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The 40th Annual Oliver Goldsmith Festival was held in Longford this June Bank Holiday weekend. The opening night in Abbeyshrule was addressed by an Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, Professor Michael Griffin of the School of English, Irish, and Communication, and Justine McCarthy of the Irish Times. All three discussed the relevance of Goldsmith’s works and ideas to imperatives of sustainability and diversity.

On Saturday, in Ballymahon Library’s Goldsmith Room, Professor Griffin chaired presentations given by Professors Aileen Douglas and Ian Campbell Ross of Trinity College Dublin and Dr James Ward of Ulster University, announcing two publications forthcoming next month from Cambridge University Press: Goldsmith in Context, a collection of essays edited by Griffin and David O’Shaughnessy, and a new edition of The Vicar of Wakefield, edited by Douglas and Ross, the first instalment of a new eight-volume edition of Goldsmith’s works, of which Griffin and O’Shaughnessy are the general editors.