Festival commemorates Galway-born 1916 patriot and piper

A festival in honour of the only Galway man who was a signatory to the 1916 Proclamation of Independence will be the flagship event next year for the centenary commemoration in the city.

The Éamonn Ceannt Pipers Festival is one of at least 30 events planned for the year following an open meeting to workshop ideas for the anniversary attended by 60 people. So far there is a fund of €100,000 to stage the programme.

Éamonn Ceannt, who was himself a legendary piper, was a founder member of the Irish Volunteers and one of the seven Easter Rising leaders who signed the historic document, which went on to become the basis of the Irish Constitution.

It was proposed by Mick Crehan of the Crane Bar in the West End – home to the Galway Sessions – to stage an international piper’s festival in honour of Ceannt, which was described by Galway City Council’s Gary McMahon as a “peach of a project”.

“The leading uilleann and bagpipers from Ireland, Scotland, Lorient and the USA will be invited to commemorate the life and work of Éamon Ceannt during a week-long festival from June 13 to 19 next year,” explained Mr McMahon.

“The commemoration will include a seminar programme alongside a special exhibition in Galway City Museum; outdoor concerts; street events; an international pipe band parade. Commission of a new work for pipes and string quarter in association with the Contempo Quartet, Galway Ensemble in Resident. This is an event organised locally in Galway with a national and international impact.”

In other signature events throughout 2016, a commemorative stone will be laid a Carnmore to mark the engagement between the Castlegar and Claregalway Volunteers and the RIC, which resulted in the death of Constable Patrick Whelan, the only fatality of the Rising in County Galway. A wreath-laying ceremony will follow at the grave of Patrick Whelan at Bohermore Cemetery.

A host of exhibitions and seminars will be hosted around the city. Schools will be encouraged to get involved in projects, such as the translation of Padraic O Conaire’s ‘Seacht mBua an Eiri’, written after the Rising. They will also get the chance to contribute to a ‘new proclamation’.

A puppet show featuring original music by Teatar Branar called Maloney’s Dream, which centres around the historic events of April 1916, will premiere at the Town Hall Theatre before touring around the country.

A songwriters’ project will feature three singers with Galway connections – Tim Lyons will compose a new song, John Tunney, who works in GMIT will compose a song specifically dealing with events in Galway that week and Sandra Joyce, acting director of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick, will undertake research on existing songs which relate to the Rising in Galway.

Various re-enactments will take place, including open air scenes involving rebels and spies in the Latin Quarter devised by Seamus Mac Aodh.

Son of a RIC officer, Ceannt was born in the police barracks at Ballymoe in1881.

In 1899, Ceannt joined the central branch of the Gaelic League where he first met many of the Easter Rising leaders, including Patrick Pearse and Eoin MacNeill.

In the League, he was teaching Irish language classes and in 1900 Ceannt, along with Edward Martyn, founded Cumann na bPíobairí (The Pipers Club). Ceannt’s musical talents earned him a gold medal at the 1906 Oireachtas – he even played for Pope Pius X.

He was in command of the 4th Battalion of Irish Volunteers at the South Dublin Union in 1916, now the site of St James’s Hospital.

During the fighting, Ceannt was said to have “remained calm and brave at a position his men held until learning of the surrender on Sunday”. He faced the firing-squad at Kilmainham Gaol on May 8, 1916.

The city’s Ceannt Station is named in his memory.

Cllr Billy Cameron proposed to make the Ceannt festival the flagship event of the year’s commemoration.

“Not many counties can claim a signatory so the opportunity to celebrate one of them should be grasped in full view of the nation. He came back to Spiddal, Connemara and the islands. He would light a sod of turf in his house in Dublin and say it would remind him of the West,” remarked the Labour councillor.

Cllr Terry O’Flaherty (Ind) proposed that an arch be erected at the entrance to the canal on O’Brien’s Bridge to remember the fallen men and women during the Rising. This was first proposed in the 1930s and money raised for a design in America but there was a split over the wording for the monument and it was never completed.

Mr McMahon said while it was a worthy project, it would likely cost in the region of €50,000, swallowing up half the budget for the entire year.

Cllr O’Flaherty said she would get costings for the arch and asked that the matter be considered at a later meeting.