11 days of arts in Mountshannon

CONNECTIONS will be made in Mountshannon over the next two weeks as this year’s annual Iniscealtra Festival of Arts gets underway with a host of events taking place across the 11 days.
This year’s festival theme is ‘Connections’. Sheila Pratschke is the special guest and she will open the festival at the Church of Ireland Mountshannon on Saturday at 8pm.
Sheila grew up in Limerick and was a teacher in both Ireland and Africa before taking on the arts. She has been director of the Irish Film Institute and director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, the artists’ retreat at Annaghmakerrig and is presently the director of the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. Dermot Byrne and Florian Blancke will also be on hand to perform as part of the festival launch.
Fishbowl Youth Club is celebrating 10 years this year and will hold a display of their creative young talent at the Fishbowl Café on Friday from 8pm. The youth group has prepared a programme of dance, music and short films as part of this celebration.
A soccer tournament takes place in the GAA Grounds on Saturday from 10am and will be followed by the Mountshannon market and a panel discussion on the Connections festival theme. At 4.30pm that evening the Tom Fitzgerald exhibition will open.
Meanwhile, the annual group exhibition of local visual artists opens on Sunday at the side room of the Childcare Centre at 4pm where a display of contemporary art of various media on the theme of Connections will be held.
On Thursday, May 30, an exhibition of 19th century Mountshannon paintings by the Very Reverend Lucius Henry O’Brien, whose ancestry can be traced directly to Brian Boru, will be on display in The Snug. Seamus Farrell is this year’s artist in residence and will conduct workshops with young people in the Aistear building.
Further highlights include The Chatham Saxophone Quartet, who will perform in the Church of Ireland on Sunday night at 8pm. The Merriman Céilí Band will perform for a fundraising céilí in aid of the Clare branch of Multiple Sclerosis on Friday, May 31 at 9pm. On Sunday, June 2, a big dance night will be held with Gypsy Rebel Rabble a Dublin-based Irish bluegrass folk band at Mountshannon Hall at 9pm.
Also on June 2, Galway Community Circus will be in the Aistear with shows at 2.30pm and 5pm and workshops are being held there during the day. This is Ireland’s first dedicated youth circus and will teach circus skills to young people, helping them discover and develop their talents. Furthermore, a family fun day will be held on the Bank Holiday Monday at The Aistear.
A full programme of festival events is available online at http://iniscealtra-artsfestival.org/2013.