Thousands attend Ireland’s biggest book fair in Delvin
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St Patrick’s Hall was busy for the book festival on Sunday.Image 2 of 15
Sabrina Reilly, Jennarose Trautt, Orlaith Townsend, Joseph Farrell, Tiara Kane and Odran Reilly from the Doolan-Cullen School of Irish Dancing.Image 3 of 15
Peadar, Senan, Margaret, Fionn, Siún and Eoghan Tóibín on Sunday.Image 4 of 15
Norman Dolan (book festival chairperson) and Michael Murphy (book festival committee member).Image 5 of 15
Isabel and Caoimhe Lynch from Bolandstown.Image 6 of 15
Hanne Gray at the book festival on Sunday.Image 7 of 15
Maria and Aoife Douglas from Delvin.Image 8 of 15
Yigong Zhang from Delvin.Image 9 of 15
Maura Drumm from Delvin and Seamus McDermott from Fore.Image 10 of 15
Maria Collins and Otis from Collinstown.Image 11 of 15
Julie O’Brien was on the till at St Patrick’s Hall.Image 12 of 15
Douglas Green, Penny Green and Esme Howard on Sunday afternoon.Image 13 of 15
Paul Timmons and Barney Ivory were on clean up duty in Delvin.Image 14 of 15
Alice Briggs, Kate,Briggs, Philomena Melligan, Eva Melligan Luke Briggs and Tom Melligan at the book festival.Image 15 of 15
Sophie Gaffney, Anna Clune and Laura McEvoy at the Delvin Little Gems stand.Thousands of people from across the country descended on Delvin over the bank holiday weekend for Ireland’s largest book fair.
Some 30,000 second-hand books were on sale in St Patrick’s Hall and other local outlets on Sunday (May 5), as part of a weekend of music, drama, and arts and crafts in the town.
The Delvin Book Festival began 14 years ago and has scaled up in recent years to become a staple in the calendar of book lovers across Ireland.
Committee member Michael Murphy said the event is run by volunteers and the money raised spent on local amenities. "We use it to maintain the Delvin Sports and Leisure Centre, a community development in the town," he said.
"It has a 600m walking track, two big multi-purpose playing fields, outdoor gym equipment, and a sensory garden being built at the minute.
"Most of the people here come from outside Delvin; they come from Galway, Kildare, Offaly, Longford, Cavan – you name it, we advertise all over the country.
"The whole idea is to bring money in from outside the community and not be tapping in to our local funds."
Mr Murphy said the books for the fair "have been donated countrywide".
"We’re established now and don’t need to advertise – people contact us asking if we can collect books," he said.
"We do one massive collection around March and could collect over 6,000 books on the day.
"There are about 30,000 books here in total between our six outlets."
Mr Murphy said sustainability is another bonus of the book fair. "It’s brilliant for recycling, this is basically a major recycling plant," he said.
"All these books are being read again and many of them will come back to us again next year – nothing gets wasted."
Mr Murphy said it was a "great weekend" for all.
"There’s been great crowds of people and they’re not leaving empty handed, they’re getting great bargains – three books for a fiver," he said.
"We used to do it in the mart a few years ago but we brought it into the village so that the rest of the businesses would make money out of it too and that’s worked well.
"There was drama on Friday night in Gaffney’s, on Sunday there was dancing and music on the streets and music in all of the pubs over the weekend."
Mr Murphy thanked the volunteers for making the event a success and Westmeath County Council for supporting them through a festival grant.