27th Goldsmith Festival a success

The 27th Goldsmith International Literary Festival, held over the June Bank Holiday weekend, was a success, the organisers of the event said this week. While it is a niche festival, PRO Arthur Conlon said that every seat was filled at the events held over the weekend, which included talks, musical entertainment, a literary tour and an outdoor poetry reading at Goldsmith's birthplace Pallas. Mr Conlon explained that this year the festival focused on the more traditional literary aspect, while in previous years debate had been the focal point of the festival. He added that a festival which had been running for 27 years was always evolving and said the organisers would most likely return to contemporary debate next year. Mr Conlon praised the newly refurbished Goldsmith Room at Ballymahon Library, which they used for the first time, and said it was a fantastic setting for the festival. The theme of this year's festival was 'Recession, Retaliation, Recovery' - Goldsmith's Impecuniosity and it's relevance in 2011. In common with a lot of the problems faced by people in 2011, Goldsmith was constantly in debt. He had a particularly bad reputation for fiscal rectitude. This was partly due to his soft nature but his financial mismanagement left him £2,000 in debt at the time of his death. This would represent approximately €250,000 at today's values and may seem a trivial sum compared to some of the telephone number figures owed by some of the leading business lights of today but it was a huge sum in its day and debt was a constant worry and pressure for Goldsmith. This year's festival explored what we can learn from Goldsmith's attitude to penury and how it relates to the changes taking place in Irish society almost 240 years later. The festival is the third longest running festival of its type. Founded to celebrate the literary genius of Oliver Goldsmith and to promote Goldsmith Country as tourist attraction it has over the years explored many aspects of Goldsmith's life, society, and writings have been explored. A huge variety of renowned critics, politicians, poets, commentators and academics have stimulated audiences over that time.