Old Athlone Society to host lecture on John Broderick

The Old Athlone Society is inviting members of the public to the Shamrock Lodge Hotel on Thursday, April 10, at 8pm for the annual Billy English Memorial Lecture, entitled; 'John Broderick, midlands private eye, 1961-1991'.

The lecture about the renowned Athlone author will be given by Mary Shine Thompson.

Mary was dean of research and humanities at St Patrick’s College (Dublin City University) until her retirement and she has a long-standing interest in Irish literature.

She has maintained a particular interest in Westmeath literature: in 2022 her essay, 'Westmeath: literary "stories so far"', published in Westmeath: History and Society (ed. S. O’Brien), surveyed Westmeath’s Anglo-Irish literature.

Mary's Billy English Lecture will appraise the novels of the John Broderick (1924-1989), all of which were first published between 1961 and 1991.

Broderick, uniquely in his generation of Irish novelists, found rich material in the lives especially of an affluent merchant class, as well as clerics and professionals, most of whom lived in, or were associated with, a recognisable, though fictional, Athlone and its hinterland.