Arts & Culture

The historic village of Ballyvaughan is to be transformed as it plays host to the spectacular Festival of the Valleys this weekend.Taking place from Friday to Sunday, the festival will commence with the much-anticipated arrival of the historic Bessie Ellen tall ship followed by an action-packed weekend of music, song, dance, culture, culinary and sporting events. In aid of Cancer Care West and described as a ‘jumelle’ of two cultures, Ballyvaughan’s Festival of the Valleys will celebrate the very best of traditional Irish and Mediterranean culture and cuisine. This unique event will merge the unique environment of the Burren with glorious splendour of the Mediterranean.The highlight of the festival is sure to be the arrival to Ballyvaughan pier of the Bessie Ellen. The ship is due to arrive into the bay and offload its valuable stock of wines at Ballyvaughan Pier at 5pm on Friday. Festival director Noel O’Loughlen notes the significance of the event, as wine has not been …

AN exquisite mosaic commissioned by Clare County Council and created by Mayo artist John McNulty, was officially unveiled in the Scariff Public Library last week by Mayor of Clare, Tony Mulcahy.

A LITTLE piece of Manhattan, or possibly even Morocco, will come to Ennis, when Sex and the City 2 starts in Ennis Cinema.For almost two years, fans of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte have been starved of their fix of the girls’ logic – but not for long.Ladies from all over the county are gearing up for a night out to catch their latest dose of the craze, which all began with was to be one or two series about four gal pals in Manhattan. More than 10 years on, although the TV series is over, the second movie has fans flushed with excitement again.At the opening nights of the first Sex and the City movie in 2008, ladies put on their glad rags and went all out to welcome their Manhattan screen girlfriends to the big screen in Ennis.This Friday, the Ennis Lions Club have organised an elegant evening at a red carpet premiere of the movie at the …

SPANCILHILL balladeer Robbie McMahon will be featured on West Limerick FM102 this Saturday and Sunday on A Story and a Song.The West Limerick radio station can also be heard in Clare. The radio show’s presenter Pat O’Donovan from Tulla, has happy memories of Robbie giving him a lift out from Ennis on a horse and cart and now he will interview him on his life story, with a number of songs thrown in for good measure.Robbie is the subject of a recent documentary entitled Last Night as I Lay Dreaming.The radio show A Story and a Song will be broadcast between 3pm and 4pm on Saturday, and will be repeated on Sunday morning from 7am to 8am.

IN an attempt to maintain the tradition of Irish dancing in Killaloe and Ballina, a local publican has organised classes for children.Ann Benson has held set-dancing classes for adults in the Anchor Inn for 30 years but noticed there was little in the way for younger generations. Every Wednesday night at 7.30pm, 16 Australian, English and local children come to the Anchor Inn to step it out with set dancing and brush dancing before adult classes at 9pm.Classes are provided by Leaving Cert pupil Linda McLeish, who learned her craft from Kieran Donnellan from Bodyke. Mr Donnellan, who still provides words of wisdom and advice to Linda, teaches the adult classes.Ms Benson said the children are showing great improvement in their dancing. “If we don’t teach children Irish traditional dancing, it will not survive in the future. This is a great opportunity to keep it alive for future generations. Linda is incredible for her age and all the children are …

Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time DIRECTED BY: Mike ­Newell STARRING: Jake ­Gyllenhaal, Gemma ­Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina CERT: 12A FILM adaptations of video games are not famous for their outstanding quality, or their ability to remain in the memory much longer than the time it takes for you to reach the cinema exit.Prince Of Persia doesn’t exactly mark the beginning of the revolution, though unlike some of its predecessors, it is at least a reasonably entertaining distraction, something you can bring the children to without fear that by the time the end credits roll, you will all be more stupid. An impressively buffed-up Jake Gyllenhaal is the dashing hero, Prince Dastan, the adopted son of the King of Persia (Ronald Pickup). Dastan is a fine warrior with a fondness for dangerous acrobatic carry on and generally doing his own thing. Along with his royal step-brothers and their too-smooth-to-be-up-to-any-good uncle Nizam (Kingsley), Dastan storms the palace of Princess …

THIS was a weekend for finishing things off, whether it was long-running dramas or your fellow contestants on a quiz show – this was the weekend that did them all in.The big one, or for many people the most annoying one, was of course Lost. After six seasons, the loss of a host of characters and some very unexplained and confusing events, the long-running television series finally came to an end. Regular readers of this column will know that I am not a fan of the show. Although somewhat enjoyable in the beginning, it had lost (sorry, I couldn’t resist) its way for me a very long time ago. The series were rollercoasters in both content and production value, with even members of the cast admitting that the plot often seemed rambling, pointless and confusing. However, the last show promised to tie it all together and to finally put an end to everything for us. It was to be a …

IN Tóla Custy’s own words, saying that he was born into music is somewhat of an understatement. “God, I had music in me before I was even born, when I was just a twinkle in my mother’s eye,” he laughs.