Arts & Culture

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FIFTY years ago, almost to the week, the first West Clare Drama Festival was held in Doonbeg Hall. Peering from a grainy, black and white photograph of the original committee are Murt McInerney, Johnny Igoe and Cissie McMahon.

THIS year’s West Clare Drama Festival will start on Saturday and will run until Monday, March 14. It will be opened by Billy Keane, Listowel.

POETRY is a passion of Shannon’s Bernadette Sheil.Finding writing to be a nurturing experience, her love of poetry was fostered in her teens. “I started when I was in secondary school, it was different to primary school where you just learned off poems. In secondary, you try and get into the mindset of the poet and see what he’s trying to portray in his poems.

ENNIS Book Club Festival kicks off in the county town this weekend with a variety of top authors and speakers offering their views on the latest best sellers as well as old time favourites.

FRAE the Friends and Land I Love by Callum Kellie is the next exhibition taking place at the X-PO Kilnaboy. The exhibition charters the effects of the changes of emphasis that has taken place in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, as people have moved away from rural life centred on agriculture to urban life fuelled by employment in the oil industry.

THE popular TG4 traditional music programme Geantraí will be taped in well-know music pub O’Keefe’s in Ennis on Tuesday, March 8. The programme will be presented by fiddle player Carmel O’Dea and will feature musicians Brian, Teresa and Niamh O’Dea, Padraig Rynne, Sylvain Barou and Karol Lynch, PJ King, Ann Maire McCormack, John Rynne and Cyril O’Donoghue, Marcus Maloney, Kieran Kissane and Martin Dermody as well as singer Josie Harrington accompanied by Patricia Clarke. The sessions will be recorded before a live audience between 3pm and 5.30pm and between 7.30pm and 10.30pm and all traditional music fans are very welcome. Courthouse gigON Saturday, Sixmilebridge’s Courthouse will host a concert with the local variety group. The Folk Club presents music, song, and dance for your entertainment. Money raised on the night, which starts at 8pm, will go towards maintenance of the Courthouse. Thinking changeTroubling Ireland is a think tank for artists and curators engaged in social change, conceived and led by …