Arts & Culture

A KILKISHEN creative writer has used locations in Shannon and Limerick City for a new award-winning film script about mental illness that is interwoven with a mysterious stalker. Cathal O’Hagan (22) is delighted with the success of his film script “It Lives In the Alleyways”, which can be made into a one-hour movie. “I am surprised with all the awards the film script has won. It is based on the lives of two people who I know and I thought it would make a great film,” he said. “I also added in other people. While the film deals with mental illness, there is also a great twist because the viewer doesn’t know if the stalker is real or not. “It also deals with the impact of drugs and being stalked. Women can regularly be victims of stalkers. Shannon and Limerick have a lot of laneways in housing estates, which I felt would be ideal for the stalker to use.” Having …

Ennistymon will become the harp capital of Ireland this Friday with four free events taking place to celebrate National Harp Day. Local master harpist, Aisling Lyons, has put together a unique programme which explores Ireland’s national musical instrument in a number of unique ways. These events are all free and are aimed at introducing local people to the joys of the harp. They include a session of harp yoga in the Falls Hotel with musician Simon O’Reilly on pedal steel guitar and yoga teacher, Sue Redmond, from 10am to 11am. This will be followed by a talk in Ennistymon library entitled ‘Early Irish Harp’ from 11am to 12noon. This talk will be hosted by one of the pioneers of the Irish harp, Paul Dooley, who will also give a demonstration as part of the event. Following this talk, Aisling Lyons will give a series of 10 minute ‘try the harp’ events at the Falls Hotel. Harps are provided for this …

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 …

Diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2014, health campaigner, Vicky Phelan told a Broadford author how grateful she was to be still able to complete mundane tasks like ironing and driving her children to school three and a half years before her untimely passing. Marie O’Connell had attended a charity event launched by Ciara McCullough for the Children’s Grief Centre in Limerick which Ms Phelan, who was a guest speaker, acknowledged her children would need after her death. Impressed by both Ms McCullough and Ms Phelan, Ms O’Connell contacted them after this event. On the night, Ms O’Connell stated it was funny, as the audience was waiting for Ms Phelan to arrive, it transpired she forgot she had an engagement because she was ironing, which she admitted during her talk. In an email to Ms Phelan, Ms O’Connell recalled how the two inspirational women had reminded people about the importance of living life to the full and acting on their beliefs …

Music lovers from all over Ireland are set to descend on Ballyvaughan this weekend for the second ever Common Threads festival. The event, which is the brainchild of North Clare’s own Daithí O Dronaí and Peter Kelly, is a two-day trail of music and cultural discovery set in the backdrop of the North Clare Burren. With over a decade of experience in Ireland’s music and arts scene, they aim to break the mold on what a traditional music festival looks like and explore the common links and threads between a vibrant local community, key cultural spaces and an important natural landscape, while embellishing all of these common threads with art, live music and discovery. The event combines a musical bus tour around the Burren with a number of set-piece musical events. Tickets for the bus tour sold out immediately, and due to overwhelming demand, the organisers have launched individual show tickets which are now on sale. “Common Threads is now …

Kilbaha Gallery marks a decade in business on the Loop Head Peninsula this year. Established in 2014 by sisters in law Liz Greehy and Ailish Connolly, it lies across the road from where Liz grew up and where her brother, sculptor Seamus Connolly carries on the tradition of operating the family foundry. For the two women, setting up the art gallery was a natural and organic thing for them to do at the time. “I grew up in the industry because my brother Seamus is a sculptor and my father [Jim] before him was a sculptor and there’s a bronze foundry in the family. So when Ailish married Seamus some years later obviously it is something we talked about as a family on and off. And we were certainly very familiar with the industry; we were both kind of living it without being artists ourselves so setting up the gallery seemed like a very natural and organic thing to do …

One of North Clare’s most famous, or perhaps infamous, women will feature in a new book of ghost stories soon to be published by Irish author, Kieran Fanning. The book, which is entitled ‘Haunted Ireland: An Atlas of Ghost Stories from Every County’, features one story from each of the 32 counties in Ireland, including the story of Clare’s Máire Rua. “There is a notion that almost every castle in Ireland is haunted but often times there isn’t a story behind that but Leamaneh Castle does have a serious story behind it,” said Kieran. That is the story of Mary McMahon who was nicknamed Máire Rua or Red Mary. Some say she got that nickname because of her temper or her red hair. “She was married to Daniel Niland who died, and some say that he died under mysterious circumstances. She inherited his wealth and after that she married Conor O’Brien and she built Leamaneh Castle. “That was during Cromwellians …

This Friday will see the publishing of the first episode of the new series of the Clare Oral History Podcast. Produced by Paula Carroll, with sound supervision by Darragh Purcell, The Clare Oral History Podcast showcases the oral histories of Clare people recorded over the last 15 years in the county. This year’s series will focus on some of the finest storytellers and carriers of traditional knowledge in the Cuimhneamh an Chláir archive. It will give Clare people a chance to sit down and listen to evocations of times past in Clare. The first episode features 88 year old Kitty Leyden, a well-known and much beloved figure in her native Cree and her adopted Tulla. Her stories range from her fun-filled childhood in West Clare, to talking parrots, and from the cruelty of educators to how her parents’ match was made. Listeners will find out what the “plucking of the gander” is, what to stuff a pigs bladder football with, …