Join writers Malachi O’Doherty, David Hume and Katherine Mezzacappa to explore historical research and writing across a range of experiences.
Malachi O'Doherty is a writer and broadcaster. His twelve books are mostly memoir-led histories and polemics. He also has one novel, Terry Brankin Has a Gun. Recent historical works include The Year of Chaos (Belfast 1972) and Fifty Years On, an exploration of social and cultural change since the civil rights movement. Dr O'Doherty is a frequent guest on radio and television locally and writes weekly columns for The Belfast Telegraph and The Irish Post. He is married to the poet Maureen Boyle and they live in Belfast.
Katherine Mezzacappa was born in Carrickfergus but is long resident in Italy where they also have some quite impressive castles. Writing as Katie Hutton, she published four historical novels with Bonnier Zaffre. Her first book writing as herself, The Maiden of Florence (Fairlight) came out in 2024. Her latest novel, The Ballad of Mary Kearney (Histria, 2025) is set mainly in County Down at the time of the 1798 rebellion, but some readers will recognise in the Big House a portrait of Kilwaughter Castle. Katherine's short stories have been published in journals worldwide.
Katherine is a member of the executive committee of the Irish Writers Union. She is an organiser of the first Historical Novel Society conference to take place on the island of Ireland, in Maynooth, August 2026.
Dr. David Hume MBE is a broadcaster, historian and author from Ballycarry, County Antrim. A former parliamentary research assistant, he was a journalist with the Morton Newspaper Group and was Director of Services for the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland for 12 years, overseeing major outreach through the development of the Museum of Orange Heritage in 2015 and numerous other initiatives. He works in local government.
A prominent Ulster Scots historian and author, he served as a member of the Ministerial Advisory Group on the Ulster Scots Academy and was appointed to the Panel of Experts on Ulster Scots, assisting in the development of a strategy for the Ulster Scots language. He served as an Independent Commissioner on the Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition Commission in Northern Ireland. He has broadcast eight series of the popular BBC Radio Ulster Irish history series “The Long and the Short of it” with well-known comedian Tim McGarry, and is now on his second TV series. He was co-presenter of the BBC NI series “Afeared”, examining Ulster Scots ghost stories.
His published works include “Far from the Green Fields of Erin”, a study on Ulster emigration, “Union Cruiser: Ulster and the gunrunning of 1914”, “People of the Loughshore”, a study of local people in newspapers from the 1790s to the 1940s, “Eagle’s Wings”, a history of the Scotch-Irish and Ulster Scots, “Tides of Time. A Coastal History of East Antrim” and “No Smoke without Fire? Folklore, superstitions and stories of strange goings on”. He is an Honorary Citizen of Clover, South Carolina.
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