Tuesday 29th June at 7.00pm

The Alphabet Book is a Polish genre that invites the author to discuss what (s)he has observed during his/her life. Usually written in prose, it has here been adapted to poetic form. Autobiographical sketches and accounts of the famous are often the subject of the genre. Liberties have been taken with this approach, and while people who inspired certain poems are mentioned, the focus is on the poetic aspect of the work. As the genre has been transposed to Irish, it recognises only the eighteen letters traditionally found in that language's alphabet.

Celia de Fréine is a poet, playwright, screenwriter and librettist who writes in Irish and English. She has published four collections of poetry: Faoi Chabáistí is Ríonacha (2001) and Fiacha Fola (2004) from Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Scarecrows at Newtownards (Scotus Press, 2005) and imram ¦ odyssey (Arlen House, 2010). Her poetry has won many awards including the Patrick Kavanagh Award (1994) and Gradam Litríochta Chló Iar-Chonnachta (2004). She has four times won Duais an Oireachtais for best full-length play. Arlen House published three of these plays in Mná Dána (2009). In the same year the Abbey Theatre presented a rehearsed reading of her play Casadh which it had commissioned. The short films Lorg, Seal and Cluiche, inspired by her poems, have been shown in festivals in Ireland and the US. In association with Biju Viswanath, she wrote the film Marathon which won best screenplay award at the New York International Film Festival in 2009. Also in 2009 Living Opera, in association with Opera Ireland, presented a showcase performance of the opera The Earl of Kildare, composed by Fergus Johnston, for which she wrote the libretto. www.celiadefreine.com