Colm Tóibín and Maureen Dowd headline HoCoPoLitSo’s 45th Annual Irish Evening

7:30 p.m. Saturday, February 18, 2023
Smith Theater – Howard Community College

HoCoPoLitSo’s 45th annual Irish Evening of Music and Poetry on Saturday, February 18, 2023, at 7:30 p.m. presents Where Journalism Meets Literature: A Conversation with Colm Tóibín and Maureen Dowd. Tóibín and Dowd will explore the crossroads between journalism and literature and read from their recent works. The evening also features music by Poor Man’s Gambit and Ireland’s new Ambassador to the U.S, Geraldine Byrne Nason, has been invited.

General in person admission is $45 and a livestream viewing option is $20.

In-person event tickets: https://ci.ovationtix.com/32275/production/1142555?performanceId=11188584

Livestream tickets: https://ci.ovationtix.com/32275/production/1142556?performanceId=11188582

Colm Tóibín has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize and received the 2021 David Cohen Prize for Literature, a lifetime achievement award. In his most recent novel, The Magician, Tóibín explores the heart and mind of a writer, Thomas Mann, whose life is driven by a need to belong and the anguish of illicit desire, in a stunning marriage of research and imagination. Oprah Daily noted the “dazzling, epic family saga set across a half-century spanning World War I, the rise of Hitler, World War II, and the Cold War that is a feat of literary sorcery in its own right.” Tóibín, an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet, has a book of essays, A Guest at the Feast, scheduled for release in January 2023.

Maureen Dowd, a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, writes about American politics, popular culture, and international affairs. The winner of the two Pulitzer Prizes- one in 1999 for distinguished commentary and the other in 1992 for national reporting, Dowd was born in Washington, D.C and previously worked for the Washington Star. She is the author of three New York Times best sellers: Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk (2004); Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide (2005) and The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics (2016).

The evening program begins at 7:30 p.m. Irish beverages, snacks and books will be offered for sale beginning at 7 p.m. and during intermission. A book sale and signing follows the reading and discussion. After intermission, Poor Man’s Gambit will play traditional Irish music, with fiddle, button accordion, guitar, bodhran, and bouzouki.

About Irish Evening

HoCoPoLitSo’s Annual Irish Evening features Irish writers and poets, Irish music, and Irish step-dancing. This program made its debut in 1979 and is chaired by HoCoPoLitSo’s Irish Evening Co-Chairs Anne Reis and Edward Young.

The following is a brief list of the many distinguished poets, novelists and memorists featured at Irish Evening: Frank McCourt, Seamus Heaney, Emma Donoghue, Pauala Meehan, Theo Dorgan, Colm Toibin, Column McCann, Claire Keegan, and Anne Enright.