Tickets are now on sale for the Ballymaloe Food and Drinks Literacy Festival.

Litfest17 will take place from Friday 19 May to Sunday 21 May, with a focus on responsibility at this year’s event to recognise the individual’s link to the food chain.

The first Litfest was hosted in Ballymaloe in 2013 and has attracted impressive speakers and chefs from home and abroad in the past four years. Continuing in the same vein as previous years, the programme of events for 2017 is diverse and bound to provoke interest.

Highlights of the coming event include an interview with Brian McGinn, director of the Emmy-winning Netflix documentary series Chef’s Table and a pop-up lunch with Dublin-born chef Robin Gill, who runs a number of restaurants in Dublin and also judges MasterChef.

There will also be a number of cooking demonstrations from Monika Linton of Brindisa and Clare Lattin and Tom Hill from Ducksoup.

Returning to LitFest 17 following a soldout talk last year is Professor Ted Dinan of UCC’s Microbiome Institute. He will tackle the topic of the relationship between gut health and our mental wellbeing.

Kristin Jensen, co-author of the Irish craft beer & cider book Sláinte, leads a panel discussing Irish cider from blossom to bottle - Irish craft cider, and a second panel will talk about Irish craft beer: good to the last drop. Meanwhile, Kevin O’Gorman hosts a whiskey tasting workshop.

GIY’s Michael Kelly will also join LitFest 17 to speak about the opening of the GROW HQ headquarters in Waterford, being host to a café, workshops and food-producing gardens.

See www.litfest.ie for a full programme and for bookings.