TALK: A Dress for Kathleen

TALK: A Dress for Kathleen with Heather Richardson
Thursday 10th October
2.30-3.30pm
Tickets £5. Email [email protected] to purchase.


'Every family has shadow people, the ones who slipped out of the story too soon, leaving a blank space where they should have been. In my father's family that person was his sister Kathleen.'

A Dress for Kathleen began life as a piece of textile art – a hand-embroidered Irish linen dress - honouring the short life of a writer and textile artist's teenaged aunt, Kathleen Hutchinson, who died cycling home from her first job in a linen mill in the early months of World War II. The story has grown from a life reimagined in stitch into a book that explores family, making and the threads that connect the past and present in our lives. In the process, Heather Richardson also tells the stories of Kathleen's parents and their lives together in rural Northern Ireland in the first half of the 20th Century. Join us at Gladstone’s Library as Heather shares the story not just of Kathleen and of the book but also of the dress, which you will be able to see in-person as part of this unique event.

Heather Richardson has published two historical novels: Magdeburg (2010, Lagan Press) and Doubting Thomas (2017, Vagabond Voices). Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in journals in the UK, Ireland and Australia, and her textile art has been exhibited at the International Linen Biennale (Lisburn, 2018) and at the F.E. McWilliam Gallery (Banbridge, 2019). She is a recently retired senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the Open University, and lives in Belfast.

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Please note, tickets cannot be refunded or used for another event if ticketholders are unable to attend. All ticket purchases support us to care for the Library building and the collections it holds. As a charity, Gladstone's Library receives no government funding, so all purchases, Gift Aid and donations, are deeply appreciated.

Please note that tickets for this event are e-tickets. Book online and have your ticket emailed directly to you.

You now have the option to save your tickets in your Gladstone Bag! For more information see here.

A print and collect service is available to those without access to email facilities for a small charge to cover our admin costs. Call 01244 532350 or email [email protected] for more information. Printed tickets will be available to collect from Reception before the event.