The Swift Festival, in honour of writer and satirist Jonathan Swift, will feature our President, 302 people reading, a Comedy Circus, a spectacular light show and the Hardy Bucks! Bring on the fun!

Starting this evening in Trim Castle, the festival will kick off with a Battle of the Books featuring the two Trim-based writers groups, the Meath Writers Circle and the Boyne Writers Group.

The Circle, led this year by Frank Murphy of Kilmessan, will be trying hard to retain the Noel Dempsey Annual Trophy, while the Group, with captain Michael Farry, will be desperate to make up for their defeat last year.

Friday night promises to be full of laughs with a traditional round table dinner featuring three comedy routines from Barry Murphy of Après Match and Irish Pictorial Weekly, Alan Shortt of Bull Island, and the hilarious Colm O' Regan author of Irish Mammies. The night will also play host to a number special guests such as John Waters, Noel Whelan and Terry Prone.

The Saturday will also be bustling with events with 302 people reading aloud the 302 individual pages of Swift’s famous novel, Gulliver's Travels, all at the same time in just over three minutes with readers getting a special certificate to prove they took part!

Not only that but the festival committee with also host a unique light show called Project Swift, commencing after dark on Saturday night at 11pm and repeated every 10 minutes or so until 1am. It sounds pretty beautiful! The walls of the castle will become a living canvass for some spectacular animated images projected onto the keep of Trim Castle. The artwork for this event has been specially commissioned by the festival organisers.

Sunday will be a special affair with President Michael D Higgins delivering the inaugural Swift Lecture on Sunday in Trim Castle Hotel.

This jam-pack weekend event will also include free family events, food stalls, exhibitions and top-notch comedy entertainment.

If this sounds like your kind-of thing you can find more details on The Swift Festival website here.