Awesome Women Changing Society At Belfast’s Amongst Women Festival

This weekend sees Belfast become a hive of cool gal activity, with Amongst Women, a side festival to the inaugural Lughnasa International?Friel Festival, crop up in the Northern capital. The name of the festival takes its cue from the Mundy Sisters in Brian Friel’s famous play and the next few days will be a magnet for inspiring women from the worlds of activism, political thought and culture.

Laura Bates, the pioneering internet warrior behind the #EverydaySexism hashtag and book, is one of the talented women taking part in public interviews alongside UK Liberty’s Director Shami Chakrabarti and Kamila Shamsie, the Pakistani novelist and commentator.

Last night Caroline Criado-Perez, who faced death threats for her campaign to put Jane Austen on the €10 note, launched proceedings, while Ione Wells, the activist behind the #NotGuilty campaign who we interviewed earlier this week, is speaking tomorrow with Bates. Sinead Gleeson, who schooled us on her career in our women in publishing feature, is also putting in an appearance and will be talking about the industry in general on Saturday and her upcoming Irish women writer’s short story anthology on Sunday. Feared and admired interviewer Lynn Barber will be talking about female friendship with novelist Kathy Lette on Sunday.

Musician Viv Albertine is also popping along to talk about women in the world of music and Feist will close proceedings Sunday night. Anyone up for an impromptu Belfast minibreak? (We’ve even made a list of lunch spots.)

Tickets for events are generally about the €8-?10 mark. For more details check out the website.