The Dutch word ‘Dwaalgasten’ means ‘wandering guest’ and from 12 to 15 November, Meet Me At The Lighthouse festival, will welcome two Irish writers, Bernadette Gallagher and Katie Goh, who will make the island of Schiermonnikoog their temporary home. As part of a collaboration with West Cork Literary Festival, two Dutch authors will visit Bantry for a return visit in July 2027.
Dwaalgasten is an invitation to be surprised by voices from other worlds, with different ideas and thoughts, by stories that take us to places we never expected to go. Literary festivals themselves are a space of welcome, and an environment in which to change your perspective.
In different ways, both Bernadette Gallagher’s and Katie Goh’s writing is shaped by place, identity and landscape. In responding to the Dwaalgasten theme, Katie asks ‘what do people carry with them as they move from place to place, and as they cross borders?’ And as Bernadette reflects, ‘the unplanned, unknowing nature of stepping off shore onto another shore always has unasked for benefits’.
Bernadette and Katie will take part in readings and give workshops relating to the festival theme of Dwaalgasten, immersing themselves in the unique landscape of Schiermonnikoog, as temporary guests within the island’s community.
Through this partnership West Cork Literary Festival and Meet Me At The Lighthouse will explore themes that are central to their work: nature, sustainability, climate, tourism, and identity. Most importantly, how can festivals and their communities be mutually supportive and sustaining of each other, fostering an atmosphere of creativity and empathy in an increasingly fractured world?
This partnership is managed by Modern Culture and is supported by the Dutch Foundation for Literature and Culture Ireland.
Bernadette Gallagher is the author of the poetry collection The Risen Tree, (Revival Press, 2024). Her work is published in literary journals and anthologies including Cyphers, The Stinging Fly, The North, The Tablet and Southword. She has received awards from organisations including the Arts Council of Ireland, Poetry Ireland, Culture Ireland. Bernadette has collaborated with painters and musicians and enjoys sharing her work and encouraging other artists. An essay by Bernadette on Dorothea Herbert (1767-1829) is published by Cork University Press in Irish Women Poets Rediscovered: Readings in poetry from the eighteenth–twentieth century edited by Maria Johnston and Conor Linnie.
Katie Goh is a writer and editor. Her most recent book, Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange was published last year and won Scotland’s National Book Award for Debut Non-Fiction, the Fortnum & Mason Debut Food Book Award and was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize in 2026. Her award-nominated essays, journalism and criticism have appeared in publications including the Guardian and Wasafiri, and she is an editor for Extra Teeth literary magazine. Her book of essays The End: Surviving the World Through Imagined Disasters was a Reviewer’s Choice for The Big Issue’s Independent Books of 2021 and shortlisted for the inaugural Kavya Prize in 2022. She grew up in the north of Ireland and lives in Edinburgh.
