Friday marks the annual Culture Night throughout Ireland and once again Clare is very much to the fore with over 25 free events around the county. The organisers of Culture Night, the Department of Arts, have kept last year’s theme Explore – Experience – Enjoy due to it’s phenomenal success.
Ennis sees the largest array of Culture Night activities. The phenomenally successful Riches of Clare concert series will provide a free concert in Glór featuring Mike Butler, Damien O’Reilly and Blackie O’Connell, to name but a few musicians.
Music will also be provided by the Jaskane Café Trio in the Clare Museum and there will be a piping recital by renowned uilleann piper David Power in the Friary on Abbey Street, Ennis. There will also be music on the streets of Ennis provided by the Ennis Gospel Choir, Comhaltas and by a members of the international community in Ennis.
Music dominates throughout the county also with traditional music happening in Ennis, Kilrush, Miltown Malbay, Lissycasey, Tulla, the new cultural centre in Kilkishen and in the Square in Lisdoonvarna. The Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan will host Apples in Winter, a film set to live music performed by Tommy Hayes and guests.
There will be visual art in the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon, where local artists and performers will display notebooks they created over the summer months. Caitriona Sheedy will exhibit in Parnell Street in Ennis, also and the art students in Kilkee will mark the end of their exhibition in Cultúrlann Sweeney.
Clare Youth Theatre members Theo Hynan Radcliffe and Peter Stack will perform an adaptation of Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ in the DeValera Library, Ennis whilst Tic Toc Puppets will perform Roald Dahl’s ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ in glor and Cultúrlann Sweeney, Kilkee.
There will also be a talk in Cultúrlann Sweeney, Kilkee on the re-design of the Percy French Garden by the Architect from Clare County Council.
“This year’s Culture Night is the biggest yet, and we are delighted to welcome Kilkishen, Lissycasey and Lisdoonvarna for the first time this year,” according to Siobhán Mulcahy, arts officer with Clare County Council.
Events are being added all the time. Programmes are available from participating organisations or you can pick one up from your local library.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.