Summer with the Kilkee Civic Trust

SINGING priest Liam Lawton will be performing at Kilkee Church at 8pm on Friday, July 27 as part of the Kilkee Civic Trust’s summer programme.

Originally from Edenderry, he went to study arts at Maynooth but took a different road and studied theology, before being ordained as a priest for Kildare and Leighlin in 1984.
He is now a multi-platinum-selling artist and his work has been used by choirs all over the world.
This is the third of four concerts being organised by Kilkee Civic Trust, with Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill and the Irish Chamber Orchestra already having performed. The fourth show will be by Helen Houlihan and Eoin Gilhooly, on August 10.
Kilkee Civic Trusts are also holding talks throughout the summer, according to its honorary secretary Joseph McCloskey.
“We have nine talks on Wednesday nights and an extra one with an arts-in-focus night which gives an opportunity for local school children, musicians, artists and sculptors to have a little session that night.
“We’ve had three talks so far the first was Thomas Lynch a poet and author from Michigan who has a holiday home in Moveen, near Kilkee in West Clare. We also had Doctor Rosemary Power who spoke on mediaeval masons and carved figures in Clare churches. The third talk was by Terence O’Connor, a London-born Irish man discussing the different types of Irishness,” he said.
“We have four concerts this year, it can vary – two, three or four. We have a great turnout, a lot of people, who attend the weekly talks also attend the concerts. Then you’d have a following for each specific genre of music, people who wouldn’t necessarily come for the talks but would always come to the concert,” he added.
Joseph said that the group has been involved with a number of local projects in recent times.
“The principal reason for it being formed was to add to the quality of life in the area, to protect the built heritage and to add to the cultural life of the area.
“We’re involved in a lot of projects like restoration of sections of the sea wall, we’ve put up place names on houses of particular local interest, houses that Charlotte Brontë would have stayed in and the home of Richard Harris. This past year or year and a half we’ve arranged for a section of wall to be rebuilt just as you go towards George’s Head down to Byrne’s Cove.
“That wall has been rebuilt and we also had an etching put on the top of the sea wall to note the location of the ship wreck the Edmond,” Mr McClskey said.