Crossing the Sound on Lyric fm an exploration of West’s riches

Poet Gerald Dawe will be joined by guests including actress Cathy Belton, artists Pádraic Reaney and John McHugh, bookshop owner Tom Kenny, fellow poet Seán Lysaght and journalist Judy Murphy of this parish for Crossing the Sound, a documentary being broadcast on Lyric fm this Sunday night.

The programme takes the form of a journey which begins in Galway and ends in Achill Island, exploring questions about place, landscape and culture along the way.

Belfast-born Gerald moved to Galway in the early 1970s and lived here until the 1990s. During his time here, he established strong ties with Mayo, his wife Dorothea’s home county, and with Clare, where they holidayed regularly.

The many friendships Gerald made in Galway survived through the decades, as he moved to Dublin and was the founding director of the Oscar Wilde Centre for Creative Writing in Trinity College. He later became Professor of English at Trinity, and had visiting tenures in Villanova and Cambridge’s Pembroke College.

In 2018, Gerald joined forces with one of those friends, Connemara artist Pádraic Reaney to collaborate on a project, Crossing the Sound. This limited-edition publication combined a selection of Pádraic’s images of Inishark Island off the North Connemara coast, with poems by Gerald, written over five decades and inspired by the West of Ireland.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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.