Arts & Culture

THE Wings music festival was a big hit in Shannon this summer, and plans are in train to have another one in 2023 – but this time it will be a winter event. Damian O’Rourke was behind this summer’s event, which went down very well and he explained the thinking behind the reboot. “After Wings, a few of us met to see what had worked well, what could we do better for next year. After that I started thinking about it being on in the summer, and with there being so much else on in the summer, it might be better as a winter festival. “We decided to go with the last Monday to Sunday in February, the 21st to the 26th. There is a lot on in the summer and in Shannon the gigs are mainly indoors, so if there’s a spell of sunny weather it can be harder to get people to come. In February it’ll be dark …

CLARE musician Aisling Lyons is in line for two prizes at a prestigious national awards ceremony next week. The harper has been nominated for this year’s RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards in both the Best Folk Instrumentalist and Best Emerging Artist categories. The Folk Awards night will be in Vicar Street Dublin on Thursday, November 17. The following night Aisling will perform with Sean Lyons and Dermot Sheedy in Glór premiering their new work ‘Merfolk’ which has been a collaborative project developed by Glór and Creative Ireland Clare.  Aisling who also plays concertina, performs alongside Seán on vocals/guitar/uilleann pipes/whistles and Dermot on bodhrán/percussion at the Ennis venue. The three began playing together in 2021 and have refined a folk sound that is deeply-rooted in tradition yet brimming with originality. Focusing primarily on the traditions of music and song in County Clare, their music displays a reverence for the past as well as a willingness to embrace modern influences and international …

IN June of 2019 the visit of Metallica to Liscannor was an unexpected novelty, coming the day after the American heavy metal group had played in Slane. Their visit was recalled in an exhibition entitled Tiny Little Histories which was at the Limerick City Gallery of Art recently. The visit of Metallica was evoked through an audio story made by artist John Lillis entitled ‘Black Helicopter’. Speaking about it, John says, “There was a call out from the GAFF in Limerick to do with audio storytelling. I have an interest in storytelling in general and I knew it was something I’d be interested in applying for. “It was quite short, you only had seven minutes, and they wanted something that was kind of a contemporary story, it had to have happened in the last 100 years. I just sat with it for a couple of days.” By chance he came upon his subject. “I live in Clahane just outside Liscannor …

ONE of Ireland’s most renowned balladeers is coming to Ennis this week for a performance in glór theatre. Something of a living legend in the music business, Johnny McEvoy has been acclaimed for decades for the quality of his live shows. When his early 2020 tour was announced it received a huge response from his legion of fans nationwide, however, like everything that succumbed to the pandemic. Now that live performance is back in business, so is Johnny with his current live show called ‘A nostalgic Evening of Song and Story’. The show will features all of Johnny’s hit songs, including Mursheen Durkin, Boston Burgler, Long before your Time, Rich Man’s Garden, Michael Collins and more, many of which were penned by Johnny himself. One of the most enduring and talented singer songwriters in the Folk/Ballad genre in Ireland over the past 50 years, Johnny always incorporates a brief but relevant reference to the story of each song in his …

ENNIS author Sean O’Driscoll has been named on the shortlist for this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards. His book Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber has been nominated in the Odgers Berndtson Non-fiction Book of the Year category. His book tells the astonishing story of Rose Dugdale. She grew up in a Chelsea townhouse and on a Devon estate and was presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace as a debutante in 1958. Rose trained at Oxford as an academic economist and had a love affair with a female professor. At thirty, she commenced giving her inheritance away to the poor and in 1972 she travelled to Ireland and joined the IRA. She went on to become a committed terrorist, participating in a major art heist and a bombing raid on a police and army barracks; who kept a pregnancy secret for nine months in prison and gave birth there; and who ended up at the heart of the IRA’s bomb-making operation …

AN Ennis duo’s new artistic endeavour has been bringing sparks of colour and creativity to electrical boxes in locations throughout the county capital. Artists Rachel Macmanus and Robert Downey are the pair behind this project, busily brightening up the boxes dotted throughout Ennis with different works of art. The artists have joined forces to create the Negative Space Collective, a new platform to develop contemporary art and further strengthen visual arts culture and opportunities in the west of Ireland. The electrical box project involves a series of urban art pieces which have been created with the support of Clare Arts Office, under the PRISM Urban Art scheme. And, they both hope this project will be just the start of a movement encouraging artists and communities to come together to create art for everyone. The striking works on the electrical boxes include, among others, depictions of teenagers at Club Bridge, a garda near Ennis Garda Station, a contemporary take on the …

ENNIS is set to host the 28th Annual Ennis Tradfest this November with a line up of top international, national and local traditional music stars. Amongst the stars will be Anxo Lorenzo, a virtuoso award-winning Galician piper renowned for his energetic and inspiring performances.  Over 1,000 are expected to travel from the US, Canada, Spain and the UK for Ennis Tradfest 2022.  From its early years, Ennis Tradfest has established itself as one of the most vibrant and dynamic traditional music festivals in Ireland with fans and visitors returning year after year. Michael ‘Blackie’ O’Connell, widely recognised as one of the best pipers in the world, has been tirelessly building this festival over the years into an extravaganza of traditional music.  Tradfest 2022 is no exception, boasting a stellar line-up of musicians including the Galician Anxo Lorenzo Band, legends Sean Keane (formerly of The Chieftains) and Gay Mc Keon, John Carty and Mike McGoldrick, Damien and Conor Connolly and popular concert band Jiggy.   …

ENNIS Players’ Annual Supper Theatre is back with three offerings to whet your theatrical appetite this November. Rehearsals are well underway for this four-night production, offering the finest of theatre and the finest of food in the surrounds of the Old Ground Hotel, Ennis. This year’s production will showcase performances of Elysium Nevada by Barry McKinley; Trapped, by Barry Woods and Tony Layton’s Where there’s a Will. Elysium Nevada is set in a retirement village in the sweltering Nevada desert. Two residents reflect on life, youth and how they got there. They are joined by a mysteriously silent woman whose presence adds an entirely new dimensions to the discussion. Directed by Saoirse Byrne, and features Hugh Gallagher as Bob, Conor Lynch as Mike and Amy McEnnis as Constance. Trapped sees Faye respond to a distressed phonecall from her best friend. They discover information that is both profound and life changing. A ten minute play about the unexpected parts that people …