Hopkins Festival Moves to Newbridge College

After 22 years, the Hopkins Festival is moving to Newbridge. The fact is that the
continuing success of this International Festival has led to the need for the greater resources and support of a large town. TheCommittee are very excited at the new vista opening out for what has been described by the Editor of The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature as 'the best festival in Ireland'.

On September 1,2009, the Committee voted, for a number of reasons, logistical and other, to move the Hopkins Festival to Newbridge College. The Committee has been extended to include several Newbridge people active in the Arts. The new Committee has been invited by Sean Power TD to initiate this new Chapter in the Hopkins story, with a Guided Tour of The Dáil and Seanad. Now in its twenty-third year, the Festival has gone from strength to strength and is sure to create much excitement in the Newbridge area during the last week of July 2010. Those 22 years have been years of great achievement over a wide spectrum of the Arts: Poetry, Lectures; Film; Theatre; Visual Arts; Music, attracting a wealth of internationally distinguished artists and writers. The roll-call would would include such luminaries as Andrei Vosnesenski (Russia); Hans Palsson (Sweden); Miceal O Rourke (France); Giuseppe Serpillo (Italy); Angel Crespo (Spain); Wilhelm Fockersperger (Germany)... while Irish Artists of note include: Brian Bourke; Sam Stephenson; Michael Hartnett; Robert Ballagh; James McKenna; Meadbh McGuckian; Robert Welch and Desmond Egan. Another success of the Festival has been the Youth Programme, developed through the dedication of its director, Derek Egan. This is aimed at young people and non-specialists. It has now become so popular that places have had to be limited to forty. (The impact of the Hopkins Festival can be seen around Monasterevin with a Hopkins Garden; Lane (opened by the American Ambassador); Walk; Hopkins Haven; even a Hopkins Bar - and of course, the wonderful Hopkins Monument, a master-work of one of the great Irish artists.)

The Hopkins Festival Moves to

Newbridge College