Culture Night with West Cork Literary Festival

Time and date

Friday 19 September 2025

5:00 pm

6:00 pm

Location

Bantry Library

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Join us on Culture Night for a free WCLF event with author Anya Bergman. Her new novel The Tarot Reader of Versailles is set in the early days of the French Revolution as terror reigns on the streets of Paris.

Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand is a young woman with an extraordinary power - through her tarot cards, she can commune with the dead, revolutionaries and the aristocracy alike seeking her out to divine their fortunes. Lenormand is loyal to Marie Antoinette and the dauphin of France, but she has seen the queen's fate in the cards and must take care that it doesn't become her own. Then, one fateful day, she comes across Cait, a scullery maid from Ireland who has travelled to Paris for love. Cait has powers too - she can read people's pasts as Lenormand reads their futures. The two young women share an electrifying connection, drawn to each other's abilities. But Cait is hiding something. What will she do - and who will she betray - to bring revolution to the shores of her beloved Ireland too?

Anya will be in conversation with Oonagh Montague and books will be on sale after the event

Admission: Free Admission - no booking necessary

Follow a vibrant culture trail across Bantry to find events and performances that weave in music, literature, conversation and song on Culture Night 2025. The trail takes in a reading by novelist Anya Bergman at Bantry Library, community music-making at the Bridge Street Community Café, and performances from the young musicians at Curious Keys Music School as well as chats as gaeilge, filling the town with creative energy.

The night will end with two concert sets by the Olympia Quartet followed by Julie O’Sullivan and Daithi Shanahan that showcase classical, traditional music influences as well as contemporary acoustic music. The sets celebrate the spirit of West Cork Music’s iconic summer festivals and developing singer-songwriter focused concert series!

The Olympia Quartet | Time: 8pm-8:45pm
Daithi Shanahan | Time: 9pm-9:45pm
Anya Bergman | Bantry Library | Time: 5pm-6pm
Curious Keys Turns 5! Open Evening on Culture Night | Time: 4pm-6pm
Pop-Up Gaeltacht @ Ma Murphy’s | Time: 5pm-6pm
Open-Door Community Music Session | Time: 7pm-9pm

Writers

Anya Bergman

Anya Bergman is the author of the bestselling The Witches of Vardø, a Sunday Times best historical fiction book of 2023, and shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of...

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Oonagh Montague

Oonagh Montague is a writer from Cork, Ireland. A former journalist and editor of Arts Ireland, her short stories have been included in Winter Papers (Curlew Editions), the anthology Cork...

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