Harris set to perform at Coole Park Visitor Centre

THIS Thursday, there will be a double arts event at Coole Park Visitor Centre marking the final night in the arts programme of the Winter 2010 series.
From 8pm to 9pm, there will be an evening of traditional music with Charlie Harris and friends followed from 9pm to 10pm by a performance by Seán Tyrell.
A commanding and imaginative musician, Charlie Harris is a natural accordion player who is held in the highest of esteem by his peers. Although there was no music in his family, he taught himself to play on a borrowed melodeon. In 2009, he was winner of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil award, which honours the musical heroes of the modern age. Charlie will be accompanied by musicians, Geraldine Cotter and Maeve Donnelly. Afterwards, from 9pm to 10pm, Seán Tyrell performs a selection of Irish poems to music. During this performance, he returns to the brimming well of Irish poetry and summoned a meitheal of poets, from both living and dead to bring home a bountiful literary harvest. Most of these poems have not been previously set to music.
“From the moment I clapped eyes on them they sung to me,” he explained. Seán performs a selection of some well-known poems. He has received permission by both the living and the estate of those deceased to include their poetry in his show. 
On Sunday, there will be a walk-and-talk tour of the environs of Coole Park House starting at the visitors’ centre at 2pm. It will be led by Paul Gosling, Department of Humanities, GMIT and will last two hours. The walk and talk will comprise a ramble around the environs of the site of Coole Park House and the visitor centre to look at some of the lesser topographical features of the demesne including the lime kiln, OS bench marks, the old avenue, water pumps, outbuildings, statuary, pets graveyard, poem-stones, ornamental steps, gates and so on. These features mark and reflect stages in the development of Coole from its beginnings as the demesne of a small landed estate, through its years as literary centre, commercial forestry estate, to contemporary cultural and heritage park. Anyone taking part should wear stout boots and raingear.
The final lecture of the Reading and Understanding the Coole Landscape Course is on Monday from 8pm to 10pm. Dr Paul Naesen, archaeologist and expert in landscape archaeology talks on the landscape archaeology of Coole Park and environs. All events are free.