Muldoon's Picnic returns with special guests Glen Hansard, Anne Enright, Roddy Doyle and many more

After a successful Irish tour in 2017, 2019 and again in 2022, as well as ten sold-out seasons at the Irish Arts Center in New York City, Muldoon's Picnic returns for a nationwide four-day stint in May.

A variety festival of poetry, prose and music, Muldoon's Picnic is a cabaret-style evening, by turns lively, scintillating and sophisticated, hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon.

Each show on the tour boasts a bespoke panel of artists from musical  and literary fields. Guests such as Glen Hansard, Liz Nugent, Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Donal Ryan, Hugh Buckley, Síle Denvir and many more will join Muldoon for four different evenings of creative and collaborative energy.

Under Muldoon's creative oversight, hosting duties are accompanied by house band Rogue Oliphant — a collective of musicians and composers including Chris Harford (Three Colors, Band of Changes), Cáit O’Riordan (The Pogues), David Mansfield (Bob Dylan, The Alpha Band), Ray Kubian (Electric Six, Chris Forsyth) and Warren Zanes (Del Fuegos).

The title 'Muldoon's Picnic' refers to a popular 19th century New York vaudeville set and likewise promises a mixture of specialty, burlesque acts and cabaret entertainment.

Paul Muldoon describes his Picnic as a direct response to a primeval impulse for performance and storytelling: “It’s one of our most basic instincts; to listen to a song, listen to a poem. Even in this era when people have their noses stuck in their tablets, it still works.”

The tour kicks off on Monday 13 May in Galway's Town Hall Theatre. Paul Muldoon and house band Rogue Oliphant will be joined by Booker Prize-winning novelist Anna Burns, one of the leading Irish poets of their generation Padraig Regan, and Oscar-winning musician Glen Hansard.

The Market Place Theatre in Armagh on Wednesday 15 May will be the venue for one of Ireland’s foremost poets and recent TS Eliot Prize nominee Jane Clarke. Jane will be joined by the sounds of composer and musician Colm Mac Con Iomaire as well as internationally-acclaimed author and Booker Prize winner Anne Enright.

On Thursday 16 May at Wexford Arts Centre, Tipperary-born author Donal Ryan, singer and harpist Síle Denvir and poet Nithy Kasa will join Muldoon and the house band for a night of exhilarating conversation and performance.

Muldoon's Picnic closes in Dublin on Friday 17 May, in Dun Laoghaire's Pavilion Theatre, where Muldoon will be joined by Booker Prize-winning novelist, dramatist and screenwriter Roddy Doyle, guitarist, composer and author Hugh Buckley, Irish language poet Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh and crime novelist Liz Nugent.

The tour is organised by Poetry Ireland, the leading body for producing literary events, readings and performances on a macro scale.

Tickets are on sale now. For more information and ticket prices, see www.poetryireland.ie.