The 2026 festival closes at the Balor Arts Centre with an evening of theatre and song, in two halves.

As I Lay Dreaming by Shaun Byrne

As I Lay Dreaming is a poignant memory play centred on Annie McGinley, a Donegal woman reflecting on the news of American artist Rockwell Kent’s death. Kent had spent four months in the Glencolumbkille area, immersed in the culture and the terrain.

The narrative weaves between the present of 1971, Kent’s nostalgic 1958 return, and the idyllic summer of 1926 when he first arrived in the remote, roadless valley of Glenlough. Living in a converted cowshed he dubbed the Waldorf-Astoria, the charismatic but controversial Kent captures the rugged landscape and its people, eventually persuading a twenty-year-old Annie to pose for a portrait.

The resulting painting sparks a clash between Kent’s modern artistic philosophy and the community’s traditional values, some of whom deem the work improper. Through Annie’s vivid memories, the play explores the transformative power of art, the passage of time, and the enduring, sacred connection between an artist and his muse.

Also playing 7 October at An Grianán Theatre, Letterkenny, and 9 October at Halla Mhuire, Glencolumbkille. 8pm at all venues.

As I Lay Dreaming is supported by Donegal County Museum and the Donegal County Council Arts Office, and by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport through the Local Authority Commemorative Fund 2026.

About Shaun Byrne

Shaun Byrne is a writer and director from Ballybofey. As I Lay Dreaming is his fifth play, after An Incident with Dave Cotter, Darkness Echoing, Margaret, and One Night at Glenlough.

Longer version, if the programme has room: Shaun Byrne is a writer and director from Ballybofey, Co. Donegal, celebrated for rich dialogue and for bringing historical figures into intimate theatrical spaces. Margaret, a study of Margaret Thatcher’s final years, reached the RTÉ All-Ireland Drama Festival, and One Night at Glenlough explored poet Dylan Thomas’s 1935 stay in Donegal. As I Lay Dreaming is his fifth play.

Emilie Conway and Graeme Bourke

Visually impaired jazz singer Emilie Conway responds in song and spoken word to Frances Browne’s life and work, in an unmissable musical soirée.

Combining singing, spoken word and music, Emilie shares her responses to Frances Browne’s story and legacy, and reflects on her own creative journey as an artist with a visual impairment. Rather than a formal lecture, this year we honour Frances Browne by offering audiences an encounter with an artist whose life and work in 2026 resonate with much of what Frances lived through.

Emilie combines performance with activism, giving insights into her own practice and into the situation of disabled artists at home and abroad. Thanks to an Arts Council Agility Award, she has been supporting playwright Shirley-Anne Bonner in developing her representation of Frances Browne in the play In My Mind’s Eye from a disability perspective, and the two hope to make that play accessible to visually impaired audiences.

Graeme Bourke, originally from Sligo, accompanies Emilie on piano and is one to watch among Ireland’s up and coming jazz pianists.

Who knows how Frances will inspire Emilie? This is a truly special event. 

Emilie Conway’s work with Shirley-Anne Bonner is supported by an Arts Council Agility Award.

About Emilie

Emilie Conway is an award-winning Dublin-based vocal jazz artist, composer and lyricist, weaving together jazz standards, original composition, spoken word and improvisation. A prominent disability rights activist and founder of DADA, she has performed at Carnegie Hall, the National Concert Hall and Copenhagen Jazz Festival.

Sponsors

Festival sponsors: Donegal County Council and the Finn Valley Voice.

About the Frances Browne Literary Festival

The Frances Browne Literary Festival celebrates the life and legacy of Frances Browne (1816 to 1879), the "Blind Poetess of Ulster". Rooted in her hometown of Ballybofey-Stranorlar, Co. Donegal, the festival brings together poets, writers, musicians and communities from Ireland and beyond to share in her spirit of creativity, inclusion and multilingual expression.

Frances Browne is the most important writer to emerge from Donegal’s Finn Valley. Her masterpiece, the children’s storybook Granny’s Wonderful Chair, was a bestseller all over the world, but she also deserves to be remembered for her unswerving opposition to slavery and all sorts of injustice. The festival works to bring Frances’s writing and astonishing life story to new generations, and to celebrate contemporary writers who continue in her tradition.

Full programme and festival information: www.francesbrowneliteraryfestival.com