Entertainment
Poet Patrick returning to his roots to launch latest book
Arts Week with Judy Murphy
Mullagh man Patrick Deely, who has lived in Dublin for most of his life, will enjoy a celebratory homecoming to Galway on June 6, when he gives a public reading at Loughrea Library to launch his latest poetry collection.
Groundswell: New and Selected Poems has recently been published by Dedalus Press with a foreword by well-known poet and broadcaster Theo Dorgan.
Patrick was delighted by Dorgan’s observations, which singled out the Mullagh man for his “profound sense of communion with the living and the dead of his native place” while also being a “considerable poet of the city” who has retained his “sense of wonder at the world”.
“I don’t know him very well. We’d meet occasionally and when we do, we talk hurling,” says Patrick of Theo Dorgan.
Patrick was born in Mullagh outside Loughrea in 1953, to a family who were immersed in the local community.
His father set up a workshop in the mid 1930s, where he and Patrick’s uncles made hurleys, farm implements, and even branched into coffins at one stage. His father’s death in a tree-felling accident in the mid 1970s was really the spark for Patrick’s development as a poet.
“I wanted to celebrate him and people like him, who worked with their hands all their lives. A lot of people who do that are not celebrated,” says Patrick.
While both his brothers inherited their father’s skill with physical craft, Patrick found his pathway through words.
He describes writing poems as “trying to hold his ground” and says that ground is Dublin, Europe and always his own part of Galway.
He sees himself as following in the footsteps of those people who traditionally chronicled life in local areas, but in a way that lets him gives local lore and stories his own particular, poetic twist.
Although he has been happily settled in Dublin since adulthood, where he worked first as a teacher and then as a school principal in Ballyfermot, Galway still exerts a huge hold. Largely thanks to his mother, Patrick was exposed to a wealth of nature in childhood and developed a love for it.
“I used to go the callows with my mother, who was the farmer in the family, as a child,” he recalls.
These were fields with four small rivers running into each other which flooded every autumn and spring, and later led him to write about how “Land was aspiring to be water; water wanted to be land” in the poem Keaveney’s Well.
After secondary school in St Brendan’s in Loughrea, Patrick moved to Dublin to train as a primary teacher and worked in education until taking early retirement recently.
While working, Patrick made time at night to write. He penned several children’s books which were published by O’Brien Press and won him a wide readership. The Lost Orchard, his novel for young readers won the Eilís Dillon Book of the Year Award in 2001.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
CITY TRIBUNE
Folk duo launch What Will Be Will Be
Folk duo Niall Teague and Pádraic Joyce are launching their new album What Will We Be, a blend of folk, Americana and acoustic music, this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in An Taibhdhearc.
The success of their well-received 2020 release Taobh le Taobh, as well as recent successes at the Pan Celtic and Oireachtas Song Contests, spurred the duo on to record this new album which represents many years of collaboration and musical development.
It features Niall and Pádraic on vocals, harmonies, and acoustic guitars, Maidhc Ó hÉanaigh on double bass and Neil Fitzgibbon on fiddle. The catchy title track, What Will We Be, features contributions from percussionist Jim Higgins (The Stunning, Christy Moore, Paul Brady) and haunting, driving melodies on vocals, guitar, and fiddle.
Themes of love and hope are woven through Come Away with Me which features interplay between piano and fiddle as well as rich vocal harmonies.
People, places, and broken dreams are celebrated and lamented on Martin and Tom, Guitar Gold, Memories of You and Achill Island. The influence of David Henry Thoreau’s novel Walden features on the tracks Simple and Wise and Walden, with the beauty of nature, escape and simple pleasures at their core.
The album moves from minimalistic folk ballads such as Galway Ghost to swirling, string-laden arrangements on the song Neptune, both of which are influenced by maritime tales from Galway. Much of the work on this album was supported by the Arts Council, including work with musical arranger Eoin Corcoran and the string ensemble Treo.
The album will be launched this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in an Taibhdhearc. Tickets €22, plus booking fee at Eventbrite.ie.
CITY TRIBUNE
All roads lead to Dunmore as town tunes up County Fleadh
Dunmore is the place to be this weekend for lovers of traditional music, as the Galway County Fleadh will take place there from this Friday, May 19, to Sunday, May 23.
It is 10 years since Dunmore last hosted a fleadh and the local Comhaltas branch, which has re-formed since Covid, is looking forward to facilitating this gathering of music, song, dance and craic.
The official Opening Concert will take place in Dunmore Town Hall this Friday at 8pm with the acclaimed Mulcahy family from Limerick. Mick, Louise and Michelle are well known throughout the country, thanks to their live performances, television appearances and numerous CDs. They were the winners of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Grúpa Ceoil Award for 2023. Tickets for their concert can be purchased on the door and a great night of music is promised.
Two days of competitions will kick off this Saturday at the town’s Community School, with more than 1,500 competitors taking part. Participants will be hoping to qualify for the Connacht Fleadh 2023, which will be held in Ballina, County Mayo, from June 23 to July 2.
Competitions for those aged Under 10, Under 12 and Under 15 will be held in a large variety of instruments on Saturday, as well as in singing and Comhrá Gaeilge. Sunday’s competitions will be for the Under 18 and Over 18 ages groups, as well as in dancing.
On both days a large entry is expected for Grúpaí Cheoil and Céilí Band competitions across all age groups.
Seventeen Comhaltas branches from across Galway will have participants in this weekend’s competitions, which will result in a large number of visitors to the Dunmore area.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the competitions, which offer a great opportunity to hear and see the talent on display. There will be sessions in local pubs over the weekend as well and everybody is welcome to attend these.
For more information on the County Fleadh, go to www.galwaycomhaltas.ie.
CITY TRIBUNE
Piano concert rescheduled for Tuesday
Music for Galway’s concert with renowned Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia which had been due to take place on April 27 but which had to be deferred, will now take place next Tuesday, May 23, at 8pm, in the Emily Anderson Concert Hall at the University of Galway.
This concert of German classics with Bach at its core, will brings the Bach element of Music for Galway’s 41st season to an end.
This world-class pianist who won the famous Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition, has a repertoire that spans many eras from baroque to contemporary and he is widely known for his elaborate programmes. Cédric Pescia describes music as ‘language and movement at the same time’.
Audiences will have a chance to experience his soft, clear touch as he performs a programme for solo piano that will include classics such as Schumann’s popular Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), a suite of nine short pieces, and the penultimate of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, No. 31. These pieces will be interspersed with French Suites by Bach.
■ Ticket for Cédric Pescia’s concert are available at www.musicforgalway.ie, or by phone 091 705962 and on the door on the night. They cost €20/€18. The price for fulltime students of all ages is €6 while MfG Friends can avail of the friends’ rate of €16.