Forge at Gort Festival

This year’s Forge at Gort Festival takes place this weekend. The literary festival, now in its fourth year, was launched on Tuesday evening at Gort Library. The evening also marked the opening of an exhibition of photographs by Joe Geoghegan.
The exhibition involves a selection of photographs of writers’ left eyes, each accompanied by a poem or verse from a poem in the poet’s handwriting immediately beneath the image.
“This is a unique exhibition,” says the director of the Western Writers’ Centre, Fred Johnston.
“The entire concept is unique and quite an experience, particularly in a reasonably small space. We expect people to be more than a little hypnotised by it. In my view, the exhibition should have travelled and been seen more widely and a little assistance from the powers-that-be in the arts in Galway would have permitted this,” he added.
The exhibition, he says, depicts a definite relationship between the visual and the written word, in a dramatic and immediate manner.
On Friday, the official opening of the festival takes place between 5pm and 6pm in Sullivan’s Royal Hotel in Gort. A painting of Lady Augusta Gregory by artist Tom Byrne, which is for sale in support of the festival, will also be exhibited ahead of the opening. Offers will be taken on the night ahead of performances by John W Sexton and poet Sarah Clancy.
“Through the generosity of poet and writer, Rosemarie Rowley, who had participated at the Forge at Gort Festival one year, a major painting by Dublin’s Apollo Gallery artist Tom Byrne of Lady Augusta Gregory was donated to the support of the fourth Forge at Gort Festival. This is a wonderful example of the extraordinary generosity of writers,” said Mr Johnston.
At 8pm on Friday evening  the Poetry Chicks and Miceál Kearney will read in Gort Library.
On Saturday morning at 11am, poets Noel Monahan and Kevin Kiely will be in Gort Library followed at 1pm by poetry and music from Matt Mooney, Paul Jeffcut and Patrick Stack in the Gort Family Resource Centre.
The Clare Three-Legged Stool Writers’ Group will be in O’Grady’s Bar, The Square at 3pm before Tea at Four with George Moore – an informal soirée, scenes from his autobiographical epic, Hail and Farewell, adapted by John Arden and Margaretta D’Arcy at Gort Family Resource Centre, 4pm.
That evening, Olaf Tyaransen and Clare Sawtell will launch Clare’s latest collection, with harpist Brenda Malloy at 7pm in Sullivan’s Hotel.