Pictures & review: Richard E Grant in Bantry for the West Cork Literary Festival

Irish Examiner

13-07-2025

As a child growing up in 1960s Swaziland, young Richard E Grant observed 'the three Bs: booze, boredom, and bonking' as the definition of adult colonial life.
The actor added three new Bs - Bantry, Barry Keoghan, and Barbara Streisand – to his list as spoke to a packed Maritime Hotel on Saturday night as part of the West Cork Literary Festival.
Grant was in town to speak about A Pocketful of Happiness, the memoir he wrote in 2022 after the loss of his wife Joan Washington to cancer a year earlier. In conversation with food writer, chef and Ballymaloe Cookery School co-founder Rory O'Connell, he spoke warmly on a range of topics.
In the days before her passing, wife Joan had said she knew Richard and their casting director daughter Olivia would be devastated by grief. 'She challenged us to try and find a pocketful of happiness in each day,' said Grant.
Grant, a keen diarist since childhood, said they have tried to live up to that expectation since.
The sold-out signs were up for the event at the Maritime Hotel for weeks in advance, and Grant lived up to his character, with hints of the outrageous, adding tidbits of celebrity to pique the audience interest.
Grant spoke with relish of co-starring with Dubliner Barry Keoghan in the dark thriller Saltburn, a smash hit on Netflix in 2023. The 68-year-old revealed a shocking scene featuring Keoghan's sexual antics on the grave of his former lover was improvised – and a sign of the young Irishman's craft genius.
'I believe Barry will be one of the great untrained actors of all time,' he gushed.
Michelle Duggan, Cork, Charlie Fellows, Douglas, and Deirdre Murphy, Skibbereen in the Maritime Hotel, Bantry, to see Richard E Grant. Picture: Darragh Kane
Grant has flashes of Kenneth Williams; even the shocking recollection of childhood, when the young Richard Grant Esterhuysen peeped over the car seat only to see the noise on the other side was his mother was 'getting a hole in one' from her father's golfer best friend.
He candidly discussed his drunken father Henrik Esterhuysen holding a gun to his temple and pulling the trigger, after the youngster had poured his bottles of Scotch down the drain in an attempt to cure his alcoholism. Thankfully, he was so drunk he missed.
He spoke about his obsession with Streisand, who he had seen as a youngster on screen in Swaziland and to whom he wrote a childhood letter inviting her over after seeing her in What's Up Doc? with Ryan O'Neill in 1972. Streisand told him almost half a century later that she never got the letter – and told him he was crazy. Grant has maintained his Streisand obsession and travelled to the Hamptons on a whim to meet her and husband James Brolin.
Ostensibly, it is a A Pocketful of Happiness that Grant was in town to discuss, and his interviewer O'Connell is an avid fan. 'It hit me like a ton of bricks,' said O'Connell. 'I was on an Aer Lingus flight and one of the flight staff had to ask me if I was alright.'
Grant says that he has been 'navigating grief' and in some ways his continuing loss – not eased by time – for his wife keeps her close. He spoke warmly about their first meeting, and their last – a 'conversation" that last from 1986 to Joan's death from cancer on September 2, 2021.
The awkward boy from Swaziland found himself with dialect coach and partner Joan in 1980s London. They called their daughter Olivia because they thought she might look like him, tall, and long-faced – and imagined she might look like Olive Oil from Popeye, so she'd be called 'Oily'. She is called that by friends to this day.
O'Connell was polite and deliberate. In true Ballymaloe style, had his questions meticulously prepared.
Grant touched upon Withnail and I, upon the Oscars, upon meeting royalty. But much like the best recipes, sometimes it's the surprise ingredients which get the best results.
When the event was very briefly thrown open to the floor, the very last question came from an audience member who asked about his relationship from his late mother Leonne , from whom he had been estranged and briefly reacquainted in more recent years.
Grant was clearly a little thrown but spoke honestly. It was the first time Grant's facade of cool slipped, his voice cracking when he spoke of a frosty meeting where she finally slumped in front of him and simply said: 'Forgive me, please.'
Grant said his mother had suffered living the life of a colonial wife, but added that she was also 'a narcissist, and a narcissist can't help themselves'. Her apology was short-lived. 'We have only two things in common – books and classical music,' were the words of her last message to him. He concluded that being the son of a narcissist has proved a driver to keep pushing himself and proving her wrong.
The West Cork Literary Festival continues until July 19, with a packed schedule. Sunday's line-up includes John Creedon in conversation with Jackie Lynam and children's author and Milly McCarthy creator Leona Forde. Other highlights this week include film director Neil Jordan, and Graham Norton in conversation with Ryan Tubridy.
See westcorkmusic.ie
Out and about in Bantry
Susan Moloney and and Anne Hanrahan, Bantry, in the Maritime Hotel, Bantry to see the event with Richard E Grant and chef Rory O'Connell at West Cork Literary Festival. Pictures: Darragh Kane
Nelius Barry, Cahersiveen, and Mary Millea, Killiney, in the Maritime Hotel for West Cork Literary Festival.
Eithne Barry and Angela McDonald, Blackrock, in the Maritime Hotel.
Margaret and Mary McCarthy, Skibbereen, at the Richard E Grant event.
Elsa and Sezzie Kemal in the Maritime Hotel.
William Morris and Christine O'Keeffe, Ballydehob.
Liz Buckley and Padraig Leahy, Cork.
Meg O'Connell, Schull, Kate Whalley, Cork, and Aisling Arundel, Ahakista.
Annie McCarthy, Rosscarbery, Elizabeth Goldrick, Dublin, Lia Curtin, Montenotte and Erin Connally, Cork.
Siobhán Burke, Grace O'Mahony and Sara O'Donovan.
Mary Manning, Marie Sherrie's, Deirdre O'Donovan and Bríd O'Connor, Bantry.
Doreen O'Mahony and Kerry McMahon in the Maritime Hotel.