At the Borris Festival of Writing and Creative ideas this year, the wonderful Ocean Vong (a Vietnamese/American poet and writer) described language as being a form of gravity; once you are in it, you can never get out of it. Personally, for me, that gravity is best described as honey, I am always in a constant wrangle with the sticky stuff, but yes, it is the use of words at Borris that is the most pulsating, exciting, and vibrant of commodities on offer at the Festival.

Ocean Vong also talked beautifully about the accountability of writing and, indeed, accountability was an issue that came up a lot in the festival. It was raised by the foreign correspondents, Fergal Keane, Orla Guerin, Lyse Doucet as well as writers like Sinead Gleeson, and Afua Hirsch, Lemn Sissay and Peter Frankopan.  I also listened to Kai Strittmatter and Isobel Hilton discussing Dictatorship (in China), and Misha Glenny talking about the increasing power of the microchip and the few nations who control its production. As the years roll past at Borris, the concerns about accountability and democracy become more and fraught.

Fortunately, the organisers provide choices and if you don’t feel like discovering that the ‘end is nigh’, you can go and listen to Lemn Sissay, who is boyant, positive, clever and thought provoking or Ruby Wax or just wonder around, go and get a drink and enjoy the general craic. Sometimes at Borris you need to just take time out and listen to the general hubbub of what’s going on around you.

The Borris festival is set in the wonderful grounds of a stately home and the food trucks are a delicious mix of wholesome: Indian snacks, burritos, ice cream, lobster. It is definitely cool and clever. The wooden toilets use sawdust, and general waste is recycled. The speakers are intelligent and thoughtful; they are journalists, poets, novelists, musicians, educationalists, and policy makers who debate concepts, creativity, world events, wars, climate change, and power. These speakers are then reflected in its listening audience who are also mainly over fifty, white, journalists, writers, educators, and policy makers. This is the festival’s main downfall, but I have been going to Borris for nearly ten years and each year I leave buzzing with bonhomie, knowledge, and the joy of mixing with other interested and engaged people. Also, every year I meet yet another person I know!

The stand out session for me this year was listening to Lemn Sissay, Sally Phillips (Comedien and Actress) and her son, Olly Bermejo. The whole room laughed, danced, and wept listening to the three of them talk about the ups and downs of being different. It was brilliant, emotional, funny, shocking, engaging and joyous: they described the cruel and barbaric behaviour experienced by young children at the hands of carers and adults. Sally moved the room to tears as she described the love, work and endeavor of mothers with disabled children yet it was so up-lifting at the end when Sally’s son, Olly, sang Will You Marry Me by Jason Derulo. We all stood up and joined in, dancing and waving our hands.

I also enjoyed Colm Toibin talking about his new book, Long Island. While I enjoy his books, occasionally, I have found Colm Toibin to be a little arrogant, but this time I found him gentle, and humorous. I also loved listening to Kevin Barry reading his new book The Heart of Winter. He has a wonderfully expressive face and a superb reading voice. I think I might have to get it on audible. He was on with Ye Vagabonds who are a band from Carlow. I don’t want to sound patronising, but they were such gorgeous, young men with no pretensions.

I also enjoyed listening to Simon Armitage, the current English Poet Laureate. He has a lovely, ironic sense of humour and his poems are humorous and moving. Olivia O’Leary is also a lovely interviewer and she got him to read some gorgeous poems and describe the challenges of his work as poet laureate i.e. writing poems for the great occasions. I loved how he described poetry writing as being a challenge and the poem then being the solution. He found ‘a way into the coronation’ poem by writing a poem which imagined his mum sitting among the great and the good.

Overall and finally, it has to be Lemn Sissay who was my favourite. I loved his humour, his attitude, his love of life and indeed also his book of quatrains, Let the Light Pour in. His general philosophy of life, and his wisdom was a tonic and I was delighted when I was able, just before I left, to give him a big, big hug. Lemn, I love you. (He’ll like that!)