Monday 10 July 2023
2:30 pm
Admission: €18
Anya Bergman‘s The Witches of Vardø is set in Norway in 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. When Zigri, desperate and grieving after the loss of her husband and son, embarks on an affair with the local merchant, it’s not long before she is sent to the fortress at Vardø, to be tried and condemned as a witch. Zigri’s daughter Ingeborg sets off into the wilderness to try to bring her mother back home. Accompanying her on this quest is Maren – herself the daughter of a witch - whose wild nature and unconquerable spirit gives Ingeborg the courage to venture into the unknown, and to risk all she has to save her family. Also captive in the fortress is Anna Rhodius, once the King of Denmark’s mistress, who has been sent to Vardø in disgrace. What will she do – and who will she betray – to return to her privileged life at court? These Witches of Vardø are stronger than even the King of Denmark. In an age weighted against them they refuse to be victims. They will have their justice. All they need do is show their power.
Sophie White‘s Where I End takes place on a remote and bitter island, where at its farthest and hardest edge lies a house with three women – a house the islanders will not approach, whose inhabitants they fear, whose secret runs deeper than the unwelcoming sea. Aoileann is alone: unschooled, friendless and unworldly. Móraí, her taciturn, utterly practical grandmother, is her only companion – but their connection is purely utilitarian. They are bonded in their work, tending daily to the bed-thing in the room next door. Aoileann’s mother is a wreck, the survivor of a private disaster no one will speak about. The islanders shun Aoileann and her family as if they are cursed (spitting on the ground as Aoileann passes), while her father’s monthly visits to his broken, haunted wife are tense and full of denial. Aoileann desperately wants a family, and when Rachel and her baby move to the island, she finds a focus for her relentless love and the simmering resentment of her years of lonely confinement.
Anya Bergman became interested in the witch trials of Vardø and the vivid folk tales of the north while living in Norway. Travelling to the Steilneset memorial, in which Louise...
Read More
Sophie White is a writer and podcaster from Dublin. Her first four books, Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown (Gill, 2016), Filter This (Hachette, 2019), Unfiltered (Hachette, 2020) and The Snag List (Hachette, 2022), have...
Read More
Deirdre O’Shaughnessy is News Editor of the Irish Examiner. She has worked in and contributed to TV, radio and newspapers throughout the Irish media landscape.
Read More
Copyright © 2024 West Cork Music. All rights reserved.
Designed and developed by Matrix Internet
