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Discussion with readingsFrom Sinead O’Connor to Samuel Beckett, Ireland’s art has been associated with lyricism and musicality: its literature musical, its music full of book-smarts. The mini-festival Harping On, held over one evening, explores the contemporary forms of this. Two panels at Lettrétage Berlin will feature adventurous Ireland-based authors and Irish electronic musicians, exploring their work and its cross-currents.
The first of two panel discussions will explore music in the writing of current Irish and Ireland-based authors Wendy Erskine, Rob Doyle, Sinead Gleeson, and Liam Cagney. The second panel will explore how Irish techno musicians Sunil Sharpe, Kerrie, and David Fogarty are making waves on national and international culture, not least in Berlin. Ireland is the only country whose national emblem is a musical instrument, a harp; and Irish harping is on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. What better time and place than Berlin in 2024, where techno culture was just added to the same UNESCO list, to take stock of music and writing in Ireland today.
Following the panel discussions, an after-party will take place in the Säule venue in Berghain, with the same lineup of three of Ireland’s major techno artists.
Liam Cagney is a Berlin-based writer on music whose work appears in places like the Guardian, the Spectator, the TLS, and DJ Mag. His fiction was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize and has been described by the Irish Times as ‘stunningly strange and powerful’. He is the author of the forthcoming literary nonfiction book Berghain Nights: A Personal Journey through Techno and Berlin’s Club Scene (Reaktion, 2025) and of the academic monograph Gérard Grisey and Spectral Music: Composition in the Information Age (Cambridge University Press, 2024).
Rob Doyle is the author of four internationally acclaimed books: Threshold, Autobibliography, This Is the Ritual, and Here Are the Young Men, which has been adapted for film. His work has been translated into several languages and nominated for various prizes. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Observer, Dublin Review and many other publications, and he edited the anthologies The Other Irish Tradition and In This Skull Hotel Where I Never Sleep. Rob Doyle was born in Dublin.
Wendy Erskine is the author of two short story collections, Sweet Home and Dance Move (Stinging Fly/Picador), which were variously listed for The Edge Hill Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. Stories from the collections were listed for The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Prize and the Irish Book Awards short story of the year. Sweet Home won the Butler Literary Prize, and Dance Move was Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4. In 2022, she was Seamus Heaney Fellow at Queen’s University, Belfast, and in 2023 was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is a head of department in a secondary school in Belfast. Her debut novel The Benefactors will be published in June 2025.
Sinead Gleeson is the author of the essay collection Constellations: Reflections from Life, which won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer and has been translated into several languages. She is the editor of four anthologies, including The Art of the Glimpse, the award-winning The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, and The Glass Shore: Short Stories. Sinéad has engaged in multi-disciplinary collaborations with artists and musicians, including commissions from The Wellcome Collection, the RHA Gallery, BBC, Rua Red Gallery and Frieze. She is co-editor with Kim Gordon of This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music. Her debut novel, Hagstone, was published earlier this year by 4th Estate.
Alexander Wells is a freelance writer and critic from Australia. His reviews and essays have been published by THE GUARDIAN, THE DRIFT, THE BAFFLER, and the EUROPEAN REVIEW OF BOOKS among others. He is also Books Editor for the print monthly THE BERLINER.
David Fogarty originally hails from Dublin and is now a firm fixture in Berlin’s electronic music community. He is a DJ and record label owner primarily known for his work as the creator of Transmigration and its various sub-labels, as well as for his work behind the scenes at Kreuzberg record store Sound Metaphors.
Kerrie is a multidisciplinary Irish artist, based in Manchester, and resident DJ at Tresor Berlin. She performs live sets, produces music, DJs, and runs her own label, Dark Machine Funk. Having garnered a rich musical education through working at and holding a DJ residency for one of the UK's most respected record shops, Eastern Bloc, Kerrie's in-depth knowledge and unwavering dedication to music shines through her notable back catalogue and bolshy, unforgiving DJ and live sets.
Sunil Sharpe is one of techno's true people. Known primarily for his fast-moving, skilful style and dynamic selections on the decks, Sharpe has carved out a unique place in the scene, representing electronic music in a range of different ways: as a DJ, producer, label owner, party organizer, radio host, writer, educator and nightlife advocate. He is a regular fixture on international lineups and at venues across the world, such as Bassiani, Berghain, De School, fabric, Fuse Club, and Tresor, to name a limited few.
Emma Robertson is a Canadian music journalist and editor based in Berlin. She is currently the executive editor of online pop culture magazine The Talks, as well as the creator and host of AIR, an interview podcast series featuring figures from electronic music and beyond. A regular contributor to publications like LOLA Magazine, Borshch Magazine, and the now-defunct RedBull Music Academy, you can also find her work on platforms like Resident Advisor, and Refuge Worldwide.
We would like to point out that the lift in the building is unfortunately not working at the moment. For this reason, access is currently restricted. We would like to apologise for this.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Veteranenstraße 21, 10119 Berlin, Germany, Veteranenstraße 21, 10119 Berlin, Deutschland,Berlin, Germany
