Roger Downer
was born in Belfast and obtained the degrees of BSc and MSc from Queen's University, before moving to Canada, where he completed the degree, of PhD at the University of Western Ontario. He assumed the presidency of the University of Limerick in 1998. He is also Chair of the Birr Scientific and Heritage Foundation, Vice-Chair of the National Technology Park, Vice-President of the Hunt Museum and a member of the board of the Irish Peace Institute.

Sínead Campbell
has a B.Mus. Performance Degree, with Mary Brennan and coach Mairead Hurley. She has won many vocal competitions in the Feis Ceoil and was a finalist in the RTE Millennium Singer of the Future Competition (2000). Her operatic roles include 'Flora' in La Traviata with Lyric Opera Company (2001), 'Pamina' in The Magic Flute with Opera Theatre Company (2001).

Eamon Delaney
is an author and a journalist and lives in Dublin. An Accidental Diplomat, a best-selling account of his time in the Irish Foreign Service was published last year. He is also the author The Casting of O'Shaughnessy, a blackly comic novel about art and history, due to be published this June. He is at present developing a screenplay The Sharing of The Green, about the Irish American community.

Michael Noonan
is a native of Limerick and a former teacher. He was elected Leader of Fine Gael during February 2001. He is party Spokesperson on Northern Ireland.

Eugene O'Brien
is head of the English Department in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. His first book The Question of Irish Identity in the Writings of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, was published in 1 998, and two more, Literature, Identity, Religion and the Epistemology of Irish Nationalism, and Seamus Heaney - Creating Irefands of the Mind, are forthcoming in 2002.

Redmond O'Hanlon
teaches Drama at UCD, has been published internationally on Wine, Theatre and the Novel. He organises an annual Dionysus Colloquium in Montpelier in the South of France.

Nicci Gerrard
is a feature writer and contributing editor on The Observer. In colaboration with her husband Sean French, under the pseudonym 'Nicci French', she is a writer of psychological thrillers. Their works include The Memory Came, Killing me Softly and Beneath the Skin. She has four children.

Patricia Lysaght
is a native of Co. Clare and a Professor in the Department of Irish Folklore, UCD. Her academic background is in Law, the Classics, Irish Language and Literature, and Irish and European folklore and ethnology. A major work entitled The Banshee was published in 1986. Second and American editions appeared in 1996 and a pocket edition in 1998. Professor Lysaght participated in the documentary film Talking to the Dead (2000) and has lectured and published on aspects of funerary customs and ceremonials.

Kay Sheehy
Is from Granagh in Co. Limerick, Kay went to a convent boarding school in West Limerick, a good grounding, she feels, for appreciating the work of Kate O'Brien. For the past six years she has been a producer on RTE Radio , and more recently a reporter on Rattlebag and a presenter of the Saturday show Morning Glory. Kay attended the first ever Kate O'Brien Weekend and is delighted to participate in this one.

Laurie Taylor
grew up in Liverpool. He enjoyed a short spell as professional actor with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop before taking up an academic career. He was Professor of Sociology at the University of York for twelve years. Laurie Taylor has written ten books on everything from crime and punishment to the nature of identity in the modern world. His radio work includes Stop The Week, The Radio Programme and (currently) The Afternoon Shift. He writes a weekly satirical column on university life for the Times Higher Education Supplement and a weekly column for The New Statesman.