“What the Sea Is Telling Us” is the theme of a discussion at this weekend’s Dublin Book Festival as part of Science Week.
Surfer, scientist and author Easkey Britton, novelist Roisin Maguire and writer and broadcaster Eoin Warner will join Irish Times journalist Sylvia Thompson for a conversation about “the wonder, fragility and extraordinary power of our seas”.
“From changing coastlines and marine ecosystems to the deep human connection we have with the ocean, they explore what the water can reveal about the world around us,” the festival says.
Easkey Britton is an Irish surfer, researcher and author from Donegal whose work bridges ocean health, social change and wellbeing. She is the author of three books, including her memoir Saltwater in the Blood, and her writing blends memoir, science and ecological reflection to examine what it means to live in relationship with the living sea.
Roisin Maguire lives in Northern Ireland. She has worked as a nightclub bouncer, bus driver and primary school teacher and is a keen scuba diver and fisherwoman who swims every day of the year. Night Swimmers, her acclaimed first novel, was shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award.
Naturalist Eoin Warner is an award-winning wildlife documentary presenter in both the Irish and English languages. He has presented some of Ireland’s foremost nature documentaries in recent years.
His Irish-language documentaries include Éire Fhiáin (Wild Ireland), while his English-language documentaries include A Wild Irish Year, Wild Connemara and the internationally acclaimed Ireland’s Wild Islands.
Marine Themes at Dublin Book Festival
The event on Sunday, 8 November, is one of several on marine themes at this year’s Dublin Book Festival.
As Afloat has reported, Mark Mellett and Michael Cronin, both authors of recently published books, will join journalist Lorna Siggins in discussing the waters that surround us and their protection.
Michael Cronin’s Ireland: Why It Matters to Be an Island (Royal Irish Academy) considers how Ireland is shaped – culturally, politically and ecologically – by the seas that surround it.
In Blue Heart: War, Climate and the Battle for the Ocean that Keeps Us Alive (Wordwell Books), Mark Mellett explores how the defining crises of the twenty-first century are all converging at sea.
Both talks take place on Sunday, 8 November, at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Westland Row, Dublin.
Further details are available from the Dublin Book Festival programme.
