Dear Butte Presents: A Festival of Irish Writing 2026
Oct. 2 -3
Uptown Butte
Featuring Billy O’Callaghan of County Cork, Ireland
More about this year’s keynote speaker:
Billy O’Callaghan, from Cork, Ireland, was born in 1974 and is the author of four short story collections – In Exile (Mercier, 2008); In Too Deep (Mercier, 2009); The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind (New Island, 2013); and The Boatman and Other Stories (Jonathan Cape, 2020/Harper, 2021) – and four novels – The Dead House (O’Brien, 2017/Arcade, 2018); My Coney Island Baby (Jonathan Cape, 2019/Harper, 2020); Life Sentences (Jonathan Cape, 2021/Godine, 2022); and The Paper Man (Jonathan Cape & Godine, 2023). Winner of an Irish Book Award in 2013 and short-listed for the COSTA Short Story Award, the Littératures Européennes Cognac Prix des Lecteurs, Prix littéraire de UIAD, and the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award among various other honours, his work has been translated into nineteen languages and his short stories have appeared in literary journals and magazines around the world, including Agni, Fiction, the Fiddlehead, the Kenyon Review, Massachusetts Review,Narrative, Ploughshares, Salamander, the Saturday Evening Post, South Carolina Review, the Stinging Fly, the Tablet, the Threepenny Review and Winter Papers.
The keynote speech is free to the public. Held on Saturday October 3rd at 7pm at the Montana Tech Auditorium. Please RSVP here.
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Billy O’Callaghan will be hosting a short story workshop, there are ten spots available:
Dear Butte is hosting a 3-day short story workshop with Billy O’Callaghan, winner of the Irish Book Award, Thursday, Oct. 1 – Saturday, October. 3.
The workshop, Drawing From the Well: Making Fiction of Our Lives, will consider how to mine one’s personal history for fiction. “We will also consider how ‘life moments’ can inspire us in a thematic or metaphorical sense to create stories unrecognizable as factual to anyone but us,” O’Callaghan says. The workshop includes manuscript critique from O’Callaghan and peers.
The cost to attend the workshop is $299
To register please click here.
Festival Package:
This year we are offering a custom festival package: the book Life Sentences by Billy O’Callaghan, a custom Dear Butte tote bag, a Dear Butte and Festival of Irish Writing Sticker Pack, a bookmark and a book light. All graphics and printing done by Workmanship Co.
You can order the festival package here.
We are hosting a private luncheon with guest Billy O’Callaghan in the Treasure State Room at the Hotel Finlen on Saturday October 3rd at noon.
Tickets are $45 per person, you may buy tickets here.
We have a room block reserved at the Hotel Finlen where many of our events are taking place. You may reserve a room at the discounted room block rate here.
The group code is: 10126
The rooms will be held until September 24th. Guests can book online with that code or call the hotel directly and reference the Festival of Irish Writing room block. Rooms booked through 3rd party travel sites (Expedia, etc.) are not eligible for the discounted rate.
Schedule of Events and Registration:
Friday October 2nd
Noon – Archives Brownbag with Darby Minnow Smith and Billy O’Callaghan
1 p.m. – Tour of the BSB Archives
7 p.m. – Social Hour in The Copper Bowl, The Finlen
Saturday October 3rd
10 a.m. – Historical Trolley Tour with John Conlan – Registration
Noon – Ticketed luncheon with Billy at Treasure State Room in the Hotel Finlen – Registration
3 p.m. Ghost Signs Tour with B.T. Livermore – Registration
7 p.m. – Billy O’Callaghan keynote address at the Montana Tech Auditorium – RSVP Here
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. YOUR SUPPORT IS VITAL TO OUR WORK.DONATE TO DEAR BUTTE TO HELP US PROVIDE ONGOING LITERARY PROGRAMS FOR OUR COMMUNITY IN THE FUTURE:
Link to Donate Here
This event is sponsored in part by grant funding through the Butte Chamber of Commerce, TBID and the Montana Department of Commerce
Dear Butte is proud to work in partnership with The Butte Silver Bow Archives and Montana Tech
