Arts & Culture

A DOCUMENTARY about a University of Limerick academic and one of the most influential figures in Irish music is to be aired this Tuesday. Directed and produced by multi-award winning filmmaker Maggie Breathnach of Red Shoe Productions, “Between Worlds” explores the life and legacy of the pioneering Irish composer and academic  Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin (1950-2018).  From his ground-breaking developments as a composer with a unique Irish piano style fusing classical, jazz and Irish traditional elements, to his creation of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick, Ó Súilleabháin’s output had a huge impact on Irish music and music education in this country. Heavily influenced by the pioneering work of Seán Ó Riada and Aloys Fleischman during his time at UCC, Ó Súilleabháin viewed the world as a global village. Although Ireland was undoubtedly the epicentre of the world in his eyes, Ó Súilleabháin brought traces of his travels into his music and in turn infused world music with our …

AN exhibition entitled ‘Rineanna/Shannon, Time Past,’ by renowned Clare-based artist Philip Brennan, will run for six weeks in the airport’s transit lounge. The paintings, which were influenced by a collection of photos taken at the airport from the 1930s onwards, depict aircraft from a bygone era and the airport environs. Wings of both metal and feather feature in this series of water colour paintings by the Newmarket-on-Fergus native, due to the airport’s location in the original townland of Rineanna which means “meeting place of the birds”. Speaking about the collection, Philip said, “I have been working on this project since 2018 and am finally delighted to have it completed and on display in the very place it was inspired by. “Since 1974, I have spent a great amount of time in the environs of the airport and have lived nearby since then. “In that time, I’ve done a lot of observation of the bird life at the estuary and the …

STEEPED in musical heritage, 25-year-old Hazel Park has chased her dream, and is now living it. After spending a few years teaching, she left education to go to London for an MA in Musical Theatre Performance and is starting her first professional role this week, playing Tinkerbell in the pantomime Peter Pan at University Concert Hall Limerick. She told the Clare Champion that Shannon Musical Society has been a big part of her life and her family. “My grandparents actually founded the society, my family have been in it over the years and I joined when I was 18.” Hazel has also been involved with Muse Productions and the Ennis Musical Society, while she was nominated for Best Female Singer in the Association of Irish Musical Societies Awards in 2020. She has always wanted to get into musical theatre as a professional, but didn’t go into it straight after the Leaving Cert. “It was always in the back of my …

Following a three-year break due to Covid, the Rice College Christmas Concert returns to glór next Monday, writes River McGann. The concert will feature music students from the school’s Transition Year and upwards, with traditional music, Irish dancing, and solos from the sixth years. Joan Hanrahan, concert organiser and Rice College music teacher said, “The last time we held this Christmas Concert was three years ago, during Christmas 2019. Little did we think that we wouldn’t be back in glór for three full years! “It has been a huge loss to the school and the students, including the students of music, because the school concert is a wonderful opportunity for our students to perform. “Not everybody is comfortable with standing up in front of an audience, but it’s a skill we can improve. “We feel it’s a very important part of the life of Rice College, performing for others and creating bonds with people in doing so. “Not performing for …

DRAMA is being used to promote integration between the communities of North Clare and those taking refuge from the war on Ukraine.  An innovative project called ‘New Hope’ has been spearheaded by Mariupol woman Nadia Shvachova, in partnership with Bellharbour native Maria Kerin Walsh. The programme has two stages, the first of which is to gather people to participate in the techniques of Playback Theatre to tell stories about their lives through improvisation. The second stage will see Irish and Ukrainian participants perform with a general audience and develop a “pop-up players”  theatre company Maria, an independent artist, curator and choreographer, has extensive experience of working overseas. She said the New Hope scheme is a way of keeping community bonds strong as the response to the war on Ukraine becomes a longer-term effort. “Originally, we were in crisis mode in North Clare and we’re now looking to move beyond that,” she said. Having lived for a time in Estonia, Maria …

NESTLED within a gentle valley, between silver hills of karst limestone that rise and fall towards an Atlantic horizon, Richard Hearns grapples with a canvas, stretched to mirror the reach of his body. The artist is shipping his painting, Kārwān, to Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Academy, where he will present the work before an audience, before it moves to Sotheby’s in London for their Modern British & Irish Art Auction. The auction is serendipitously timed alongside Hearns’ solo-show at the Cadogan Gallery in Kensington, where his most recent body of work, Nomad, went on display on November 16. Hearns was born in Beirut during the civil war, and adopted as an infant by an Irish UN Peacekeeper and his wife. He was raised in Dublin, where he studied Fine Art & Digital Media, before setting-off around the world like many young adults before him. Unlike many others, he continued to wander. With an easel in tow. Hearns has always used his …

LEADER of Cumann na mBan in Clare, Nan Hogan was fearless and dedicated to the cause of Irish freedom during the War of Independence. The Cratloe woman’s contribution to Ireland’s revolutionary history was in danger of being obscured and, until relatively recent times, her burial place was unmarked. Efforts to revive Nan’s memory have begun in earnest and acclaimed author, Colm Liddy, has just published a lavishly-illustrated biography that tells her story and honours her revolutionary achievements. “Like most women of the revolutionary era, Nan was forgotten for a long time,” Colm told The Champion. “She didn’t even have a gravestone until the last decade.” The Newmarket man is among those working to raise Nan’s profile and his book describes her life and especially her activities during the War of Independence. Vehemently opposed to the Treaty, Nan was imprisoned for her role in the Civil War. In Kilmainham Gaol, her cellmate was Grace Gifford Plunkett. Much of the book describes …

A CELEBRATION of the War of Independence in Clare will take place in song, dance and story at Glór in Ennis this Saturday night.  The creation of Dr Tim Collins, Breith features a cast of some of the county’s most renowned performers, alongside the Irish Chamber Orchestra (ICO) and the Kilfenora Céilí Band. The work has been in development for over a year and brings to life a creative vision that Dr Collins has long cherished. “I have always held the view that, in this time of commemorations, we should celebrate the ordinary men and women involved in the struggle for Independence,” he said. “It was ordinary men and women who got us our freedom and they weren’t doing it for themselves, but for the coming generations. In Clare, the memory of the revolutionary period from 1916 to 1921 is very much alive. I have plenty of stories from my own father and grandfather. One of the songs in Breith …