A LOOK at the history of Belfast blues music and how it was central to politics in Northern Ireland is among the topics for discussion at an event run by the Linen Hall Library.
Authors Noel McLaughlin and Joanna Braniff, a former Irish News features editor, are involved in the online event next month, when they will explore the key issues emerging from their new book, How Belfast Got The Blues: A Cultural History of Popular Music in the 1960s.
The event on February 17 looks at the period before 1969 and argues that popular music in Northern Ireland was central to the politics of the time, in ways not previously understood or explored.
They will also discuss what links the Rolling Stones had to the birth of the civil rights movement as well as examining if the first white European blues singer was an Irish woman.
Among the other events planned at Belfast's Linen Hall Library is a look at Irish surnames with Dr Stiofán Ó Direáin on February 10.
There's also a celebration of National Storytelling Week with Liz Weir, one of Ireland's best-known storytellers. She will share traditional tales of magic, fairies and mermaids on February 3.
For more information on the events, please visit www.linenhall.com
