Connacht Tribune
The 40th Clifden Arts Festival welcomes literary heavyweights
A stellar line up of literary heavyweights will be welcomed to Clifden this year as Ireland’s longest running arts festival will celebrate 40 years of continued success.
Launching on September 13th, eleven days of artistic delights await young and old. A festival of national and international importance, Clifden Arts Festival has sparked creativity, shared its reputation for diversity and quality with visitors and locals and explored the possibilities of nurturing the arts amongst young people from its very origins to present day.
The festival has linked with reflections on the past in order to look back on how far they have come and welcome a new chapter of charming theatre and comedy, exciting music events and incredible visual arts spectacles.
From its humble beginnings the ethos and guiding principles of the Clifden Arts Festival have remained the same. In 1977, Creative Director Dr.Brendan Flynn proposed the idea of encouraging the arts in the newly opened Clifden Community School. His passion for incorporating the arts into the school curriculum meant that this school based festival grew into the adjoining town and surrounding hinterlands to become a community orientated event.
Currently, 14 schools from the area take part in various aspects of the event, including hosting poets, musicians and theatre troupes. From the very beginning the festival has attracted acclaimed artists such as Seamus Heaney, Christy Moore, not to mention President Michael D. Higgins who will officially launch the Clifden Arts Festival.
Highlights include an exceptional concert by the RTE Contempo quartet with Fionnula Moynihan and the RTE concert orchestra with gifted soloist Sir James Galway. The Irish guitar quartet will also take to the stage with mesmerising guitar playing, performed in an incredibly emotive way. With a strong female contingent this year, the long-running, Grammy-nominated, Irish-American super group Cherish the Ladies will also perform with sensational singing, dynamic dancing and infectious humour.
Stockton’s Wing, who have performed with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli, took part in the film production of the John B. Keane play “The Field” and their song “Beautiful affair” was voted into the top 75 songs in the history of RTE radio. They will celebrate 40 years and perform from their vast and eclectic back catalogue of recordings.
Another huge crowd pleaser will be the Gala Concert Garda band. After the establishment of An Garda Siochana, the band gave its first public performance on Dun Laoghaire Pier on Easter Monday, 1923. Besides providing music for official Garda functions, the band also undertakes a heavy community-orientated programme performing at schools, festivals and sporting events.
Hailed as one of Ireland’s most innovative and exciting bands, Kíla will also feature at the Clifden Arts Festival. They share a passion to create great music with an ability to absorb influences from across the globe. With its roots in traditional Irish, it features a strong percussive like singing and gorgeous melodies driven by a serious rhythmical undercurrent. Kíla have created their own distinctive style of world music, which has won over audiences around the world through their nine recordings to date and their spectacular live performances.
Footsbarn travelling theatre will celebrate its world premiere and revisit the Clifden Arts Festival with its internationally acclaimed production of “Bottoms Dream” based on a MidSummer Night’s Dream and Moliere to create an evening of magic and comedy. From the moment you step inside the tent, you are in a parallel universe, a place where fantastical creatures lurk, and the removal of the intrigues of the court and the lovers, allows for a special emphasis on the world of the groundlings and of the supernatural. These caustic and candid masterpieces offer an incredible palette of truculent characters and tragi-comic situations.
Literary events will see dozens of readings with some of the most celebrated authors and poets in the world, such as a reading from the Doire press with acclaimed authors Martin Malone and Karen J. McDonnell and award-winning poets Paul Durcan, Catherine Bateson and Jane Williams. Also taking to the stage will be renowned poet Bernard O’ Donoghue, whose poetry has been described as having an emotional intensity conveyed through a controlled yet impeccably natural language. Acclaimed poet, professor, editor, critic and translator Paul Muldoon has also been hailed by the Times as “the most significant English language poet born since the Second World War.
The visual art dimension includes the ever popular Clifden Arts Trail which will illuminate the picturesque town of Clifden into an art gallery, and host a variety of group and solo exhibitions resulting in a breath-taking array of colourful and creative displays. The festival will feature both international and national artists such as renowned artists Mary Donnelly, Aaron Holton and Imelda Healy as well as many local and amateur artists, giving them welldeserved recognition and an opportunity to express themselves in a local environment.
The main exhibition this year will be incredible recent works by internationally acclaimed President of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), Mick O’Dea. An exhibition to be savoured, his subject matter can vary from portraits, landscapes, nudes and the historic. Other highlights will in include a group exhibition entitled “Aspects of Connemara” which includes works by the legendary Michael Cullen RHA, Richard Ward, Dennis Mamalis, Bernie Dignam, Reingard Gahan, Kate Noonan, Trish Findlater and Kieran Tobin.
In recent years the Festival Finale has established itself as one of the must-see events, a joyous blend of visual arts and song, the culmination of unique collaborations and unmissable performances. The finale also features the Grand Parade, which will see acrobats, jugglers, face painters, singers, dancers, a live music and the famous fireworks extravaganza. The Clifden Arts Festivals will cast an other worldly spell on people of all ages inspired and infected by the festivals unique and innovative energy.
For programme details and tickets visit www.clifdenartsfestival.ie
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
Galway 3-18
Cork 1-10
NEW setting; new opposition; new challenge. It made no difference to the Galway minor hurlers as they chalked up a remarkable sixth consecutive double digits championship victory at Semple Stadium on Saturday.
The final scoreline in Thurles may have been a little harsh on Cork, but there was no doubting Galway’s overall superiority in setting up only a second-ever All-Ireland showdown against Clare at the same venue on Sunday week.
Having claimed an historic Leinster title the previous weekend, Galway took a while to get going against the Rebels and also endured their first period in a match in which they were heavily outscored, but still the boys in maroon roll on.
Beating a decent Cork outfit by 14 points sums up how formidable Galway are. No team has managed to lay a glove on them so far, and though Clare might ask them questions other challengers haven’t, they are going to have to find significant improvement on their semi-final win over 14-man Kilkenny to pull off a final upset.
Galway just aren’t winning their matches; they are overpowering the teams which have stood in their way. Their level of consistency is admirable for young players starting off on the inter-county journey, while the team’s temperament appears to be bombproof, no matter what is thrown at them.
Having romped through Leinster, Galway should have been a bit rattled by being only level (0-4 each) after 20 minutes and being a little fortunate not to have been behind; or when Cork stormed out of the blocks at the start of the second half by hitting 1-4 to just a solitary point in reply, but there was never any trace of panic in their ranks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.
Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.
Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.
“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.
“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.
He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.
“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.
“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.
He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.
The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.
“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
