Arts & Culture

A RANGE of top-class printwork is currently on display at Glór, Ennis to celebrate with Graphic Studio Dublin their 50th anniversary.Graphic Studio Dublin was established in 1960 to teach traditional printmaking skills, (then unavailable in Irish art colleges) and to provide studios and technical assistance to artists to make fine art prints. They currently have 67 members and this exhibition has a selection of work from some of these artists, including Meadhbh Arthurs, Jean Bardon, Gerard Cox, Louise Farrelly, Paul Fitters, Niamh Flanagan, Nickie Hayden, Stephen Lawlor, Robert Russell and Siobhán Hyde.“Apart from a period in the 18th century when Dublin became known as a centre for the manufacture of mezzotints, there has been little tradition of printmaking in Ireland. In 1960 Patrick Hickey, Leslie MacWeeney, Liam Miller, Elizabeth Rivers and Anne Yeats founded the Graphic Studio Dublin to teach traditional printmaking skills and to provide studios and technical assistance to artists to make fine art prints. It was opened …

THERE’S no show like a Joe show but the nephews of the late great entertainer, Joe Dolan, are touring with a five-piece band they put together with members of their uncle’s backing band.The Dolan Band features Adrian and Ray Dolan, as well as the vocal talents of Karen Karroll performing four decades of Joe hits.“Joe was one of a few singers who had a fantastic vocal range. He had the ability to sing low and high range songs. When we decided to do this show, we felt that only a female would have the vocal ability to be true to Joe’s songs, and the original keys,” comments Adrian. The new single, Angelover which was a hit for Joe in 1997, and written by Adrian, has been re-recorded with Karen taking on the vocals. The Dolans are the only official Joe Dolan tribute band and they will be appearing at the Kilmihil Festival on July 31, at the Strand Hotel, Limerick …

A NIGHT at the opera, organised by Kilkee Civic Trust, will be held in Kilkee Church on Monday, August 2. The concert is a collaboration between University Concert Hall and The European Opera Centre, who have organised a training programme at University of Limerick from Wednesday until Sunday, August 1. Participants will include young singers from Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland and Portugal. These singers, who are amongst the best opera students on the continent, will work intensively under the guidance of the European Opera Centre’s head of singer development, Laurent Pillot. They will also take part in the Kilkee concert. Mr Pillot, under whom the training takes place, founded the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera and was previously musical assistant to Kent Nagano and Placido Domingo at the Los Angeles Opera. He will be joined by the distinguished movement coach, Berlin-based John Norris. Local singers and those involved with training singers will have the chance to observe the …

THE launch of a new CD by box player and singer Mary Staunton will take place in Kinvara this Friday evening at 7.30pm.Alec Finn of De Danann produced the CD and also plays bouzouki.Other guests on the CD include Johnny McDonagh (bodhrán), Mary Shannon (banjo/mandolin), Brendan Gleeson (well-known actor and fiddle player), Jerry Mulvihill (banjo), Dan Collins (fiddle), Tommy Keane (pipes and low whistles), Jackie McCarthy (concertina), Franke Lane (dobro), Paul Johnson (bass), Rick Epping (harmonica) and singers, John Prine and Seán Garvey.

THE king of the concert flute has been announced as the headline act for the fourth annual Tulla Traditional Music Festival.   The festival, which takes place from September 10 to 12, recently launched its programme, which sees Seamus Tansey taking to the stage on the Saturday night of the festival. Plans are in place to build on the success of the last three festivals and despite the recession, there is a large and varied calendar of events with some minor departures from previous years. While there is no church concert this year, the festival committee will be making great use of the intimate courthouse venue, where the audience will be given an opportunity to see top acts up close and personal. A coup for this year’s festival is the confirmation that Seamus Tansey will perform and will also tutor at the event. As one of the most colourful musicians in the traditional Irish music scene, the Sligo flute player has …

Details of a number of innovative and challenging art projects, which will be exhibited in South Galway over the coming months, will be revealed in Gort on Monday night.The art events are part of the Aughty Public Art Project, a series of public art projects taking place in Galway during the late summer and autumn. The project focusing on the Aughty region, stretching from Gort to Woodford and Loughrea, was commissioned by Galway County Council Arts Office.Artists from the Ground Up Artists Collective (GUAC) Marie Connole, Emma Houlihan and Jim Ricks, will be creating temporary art works that engage creatively with the communities of the area.Marie Connole’s Weed or Knotweed? is a series of drawings and paper sculpture installation based on the proliferating Japanese Knotweed plant. She will examine the knotweed as a metaphor for being ‘transplanted’ or a ‘blow-in’ to or from the region.Emma Houlihan’s Border Walk is a community engaged project involving a ‘slow’ public walk over seven …

THE Burren Through Its Literature is the title of this month’s Burrenbeo Trust talk. The talk by Belfast-based writer, tutor and journalist Paul Clements takes place at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan on August 19 at 8.30pm.Paul’s main interests are Irish cultural history, travel and landscape writing. He has written two travel books about Ireland. The Height of Nonsense: The Ultimate Irish Road Trip was a bestseller and Irish Shores: A Journey Round the Rim of Ireland recounts the story of a solo hitchhike around the coast.A former BBC journalist, Paul now contributes to a range of newspapers and magazines, including The Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Guardian, Observer, Times Literary Supplement and Escape. He is a contributing writer to two travel guides: Insight Ireland and Fodor’s Ireland.For 20 years Paul has found inspiration walking in the Burren hills and has written several published articles about the area. One of his essays appears in the anthology, Burren Villages, published …

Inception DIRECTED BY: Christopher Nolan STARRING: Leonardo Di Caprio, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy CERT: 12A I fell asleep twice during Inception. The first time, I dreamed I was watching the best movie of the year so far. Then I woke up and realised I wasn’t really. That, once again, the hype was better than the goods. So I turned over and nodded off again.This time I dreamed I was running through a street uptown, naked and in slow motion. I was looking for my wife but I couldn’t find her anywhere. And my teeth were falling out. On the upside, I had a full head of hair again. You know – the kind of strange yet mundane stuff that most people tend to dream. The characters in Christopher Nolan’s latest head-wrecking feature don’t go in for that class of banal dream. No, when their eyes close they go to exotic, intricately designed locations where men with big guns chase them …