Grass Ceilings, Hurdles and Hurls!!, Saturday 7th October at 7pm, tickets 10€, location: Abbey Court Hotel
Eimear Ryan Ciarán Murphy & Joanne O’Riordan
In this showcase of sports writing and discussion, three writers look at the GAA. Eimear Ryan’s Grass Ceiling asks what it like is to be a girl, or a woman, in a male-dominated sporting world. If you play on the boys’ team, more people pay attention – but you get treated like an alien. Ciarán Murphy (Second Captains and the Irish Times) in his This Is The Life looks at the plight of rural clubs that are losing their players to the cities – and he does so not only as a journalist but as a footballer who made the same move himself. Leading the discussion will be Joanne O’Riordan, an activist for people with disabilities, a motivational speaker and a sports columnist with The Irish Times.