. Her second collection, How the Weather Was, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2019. Her work has been published in journals and anthologies, notably the Salmon Poetry anthologies Dogs Singing (2011), Even the Daybreak (2016), and Days of Clear Light (2021). She is currently working on her third collection, due out in 2026.

This event was made possible through the generous support of Culture Ireland and the Embassy Of Ireland in Oslo.