io – intentionally offline

Time and date

Wednesday 15 July 2026

Time

5:00 pm

Location

Share :

What happens when artists and writers detach entirely from screens and electronics and create something exclusively phyiscal?

That is the question writer Niamh Bagnell asked herself, and then asked many writers and artists whom she knew. Instructed to create entirely in the non-digital (with the exception of finger digits), more than 30 talented, innovative and international contributors got to work. Offline. They then physically posted, couriered or hand-delivered their creations to Cork, bringing together a most interesting collection of touchable things for publication.

Join instigator Niamh Bagnell in conversation with Niamh Boyce, Maeve Higgins and Billy O'Callaghan as they discuss the result – io-intentionally offline, art, heart and literary annual – and what it means to be an artist in the age of ai.

An exhibition of the original pieces, which will later be auctioned for Medicins Sans Frontières will be on display in the library during the festival.

For real and present eyes only.

The accompanying collage is of the found "io"s hunted down in the wild, (sometimes in the wilderness of their own homes) by the wonderful humans who have contributed to io

Admission: Free

Writers

Maeve Higgins

Maeve Higgins is a writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and The Irish Examiner. Her latest collection of essays Tell Everyone On This Train I Love Them was...

Niamh Bagnell

Niamh Bagnell mainly writes short stories, dabbling in poetry and parody songwriting at times. She has been published in the Stinging Fly, Southword, the Waxed Lemon and internationally in American...

Niamh Boyce

Niamh Boyce’s debut The Herbalist (Penguin 2013) was an Irish Writer’s Centre Novel Fair Winner. An instant bestseller, it also won Debut of the Year at the Irish Book Awards...

Billy O'Callaghan

Billy O'Callaghan is the author of four short story collections and four novels, including My Coney Island Baby, The Boatman and Other Stories and Life Sentences. His work has been...

io – intentionally offline

Time and date

Location

Writers

Maeve Higgins

Niamh Bagnell

Niamh Boyce

Billy O'Callaghan

You may also like

Readings from UCC’s MA in Creative Writing

Bantry Book Club: July Meet-Up

Quiet Reading Hour