Arts & Culture

THE Kilrush Youth Project hip-hop group The Real Slick Ricks represented The Clare Youth Service in the All-Ireland finals, which was hosted in Donegal recently where they finished runners-up in the competition.The young group, made up of seven girls aged between 13 and18 years, are all from the John Paul Estate. They had previously won the Clare category in the competition back in March and had been training intensively for the past few months to compete at national level. This was the group’s third year participating in the games; they finished third last year and now have been placed second this year.The event was held in the Radisson Hotel in Letterkenny and seven teams had qualified from different counties throughout the country after being successful in their regional finals. The Real Slick Ricks danced third and after a lot of nerves throughout the day, performed brilliantly when called upon to do so. After a nervy half-hour wait, the results were …

Budding actors in Clare will have the opportunity to audition with iconic theatre company Druid later this month.This summer marks a busy period for Druid, with two productions on tour in Ireland and the UK. Penelope by Enda Walsh opens at Galway Arts Festival this summer and will tour Cork and Dublin, while The Silver Tassie by Seán O’Casey opens in Galway in August and will then tour Ennis, Dublin, Cork, Portlaoise and Tralee before it transfers to the UK. Druid is inviting five young people (male and female) to join 14 professional actors on stage for its production of The Silver Tassie at Glór in Ennis and also for two of the performances during the Galway run at the Town Hall Theatre. The Silver Tassie is one of Seán O’Casey’s great plays and for this production Druid is putting together one of their biggest company of actors.Open auditions will be held in Glór on Saturday, July 17 at 1pm. …

SOME of Ennis’s buildings and walls are causing people to take a second look since they have become the canvass for an interesting art project.The Wallcandy project has drawn together artists with various skills and training to create pieces of art on walls and buildings around the town.  Among the artists working on the project are a graphic designer, fashion designer, art teachers, a tattoo artist and a ceramicist.Shane O’Neill of the Art and Craft Company in Chapel Lane, who initiated the project with graphic designer Emma Hogan, explained that all of the sites chosen have interesting or unusual features. “Although some of the sites are a little run down or have deteriorated due to damage or neglect, they have been given an artistic twist that totally changes the way you see it,” he said.He added that the aim of the project is to give artists the opportunity and freedom to conceive and create a piece of art that uses …

The inaugural Féile Sona Festival will take place in Kilrush this weekend from July 2 to 4 and it will coincide with the WIORA Yacht Racing Championships, which will be taking place at Kilrush Marina at the same time.Confirmed events include a singing pubs competition, live music nightly from the gig rig in the town square, a family fun day at Kilrush marina, a seven-a-side soccer tournament and a fireworks display. Kilrush Fine Gael town councillor Ian Lynch is the primary organiser and is appealing to local clubs to become involved and help out. “The festival will end on the Sunday, with an emergency services recruitment fair and demonstration with participation from the army, navy, Air Corps defence forces, the Coast Guard, RNLI and Red Cross. As the final day of the festival falls on the July 4, we will celebrate the town’s many American connections with an American theme closing with a fireworks display,” he explained. Other events will …

The Clare county fleadh was held in Kilfenora the weekend before last. One of the competitions held was the tin whistle slow airs in the 12 to 15 years age group.The Peader Crotty Shield for tin whistle slow airs, donated in his memory by the members of Inis Cathaigh CCÉ and the Neil Galvin Festival Committee, was presented for the first time to Eimear Coughlan, representing Tulla CCÉ.Peader was a very well known musician in Kilrush and West Clare and was chairman of the Neil Galvin Festival before his untimely death in August 2009.

THE director of Cois na hAbhna, Ennis has described how the recent Fleadh Cheoil an Chláir, held in Kilfenora at the heart of the Burren, evoked memories of the glory days of the great Clare fleadhs.Among the great county fleadhs, Joe O’Connor listed were, Miltown Malbay in  1957 and 1961, Tulla in  1958, Lisdoonvarna in 1959, Kilrush in 1960 and Scariff in 1962 . “When the Kilfenora Band performed in a never to be forgotten open air concert on Sunday afternoon the village of Kilfenora came to a virtual standstill as hundreds gathered in the blissfull June sunshine to experience the essence of the might of the thing that has given us birth. Sets were danced, songs were sung, Gerry Lynch of the old Kilfenora was on stage representing the musicians who made the Kilfenora famous throughout the world,” he commented.He added that the sessions in Nagles, Linnanes and Vaughans into the small hours throughout the weekend were described by …

AN EXHIBITION of new works by Dublin artist Roxanne Fitzmaurice opens in the Russell Gallery, New Quay this Saturday.Wing Swept Skys is a landscaped based exhibition, with a clear focus on the presence of birds. Her last solo show in the Russell Gallery was almost six years ago, but she was anxious to present her work in the West of Ireland again. She has widely exhibited in galleries around Ireland for the last 10 years including the RHA, Hallward and Mill Cove and her work can be found in many private and public collections including AIB Bank, Shelbourne Hotel, Barry McCabe & Associates, DIT College of Marketing and Design and The Rotunda Hospital. A spokesperson for the Russell Gallery said the work in this exhibition is a “pull between abstraction and representation”. “The paint is applied so that the solidity of the land shifts with the swirling, twisting forms of birds. The space the birds travel through is without boundaries, …

DUET Thomas Maguire and Fhiona Ennis and their band will perform at The Lady Gregory Hotel, Gort, this Sunday to promote the release of their new album Solid as a Rock.The album had 15 tracks including a number of previously released singles and some new numbers for the pair, as well as two touching on the Gospel music genre.Since getting together in 2005, the Fermanagh and Wexford combination of Thomas Maguire and Fhiona Ennis have been touring extensively throughout Ireland, England and Scotland with their band.Their endeavours have been rewarded with numerous awards including their recent Sunday World Award for Best Duo.The couple married in September 2009 and honeymooned in the home of country music, Nashville. While there, they took the opportunity to put some tracks down in a Music Row Recording Studio using some of the finest musicians Nashville has to offer including the legendary Harcus “Pig” Robbins. These recordings will be released at a future date.In October, Thomas …