Arts & Culture

A PAINTING of Richard Harris by Clare artist Thomas Delohery is to be used as the promotional image for the inaugural International Richard Harris Film Festival, which runs from December 4-6. Originally from O’ Callaghan’s Mills, Delohery now lives in Melbourne, Australia. He said he was very honoured to be asked to do the art work for the festival. “I think this is the perfect way to honour the late and great Richard Harris, who was a very proud Limerick man but who saw Kilkee as his spiritual home, so much so he named his house in the Bahamas, Kilkee House,” he said. His image was projected onto King John’s Castle last week when the programme for the film festival was launched. “As Richard was a local man and had gone to such heights in his career, for that reason I saw him as an inspiration. I have been very fortunate that I have got to know the Harris family …

AN audience of 600 already have their tickets for what will be one of the most unique experiences for traditional and classical music lovers on the Clare stage. Premiering The Clare Concerto, composed by Dave Flynn, The Clare Memory Orchestra, which has grown to an ensemble of 70 musicians, will perform for one night only in Glór. In what is a fusion of the classical orchestral structure and traditional aural learning, the performance has already sold out. Featuring musicians from classical and traditional backgrounds, as well as those who have experience in both, this is the first orchestra of its kind and was the brainchild of Dublin native and North Clare resident Dave Flynn. He outlined how the ambitious project came about. “I had the idea for a long time and it kind of originated from working with Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill in 2006, when I was commissioned to write a piece for them with a classical violinist. From …

Ennis will provide a welcome break from the winter blues, the rain and the recession this weekend when the town resonates to the sound and strains of the best of Irish traditional music. The county town will host the twentieth instalment of the Ennis Trad Festival and the festival’s magnetic appeal will draw musicians and audiences from all over the country and further afield, providing a financial fillip for those in the hospitality sector. The official launch will take place this Thursday at 6pm in the front bar of The Queens Hotel. Ennis native, musician extraordinaire and noted scholar Dr Geraldine Cotter will cut the proverbial ribbon. All are welcome to attend or play as the mood takes them. Later that night, at 8pm in The Great Hall of the Templegate Hotel, Ann Lynch-Loyns will launch her debut CD “Silvery Light”. Ann comes from near Oldcastle Co Meath but now lives close to Newmarket. She learnt her first songs from …

COMEDIAN Kevin McAleer has been talking nonsense for 30 years and shows little sign of stopping. One of the founding fathers of modern stand-up, he has influenced a whole generation of comedians in Ireland and the UK. On November 8, he comes to Patrick’s Bar in the Market, Ennis after a very long absence from the Clare stand-up scene. “I haven’t been to Ennis for a long time, too long…some hotel back in the mists of the 20th century I think, but the best pint of Guinness I ever had in my life was in Ennis with a friend around 1993. We both cried. “It was a very emotional moment. We still reminisce fondly about it. Maybe I can reconstruct that moment when I am there,” he said. The Tyrone ‘space cadet’ shot to fame back in the 1990s with his regular appearances on RTE’s Nighthawks, leading to sold-out nationwide tours and the best-selling EMI video Turn it On. He …

THE third annual Kilkee Playwright Festival takes place from Friday, November 1 to Saturday, November 2 with some new and exciting events being added to this year’s line-up. Organised by Cultúrlann Sweeney and Banner Productions, this year’s programme is more far-reaching and varied than ever with performances from Cork, Galway and West Clare, as well as a one-day playwright workshop. The festival will kick off at 8pm in Cultúrlann Sweeney with The Great Hunger by Cork-based Theatre Makers Ltd. This one-man play is performed and adapted by Jack Healy from Patrick Kavanagh’s epic poem that deals with the trials and tribulations of its central protagonist, Patrick Maguire, a small farmer in post-Treaty Ireland. Maguire fails to seize day-after-passing-day, as he watches in despair as his life edge closer and closer to an unconsummated conclusion. On his “headland of carrots and cabbage” he dreams of an idyll of marriage and children and yet boasts to his friends of his mastery in …

MUSE Productions in Shannon return to action following their production of Waiting for Godot earlier this year and make a move towards the vaguely ridiculous and spooky with Wyrd Sisters. The production, which will be a special treat for those getting into the Hallowe’en spirit, is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Terry Pratchett. It was adapted for the stage by Stephen Briggs and is a parody of Macbeth. Running for five nights at the Oakwood Arms Hotel, Shannon, Wyrd Sisters is a fun-filled drama for all the family featuring demons and ghosts, ghastly forests and storms. The play is set in the Kingdom of Lancre, but something is rotten in the state. The evil Duke Felmet has murdered the previous king and now newly crowned, he will stop at nothing until the whole kingdom is under his iron fist. The only one who could take the throne away from his grip, however, is the missing …

FOLLOWING The Spinning Heart could have been a monumental task for Donal Ryan but the Tipperary man, who works in Shannon and lives in Limerick, had a novel he made earlier. The Spinning Heart was famously rejected by 47 publishers before it was rescued from a slush pile and has since been critically acclaimed, as well as making the long list for the Booker Prize. That was the first novel Ryan had published but it isn’t the first one he had written as The Thing About December, which hits the shelves later this month, came before it. Like The Spinning Heart, he couldn’t find anyone to take a chance on it but after that novel proved so popular, the problem vanished. While The Spinning Heart brought the stories of more than 20 characters together, this is really the story of one apparently simple and isolated man over the course of a tumultuous year, the author explains. “The book is just …

KEVIN Haugh hails from Doonaha and was involved with a running club back in Kilkee during the 1980s. Almost 10 years ago, he was asked back by the club to participate in a running event. When he decided to participate, he was on a high and was feeling great after training. “When I came back from the training I said I’m feeling great and I said I think I’ll keep it up,” he said. However, after showering, he noticed there was a little lump on his neck. He thought nothing too much of it at the time. When he went to his GP, he thought it would be a simple procedure, like removing a mole. “I thought this was going to be an ‘I’ll do that next week’ situation. He put his hand on the telephone and made an appointment with a specialist and I heard him say ‘no I want to see him immediately’. He said to me, ‘I …