Rare footage of Garland Sunday being celebrated in Lahinch in the 1950s forms part of a new, multi-media exhibition by local artist, Anne Maree Barry.
Barry, who moved to North Clare five years ago, uncovered the rare, black-and-white footage in the National Archive and has developed it into a short film with an original soundtrack.
The footage was originally shot by Paddy O’Neill, formally of Ennistymon and Lahinch. Barry both wrote the lyrics and performed the accompanying soundtrack, with music from Enda Gallery and fiddle from Aindrias de Staic.
This film, entitled All Alone, is running in the Red Couch Space in the gallery, and is a companion piece to an exhibition of photographs by Barry in the upstairs gallery.
This exhibition is inspired by Barry’s own experiences of rave culture on Red Rock Beach at Howth Head in Dublin in years gone by. Garland Sunday was a festival of music and dance which took place in Lahinch in the last century. It has been the subject of a number of artistic works, including a personal account of the event by the late Doolin writer, Eddie Stack.
For Anne Maree, exploring the film and photographic heritage of an area is a key part of getting to know a place.
“It took me a while to make new work in Clare. I waited to make a new film, the landscape here is so overpowering, it was hard to know where to start,” she told The Clare Champion.
“My film work is very site specific, it is always based on where I live. When it came to Ennistymon, Lahinch and North Clare, I wanted to make something that was about the area, but not a pastiche of the area.
“Before the pandemic I had been to the Willie Clancy Festival, for example, and I had really enjoyed that.
“But I wanted to look at that space in between. At the time it felt like those spaces were lost, but they really weren’t, as I found out as I got to know the area.
“Working with the Film Archive and getting that footage of Gartland Sunday was amazing. Just to explore what people loved to do here, people dancing and listening to music.
“Originally I came across footage in the archive of the building of the West Clare Railway, that was fascinating.
“My grandfather on my mothers’ side was a station master, so I found all of that really fascinating, but maybe that is for another project.
“I had wanted to work with the music producer, Enda Gallery, who is based in Kilfenora and I think that the Gartland Sunday footage works best with that.”
Garland Sunday was a festival to mark the end of July, in anticipation of the harvest to come. It was celebrated in a number of places over the last number of centuries, but the tradition has largely died out. Its origins were in pagan times and it involved music, dancing and much revelry.
“Every time I look at that footage, I see a new character, a new personality. Everyone has their good clothes on, they all look fabulous.
“There is a woman who appears a number of times who is wearing sunglasses like I would have worn when I went out clubbing, there was all these types of contemporary similarities,” she said.
A key part of Anne Maree’s short film is the soundtrack, written and performed by herself with Enda Gallery and Andrias de Staic.
“I would consider the music to be a pop song. There is certainly a music scene in this part of Clare so I said that I would join them,” she said.
“I worked with Enda Gallery, who has done a lot of work with rappers in Limerick. We worked together very quickly, I wrote one verse, then I went to another session and I had another verse done.
“We probably had to do more takes than singers, people who who sing all the time might have done, but it was a really good process for me to find my voice.”
The film has been paired with a selection of photographs taken by Anne Maree more than 20 years ago.
These photos, taken at beach parties in Dublin, present many similar themes to the Garland Sunday film, but in a much more modern context.
“I have some footage from 2003, when I used to go to these beach parties. I used to bring my camera with me, I used to get bored at the parties so I would end up taking a lot of photographs,” she said.
“These photographs are of Howth Head and Red Rock Beach.
“They are images of young people hanging out on the beach and between the rocks.
“There is a juxtaposition there with Lahinch [on Garland Sunday]. The people in the film are definitely dancing beside the beach, on the area in front of Seaworld, where the car park is today.
“So it is about making the connection between these two things.”
The project is supported by the Arts Council Agility Award 2024, Clare Local Area Grant Scheme and the Courthouse Gallery and Studios. The exhibition will run until October 26.
Andrew Hamilton is a journalist, investigative reporter and blogger who has been working in the media in Ireland for the past 20 years. His areas of special interest include the environment, mental health and politics.