The Festival
Virtual Crossways 2021 follows on from the highly successful Crossways Festivals of 2018 and 2019, which were staged in Glasgow and which featured acclaimed writers and performers in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Scots and English.
The particular aim of Crossways continues to be to foster and expand the rather weak literary links across the North Channel. It will again bring notable Irish writers – from both North and South – together with their Scottish peers, in a well-planned and well-balanced Festival underscoring the longstanding contribution of Irish people, history, language, culture and writing to both Glasgow and the Scottish nation.
In the view of Irish Pages, such a forum for Irish-Scottish cultural and literary interaction, dialogue and debate of real distinction and diversity is long overdue. To a considerable extent, the North of Ireland (especially) and Scotland are highly separated and
self-contained on many levels, but especially in cultural and literary terms – divided, precisely, by Partition and so (ironically) by the United Kingdom itself, with a consequent focus on London from each of the jurisdictions, rather than on interchange across the narrow North Channel. The two literary cultures, as it were, have their backs to each other to a surprising degree. Thus, the Festival will aim at lessening this contemporary cultural distance, and at a new historical moment – where relations between the two islands, no less than between the parts of the United Kingdom, have already begun to change dramatically with Brexit.
Virtual Crossways 2021 is sponsored and organized by Irish Pages/Duillí Éireann. It receives financial support from the Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme, Foras na Gaeilge, Colmcille, and Bòrd na Gàidhlig.
Virtual Crossways 2021 follows on from the highly successful Crossways Festivals of 2018 and 2019, which were staged in Glasgow and which featured acclaimed writers and performers in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Scots and English.
The particular aim of Crossways continues to be to foster and expand the rather weak literary links across the North Channel. It will again bring together Irish writers – from both North and South – together with their Scottish peers, in a well-planned and well-balanced Festival underscoring the longstanding contribution of Irish people, history, language, culture and writing to both Glasgow and the Scottish nation.
In the view of Irish Pages, such a forum for Irish-Scottish cultural and literary interaction, dialogue and debate of real distinction and diversity is long overdue. To a considerable extent, the North of Ireland (especially) and Scotland are highly separated and self-contained on many levels, but especially in cultural and literary terms – divided, precisely, by Partition and so (ironically) by the United Kingdom itself, with a consequent focus on London from each of the jurisdictions, rather than on interchange across the narrow North Channel. The two literary cultures, as it were, have their backs to each other to a surprising degree. Thus, the Festival will aim at lessening this contemporary cultural distance, and at a new historical moment – where relations between the two islands, no less than between the parts of the United Kingdom, have already begun to change dramatically with Brexit.
Cinematography
Winnie Brook Young (born 1995) is a Scottish cinematographer, photographer and artist from the Isle of Skye. Her artistic practice and research involves experimenting with different mediums, and so examining sensory perception, language, imitation and desire. Often working between her darkroom and the wilderness of Scotland, she explores the crossover of what can be recorded and what should be left unrecorded and untouched, according its context.
Her credits include From Mull to Mars, a collaboration with the Glasgow based a+e collective, commissioned by Creative Carbon Scotland and the CCA in Glasgow; and Firestack, an ongoing collaboration with renowned land artist Julie Brook. She also works as a camera technician, with past work including The Midnight Sky (George Clooney, Director); Succession 2 (Jesse Armstrong, Director); the BBC’s Vigil and The Nest; Sony’s Outlander 5; HBO’s The Third Day; and Channel 4’s Deadwater Fell.
Winnie is currently working closely with Scots Poet Laureate Jackie Kay on the online Makar to Makar series launched at the beginning of the Pandemic. Ahead of the final episodes, she has edited and published a short pamphlet of work from the poets involved in this project. It is available from Tapsalteerie, or the Makar to Makar website.
The Editors of Irish Pages and the sponsors of Virtual Crossways 2021 wish to thank Winnie Brook Young for her outstanding filming and editing evident on this website. This online Festival simply would not have been possible without her dedication, hard work, imagination and enthusiasm.
Sponsors
The Editors and Board of Irish Pages wish to thank the following sponsors of Virtual Crossways 2021 for their generous support in these challenging times:
The Editors and Board of Irish Pages wish to thank the following sponsors of Virtual Crossways 2021 for their generous support in these challenging times: