Celebrating Seamus Heaney On Home Ground - poetry festival in Magherafelt (11-14 September)

If you love your poetry then there's a festival for you running in Magherafelt. The festival website introduces the event:

The Festival which was named “On Home Ground” by the poet before his untimely death will take place in the stunning setting of Laurel Villa, Magherafelt, and surrounding locations which inspired much of Heaney’s work and will this year be called Celebrating Seamus Heaney On Home Ground 2014, in his honour.

The event, running over four days in September in the heart of the late Seamus Heaney’s homeland, will this year celebrate the life, work and legacy of Ireland's most well-known and respected poet through poetry, music and art and will bring a host of huge names from all of these worlds to Magherafelt, the district he called home.

Heaney, who was born three miles away at Mossbawn, was a patron of the On Home Ground Festival and featured heavily in last year’s very successful event at Laurel Villa. This year the Heaney family have given the festival their blessing to carry on in his name.

Friday 12 September

4pm Henry McDonald (Guardian & Observer Ireland Correspondent) shares his favourite Heaney poem. £5.

7pm Pat Loughrey (former controller BBC NI) talks about how Heaney's poetry captured the wonder
of a child’s eye view of the world. Free, but booking required.

Saturday 13 September

1pm Seamus McKee (Presenter of Evening Extra) shares his favourite Heaney poem. £5.

2pm Belfast Noir - a discussion on this burgeoning literary genre chaired by Darragh McIntyre with panellists Stuart Neville (The Twelve), Brian McGilloway (The Inspector Devlin mysteries) and Gerard Brennan (The Point). £10.

6pm The amazing Wireless Mystery Theatre present My Heaney. £5.

8pm The Invisible Tribe - Gary Lightbody in conversation with festival curator Marie-Louise Muir about Heaney "as a central force in his creative life". £25.

8.15pm A night of music and song - Heaney and Songs of the Scribe: Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin with Zoe Conway, John McIntyre and Poets Leontia Flynn and Medbh McGuckian ... oddly accompanied by my photo in the festival brochure. £10.

Sunday 14 September

1pm Liam Clarke (Belfast Telegraph Political Editor) shares his favourite Heaney poem. £5.

For ticket availability, check with the box office on + 44 (0) 28 7963 1510.