A Brief Intro to the Maynooth Book Fair
A pristine box set of Frank McCourt’s collected works; a suitably compendious volume on Rosalind Franklin’s contribution to biological study; a 1969 Penguin Modern Classics reprint of A Portrait of the Artist, poignantly featuring an aged Joyce on the cover; all of Wallace and Gromit on DVD, the Holy Grail of the whole affair.
These examples illustrate only a sliver of the variety of items on sale at the Maynooth Book Fair on February 11, 2026. In any given corner of the rustic Renehan Hall at St Patrick’s College, where the fair takes place each semester, you can find books and DVDs, postcards and vinyl records, vintage comics and Ordnance Survey maps. Vendors from across the country, such as Marrowbone Books in Dublin’s Southside or Red Books in Wexford Town, whose stock famously counted at over 250,000 items, come to Kildare to sell all kinds of media at graciously low prices.
Behind the event is John Heddon of Irish Book Fairs, who tells Silver Hand Journal that he has run book fairs nationwide for the better part of three decades. “I love selling books to young people,” John remarks, fresh from a similar event that took place on February 5. Continuing his nationwide university tour, John plans to host a fair at Carlow College (another campus named after St. Patrick) on March 12
Although Irish Book Fairs hosts “provisional markets” in communities outside universities, John particularly values selling books affordably to students, and began doing so at Maynooth University after a conversation with co-organiser Dr. Michael Potterton of the History Department, who was equally keen about doing “something for students.” Since then, he has run the Maynooth Book Fair for the past three years, with one fair each semester.
This time around, the university’s History and Philosophy Societies were involved in promoting the event. John highlighted to Silver Hand Journal the value of selling to students of these subjects, alongside classics and theology. It’s a “tough market” for books in these fields outside the university space, whether due to the specificity of the subject matter or the inaccessibility of texts for courses and research. The previously mentioned vendors have the solution, providing texts that might otherwise be absent from the shelves of mainstream retailers or locked behind ludicrous paywalls. Among the sheer variety of items on sale – including, of course, Wallace and Gromit on DVD – students are sure to find what they’re looking for.
As the Maynooth Book Fair continues to become part of students’ consciousnesses, and spoils us for choice with texts, we hope to see John and company returning next semester.
