Hay Festival to return to Kells

The First Hay Festival was held in Ireland this weekend, and it was a resounding success. The town came alive as 10,000 people visited to attend events that covered books, theatre, film, food, environment, art and travel.
 
“We are absolutely delighted with our first Hay Festival,” said Ger Gaughran, Hay Festival Kells Director, and member of the Kells Chamber Committee. “It has been magical to see the streets of Kells filled with visitors to our town enjoying  themselves, and we are thrilled to have surpassed all our expectations.”
 
In addition to the programme of events, the town, which has an historic association with Ireland’s most famous book, the Book of Kells, filled vacant buildings in the main streets with pop-up book shops and windows of local businesses were filled with books, words and literary thoughts to celebrate the Festival.
 
Over 70 per cent of the visitors came from outside the historic monastic town, buying thousands of tickets to see the fantastic programme on offer with the likes of Germaine Greer, Jeanette Winterson, John Banville, John Boyne, Frank McGuinness, DBC Pierre and many others in Kells for the weekend.

Hay Festival has confirmed it will return to Kells in July 2014.