Sara Baume – The Alphabet of Birds

Date: Saturday 11th September 2021
Time: 4.30pm
Venue: glór
Cost: €15  

The Alphabet of Birds Production will appear live in glór, with an audience in line with Government guidelines on number of attendees. The event will also be available on-line afterward. Please see further information below*

Writer and artist Sara Baume covers wide ground in this spellbinding audio-visual essay; Sunday Mass and sea swimming; bird alphabets and stone collecting; Goya and Monet; the Stations of the Cross and the Sacred Heart of Jesus; bedrooms and bedsits; insomnia and parental love.

Ultimately, it’s about our obsessions and passions – the multitude of rituals that fill our daily lives with meaning.

Baume’s new essay is inspired by four short documentaries depicting artists at work on land and sea. These films are included in the show, and focus on visual artists Gary Coyle and Laura Fitzgerald and musician Natalia Beylis. A live soundtrack is performed throughout by musicians Irene Buckley and Elaine Howley. The Alphabet of Birds is the second stage show from arts magazine and production company Holy Show.

Sara Baume grew up in County Cork. She has been published in anthologies, newspapers and journals such as the Irish Times, the Guardian, The Stinging Fly and Granta magazine. She has won the Davy Byrne’s Short Story Award, the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award, the Rooney Prize for Literature, an Irish Book Award for Best Newcomer and the Kate O’Brien Award. Her debut novel, Spill Simmer Falter Wither, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and many other awards.

*Ticket options for this event: