The 8th Annual Graiguenamanagh ‘Town of Books’ Festival, is due to take place in the Co. Kilkenny town, on Friday September 17th. The Epoch Times spoke to event organiser Mr Brian Roberts to find out how the festival has transformed this village into Irelands first “book town”.
Mr Brian Roberts and his wife Bridget are proprietors of the local Waterside Guesthouse and Restaurant that they have run for the last 10 years. This year they were flooded twice and their insurance broker went bankrupt, leaving them with no insurance money; therefore, this year more than ever, they are hoping for a successful book festival.
Mr Roberts explains that he and his wife have been fighting to get Graiguenamanagh onto the map, and to make it a year-round tourist destination.
“These are tough times and rural areas are suffering, trying to keep local economies going and you find that a lot of the main streets have shops closing down and business are just struggling.”
Mr Roberts believes that tourists visiting Ireland at the moment are more geared towards budget, short-stay holidays, and that this needs to be worked on by the tourist sector as a whole.
Larger urban areas are “sucking up” what tourism is available. The popularity of cheap flights and short city stays of around two nights has resulted in tourists staying in urban areas. The time constraints of such breaks stops tourists from venturing further into the countryside, says Mr Roberts.
“How do you get people out of Dublin down to small rural destinations, is the question.”
In 1999 Mr Roberts and his wife travelled to Wales, originally with the idea of finding a small town there that Graiguenamanagh could twin with, and perhaps “generate some traffic between the two towns.”
“Quite by accident I wandered into a place called Hay-on-wye, which is a town of books - the world’s first book town,” said Mr Roberts.
According to Mr Roberts, Hay-on-wye had many similarities to Graiguenamanagh with respect to size, location and population. However, they had 40 book stores - and Graiguenamanagh had none.
Some research was carried out into the town, and while reading the history, Mr Roberts found parallels to what was currently happening in Graiguenamanagh. “Hay-on-wye was once a town that was struggling and had eight empty shops on its small main street … when I came back to Graiguenamanagh I found that we also had 8 empty shops on our main street”.
“I started looking at the whole physical infrastructure and location and thought that we could do this - we could be Ireland’s first book town.”
As time passed, Mr Roberts discovered that there were many book towns around the world but none in Ireland, a country that is often associated with literature, but not with the sale of books.
So Mr Roberts decided to put Graiguenamanagh on the map by transforming it into Ireland’s first ever book destination.
The idea was then put forward to the local tourist group to turn Graiguenamanagh into a book town.
“We decided to turn Graiguenamanagh into a book town for one weekend as a small festival and see how that went, and maybe further down the line we could make it a permanent year round book town.”
“We did that in 2003, and it’s been growing ever since,” said Mr Roberts.
In the beginning they invited booksellers of second hand or antiquarian book to come to Graiguenamanagh and use all the empty shops and some marquees.
“We did a map and a book trail on a shoe string budget of 1000 euro in the first year and it was a roaring success”.
“All the booksellers were delighted … they couldn’t believe the difference in the layout and how fantastically it worked.”
“The festival is not a literary festival - it’s more a shopping festival, it’s about buying and selling books.”
As the festival grew in popularity the organisers added street entertainment, art exhibits, food and craft markets.
“Most book fairs are fuddy-duddy affairs in the back room of a hotel: this is on the streets for the whole town.”
“You name it, we have it,” claimed Mr Roberts.
“If we can fill the town we can help the local economy, and even if the shops are only used for one weekend, people see the place with more light; more vibrant, more alive.”
The future plans
“The festival itself we consider a success … to a certain extent the festival does not need to be any bigger as Graiguenamanagh is a small place, the restaurants and accommodation will be full this weekend. What they would prefer is if there was more activity on other weekends.
“The holy grail and real plan is to make Graiguenamanagh Ireland’s book town on a permanent basis.”
In order to achieve this, they will need around ten book stores open on a permanent basis and to achieve this, funding is required. “If you opened a book shop in Graiguenamanagh tomorrow, I guarantee you wouldn’t last 3 months, but if you open 10 together and people come in, they will say ‘wow, this is a book destination’.”
“You will find bus-loads of book enthusiasts coming to town, and tourists coming every week to walk the tow-path, browse the book shop and pop in for tea or coffee.”
To achieve this goal Mr Roberts emphasises that funding is paramount, as shops need to be fitted out and salaries need to be funded for the short term before the scheme becomes viable.
“Everyone needs to jump together”, he says - the book sellers, shop owners, Board Failte, the county council and the Leader groups.
