The HNS 2026 conference in photos.
Friday and Saturday: First column: The Great Hall, Maynooth Castle; Kerbstone at Newgrange Passage Tomb; Almost the whole group on the Newgrange and Knowth excursion; Me presenting on Vikings and Normans in Ireland; Aidan K. Morrissey talking about archaeology and fiction. Second column: Terence Dooley telling the tragic story of Hermione, Duchess of Leinster; the Conference Bookshop: Laura Morelli presenting on stories in art; and John Banville with delegate, Rose de Guzman.
The Conference Gala Dinner was held at the Glenroyal Hotel. Matthew Harffy and Justin Hill gave the after-dinner speech; HNS 2026 First Chapters Competition judges, Karen Sullivan and Martina Devlin presented awards to the ten category winners and announced the overall winner, Jenise Boland from Canada. The evening concluded with traditional Irish music from Cathal, Aibhinn, Margaret, Grainne, and Kieran. They were joined by conference volunteer Seamus McKenna for `On Raglan Road’ and joined by excursions organiser, Nicola Garrett for ‘The Fields of Athenry’. Fabulous evening!
Sunday: Panel on Beyond Kings and Queens with Justin Hill, Matthew Harffy and Jean Gill; Vaseem Khan tackling a long queue for signatures in the bookshop; Paula Campbell, Kate Nash and Katherine Mezzacappa discussing the historical saga; and finally, the conference organisation team: Katherine Mezzacappa, Maybelle Wallis, Dianne Ascroft, Aidan K. Morrissey, Margaret Skea, Tracey Warr, Nicola Garrett and Ben Bergonzi.
Rebekah Simmers and Tracey Warr coordinated the HNS 2026 First Chapters Competition. Therese Coen was also a final round judge for the competition. Huge thank you to everyone who entered and to the fifty judges for Rounds 1 and 2 who gave such careful, constructive feedback to every entrant.
You can read my posts from the conference here:
Anticipating the conference and the trip to Newgrange
A visit to Maynooth Castle
On Knowth and Newgrange
On historical sagas
A Chronicle of Historical Novelists
A summary of my experience of the conference
Tracey Warr Writing 