Cúirt International Festival of Literature
For a week in April the writers come to Galway. Cúirt, pronounced koortch and meaning court, began in 1985 as a poetry festival and now fills the Town Hall Theatre and the pubs and halls around it with readings, arguments, slams, launches and masterclasses from Irish and international writers. Charlie Byrne's Bookshop sets up its pop-up shop in the theatre foyer every year.
Checked against the source on 2026-09-19.
Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Town Hall Theatre, Charlie Byrne's Bookshop, An Taibhdhearc on the 3D model; tap a pin for its page and directions.
The first courts
The 1986 Cúirt Filíochta Idirnáisiúnta na Gaillimhe, held from 12 to 15 March, brought John Cooper Clarke, Iain Crichton Smith, Paul Durcan, Douglas Dunn, Gerald Dawe, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Sorley MacLean, Eavan Boland, Thomas McCarthy, Rita Ann Higgins, Pat Ingoldsby and the founder Fred Johnston to town. By the 2010s what had once been fringe events made up much of the main programme, though the 25th festival in 2010 still had John Burnside, Charles Simic and Joyce Carol Oates.
Prizes and sponsors
The Cúirt New Writing Prize gives 500 euro each for poetry and fiction; Caoilinn Hughes won in 2013 for poems from Gathering Evidence, with Hugo Kelly for fiction, and Colm Scully and Philip Connor in 2014, when the Young Cúirt prize went to Saffron Lily. The festival is backed by Údarás na Gaeltachta, the university, the Arts Council, the city council, ATU, Fáilte Ireland and Foras na Gaeilge. The model on this page pins the Town Hall Theatre, Charlie Byrne's and An Taibhdhearc, which hosts Cúirt events.
Questions people ask
When is the Cúirt festival?
What does Cúirt mean?
Where is Cúirt held?
Written from Wikipedia, "Cúirt International Festival of Literature" (CC BY-SA 4.0), read on 2026-09-19, and from the OpenStreetMap places on the model. Nothing has been added from memory; follow the source for its footnotes.