Helen Cullen, Nina George and Hugo Hamilton, with music from Tríona Marshall

Nina George

Award-winning and international bestselling author Nina George is President of Honour and Commissioner for Political Affairs of the European Writers' Council (EWC), focusing on authors' rights, cultural policy, advanced informatics and digital economy. Nina's New York Times bestseller The Little Paris Book Shop was published in 37 languages. With her husband, the writer Jens J. Kramer, she also writes crime novels as well as fantasy books for children.

Hugo Hamilton

Hugo Hamilton is the best-selling author of The Speckled People, a German-Irish memoir which has so far been translated into 15 languages. His unique experience of growing up in Dublin during the 50s/60s with a fervent Irish nationalist father and German mother who came to Ireland in the aftermath of World War 2, has found resonance right across the globe. His equally compelling second memoir The Sailor in the Wardrobe continues his investigation of this complex dual upbringing. Hugo is also the acclaimed author of six novels and one collection of short stories. His most recent novel, Conversation with the Sea, was published in May 2026.

Helen Cullen

Helen Cullen is an Irish novelist, born and raised in Portlaoise, who lives now in Winchester. Helen has published two novels to date, The Lost Letters of William Woolf and The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually, with Penguin Random House in Ireland and the UK, Harper Collins in North America and in translation to numerous foreign markets. Her debut novel also garnered Helen a Best Newcomer nomination at the Irish Book Awards. Helen's third novel, Iseult, will be published in February 2027: this is the first novel in what will be the House of Gonne duology. Iseult reimagines the extraordinary life of Iseult Gonne, daughter of Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne and the child genius who was destined to become a muse to W.B. Yeats. Before publishing, Helen worked previously at RTE and subsequently in marketing in London for Google UK. Helen holds a B.A. Communications, M.A. Theatre Studies, M.A. English Literature and a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia. She is also a Reader in Creative Writing at Brunel University, a literary critic for the Irish Times newspaper and a writer for the Sunday Times Magazine.

Tríona Marshall

Tríona Marshall's music lives where traditions meet and flourish. Trained in the classical conservatories of The Hague and London, she became principal harpist with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra before launching her solo career in the care of The Chieftains in 2003. What followed was two decades of global touring and recording, and a musical connection that spanned the concert halls of Japan, Europe and the USA. She appears on several Chieftains albums, including San Patricio and Voice of Ages, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from DIT (now TUD) in 2013.

Now based in the heart of Ireland, Tríona has returned to her roots, performing solo and in intimate duo projects with singer Alyth McCormack and accordionist/composer Martin Tourish. Recently Tríona returned from a highly successful tour of Japan, funded by Culture Ireland, where she performed as a soloist and with her brother Thomas Ranjo (satsuma-biwa) on a performance blending Irish and Japanese music to celebrate the life of Lafcadio Hearn. Whether sharing a stage or weaving melodies from her home, Tríona's playing is radiant, grounded, and poetic - 'impeccable', wrote The Irish Times, 'boldly hued and artfully syncopated' added The Scotsman.