Inis Oírr arts centre attracts global audiences for shows

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Europe’s most westerly arts centre, Áras Éanna, which is located on the smallest of the Aran Islands is 20 years in existence this year and its Artistic Director Dara McGee had lined up a programme of events to mark the occasion.

Instead, the venue on Inis Oírr, which includes a 75-seater theatre, is closed due to the Covid-19 lockdown and Dara is back living in his mainland home at Indreabhán, where he’ll remain until non-residents are allowed to travel to Ireland’s offshore islands again.

He has deferred the 20-anniversary celebrations and instead, Áras Éanna has gone online with a live weekly series of concerts and events, featuring local and visiting artists – these are attracting thousands of viewers worldwide.

The Áras Éanna Beo gigs, streamed on the arts centre’s Facebook page, have been running since April 9 and have attracted more than 60,000 views so far. They have also provided welcome revenue for artists and musicians who are currently unable to perform before live audiences – each guest gets a fee of €200, well-known or not.

Musician Micheál Ó hAlmhain, who plays flute and tin whistle, kicked off the weekly gigs in April with a concert from his Inis Oírr home and they have grown in popularity since then.

“I had to leave the island in mid-March and to start working from home,” explains Dara McGee, who is now in his third year as Aras Éanna’s Artistic Director. “I had to start cancelling our summer activities and decide what we were going to do.”

Dara had planned a range of activities for summer and the remainder of 2020, to mark Áras Éanna’s two decades in existence. Since it was established, it has welcomed national and international artists, musicians, performers and actors and hosted a range of festivals and workshops. The centre also runs an Artist in Residence programme that includes the use of a studio and an apartment on site.

And although no artist can be resident on Inis Oírr for the moment because of the pandemic, Dara is working with Galway’s two local authorities and Éalaín na Gaeltachta to develop ‘virtual’ residencies, involving local people and artists from the mainland.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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