Des Ekin is a journalist and the author of five books. The Stolen Village, his bestselling account of the 1631 pirate slave raid on Baltimore, County Cork, was shortlisted for the Argosy Irish Nonfiction Book of the Year Award and also nominated for Book of the Decade in the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards. For his latest book, Ireland’s Pirate Trail, he travelled around the Irish coast by land and sea to collect more than 30 true-life pirate stories. His third history book, Hell or Some Worst Place, a vivid account of the Spanish invasion at Kinsale in 1601, was shortlisted for Nonfiction Book of the Year. He is also the author of two crime novels. Born in County Down, Des began his career as a reporter and rose to become Deputy Editor of the Belfast Sunday News before moving to his current home in Dublin, where he worked as a columnist and political correspondent for the Sunday World until 2012. He is married with a son and two daughters.
Details of this year’s festival programme can be found elsewhere on this website.
