Spirit Of Carnegie lives on at Irchester Llibrary

Young adult author Peadar O’Guilan was invited to Irchester Library by a member of its young adult book club, Georgia Noble.

On Saturday, he spent time reading a chapter from The Call, which is nominated in the 2018 Carnegie children’s book awards, and spoke about the Irish folklore and stories that are the inspiration for this writing.

Library manager Alan Reville said: “It all came about because Georgia emailed Peadar after reading one of his books and invited him to the library.

“I explained to him that we’re a small village library so we didn’t have a budget to pay him.

“He was very understanding and said he would come along while he was over here on a trip to London.

“It was all done in the spirit of Carnegie.

“Our library was 108 years old last week and around the same time, Peadar found he’d been nominated for the Carnegie award.

“The library was set up to offer a free service and Peadar is living that legacy through his visit to us.

“We had around 50 people join us for his visit and he was very entertaining - he could be a comedian if he wasn’t an author.”

The event was supported by the animal charity Animals in Need as a nod to Peadar’s veganism.

The library celebrated its 108th birthday by handing out free books and the celebrations will continue in the coming weeks when visitors will be asked to share their memories of the library.

The messages and stories will then be displayed around the library.

Like many other libraries in the county, Irchester Library could close as part of proposed savings by Northamptonshire County Council.

A petition to save Irchester Library has been set up at the Co-op store in the village.