Featured
Family fun as Macnas marks 30 years of making magic
Lifestyle – Judy Murphy meets the Artistic Director of Macnas Noeline Kavanagh who is helping the next generation to shine
For the past 30 years, Macnas Community Theatre Group has brought its colourful spectacles to the streets of Galway and to cities all over Europe, the Americas and as far away as Australia.
The magic is set to continue on Sunday week, October 30, when Macnas will stage its latest show, Savage Grace, in Galway City.
A celebration of love in all its manifestations, Savage Grace also marks the Celtic festival of Halloween and pays homage to the spirit world, in particular to a creature known in Irish as An Cailleach, or in Slavic myths as the Baba Yaga – a supernatural, fearsome hag.
Savage Grace, which will have some 300 performers weaving through Galway’s medieval streets, has been designed by Orla Clogher; there’s new music specially composed by Orlagh de Bhaldraithe, and costume design is by Cherie White.
One of Galway’s finest young bands, the city-based My Fellow Sponges, are taking part and there will be a new Macnas Percussive Ensemble, directed by former Saw Doctor Éimhín Craddock with a group of drummers from Cloughanover, who will join the existing Brass Ensemble to bring additional noise, fire and colour to Macnas’ performance.
With rehearsals entering their final week, 300 people are coming through the door of Macnas’ HQ in the Fisheries Field, beside NUIG, nightly from Monday through to Sunday, says the group’s Artistic Director Noeline Kavanagh.
And the fact that the main creative team of Savage Grace is made up of women makes her happy.
Noeline, who has designed and directed most of the company’s recent parades, has taken a back seat this year as the younger generation develops its creative vision. She’s glad to advise and help with direction, but credits Orla Clogher with devising the concept and the creatures for Savage Grace and says Orla’s vision “is like Tim Burton meets the west of Ireland”.
Like Cherie White who has designed the costumes, Orla came through the Macnas Ensemble training facility which was established in 2010.
Macnas has had a tradition of training people since the community group was established in 1986 by Páraic Breathnach, Ollie Jennings, Pete Sammon and Tom Conroy, all of whom were involved with Galway Arts Festival at the time. It’s no exaggeration to say the raggle-taggle group of employees, FÁS workers and volunteers based in the Fisheries Field, where they designed and created mythical stories and fantastical creatures, helped change Galway’s landscape.
Despite having almost no money, Macnas staged memorable parades – among them Gulliver and Tír Faoi Thoinn – during the annual Arts Festival, helping to lift the city from the economic gloom of the 1980s and enhancing Galway’s reputation as a hub for creative people.
Through the decades, Macnas has enjoyed good times – which include supporting U2’s Zooropa tour, and performing at festivals worldwide. There were tougher periods too – internal conflict and Arts Council grant cuts among then. And, back in the day, it had a more macho culture than in recent times.
Galway City woman Noeline Kavanagh, who cut her teeth as a volunteer with Macnas during its early years, before going on to study drama at Trinity College, has been Artistic Director since 2008 after periods spent working with theatre companies in Ireland and Europe, including the UK’s Welfare State and French company Theatre du Soleil.
Since returning, she has steered Macnas into new and exciting territory, travelling with shows to places as diverse as Russia and Texas.
It hasn’t always been easy, but this smart, warm woman who talks a mile a minute, has an ability to focus on the positive, believes totally in teamwork and is passionate about Macnas’ role in training the next generation of artists.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
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.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
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
