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CONTENTSmidlandsartsandculture

contents

FOREWORD

FEATURES:

• Article by the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen T.D

• Eugene O’Brien – Encourage the Young

• Michael Harding – In a nutshell

• Arthur Lappin – On infrastructure

• Manchán Magan – Badlands or Madlands?

• Paul Timoney – an artist in a Friary

• Justine Stafford – On being a young artist

• Finn MacGinty – Thoughts of a returned immigrant

• Pat Moylan – A Midland theatre company please

• Maeve Hickey – On being inspired in the Midlands

• Kevin O’Neill – Midland Man

• John Maher – Barbican-in-the-Bog

• J P Donleavy – Reminiscences on the theme of Midlands

• Malcolm Ross-Macdonald – On how far we have come

ARTS NEWS

• The Good Hatchery

• Exhibitions at Mullingar Arts Centre

• Brendan Fox exhibits at Aras an Chontae

• Graduate Artists Awards in Westmeath

• Joe Dolan commemorated

• Common Ground exhibitions

• Platform Artists Talks

• Seamus Morton – a profile

• Lights Camera Action Offaly

• New Film Club in Athlone

• Offaly to Hungary

• Arthur Lappin – a profile

• Children’s Book festival in Westmeath

• Make that Card

• Marty Mulligan at the Electric Picnic

• Midland Master Classes

• St. Anthony’s Tongue

• Laois Writers

• Touching Distance

• Clara Musical Society

• Events at Hilltown Studio Theatre

• New Manager at Tuar Ard

• New at Belmont Mill

• Going Underground in Mountrath

• Drinking the Colour Blue

• Willie White – a profile

• Eden Drama News

• Offaly Film Commission launched ?????????

MIDLANDSARTS AND

CULTURE

a reviewof thearts in

laoiswestmeath

andoffaly

AUTUMN2008

midlandsartsandcultureWELCOME

As guest editor of this edition of the Midlands Arts and Culture Magazine I decided I would askas wide a variety of people involved in the arts about their vision/hopes for arts and culture inthe Midlands - everyone from school children to An Taoiseach. I suggested to them that theMidlands are not particularly known for the arts at present and asked whether they saw thepotential of this changing, and also what elements they would like to see developed.

The response has been phenomenal - compelling contributions from a wide range of people -everyone from Ireland’s most distinguished writer of the old order, JP Donleavy, who has writtena wonderful prose piece reflecting on his relationship with Co Westmeath, to 16-year-old JustineStafford from Trim, winner of the Midlands Youth Film-maker of the Year Award, who writespassionately about the need for children to be introduced to the arts.

Reading the contributions as they arrived in my inbox has been thrilling. Eugene O’Brien’ssuccinct and wonderfully positive piece suggesting that the future of arts lies with our childrensent a rush of excitement through me. Likewise, Michael Harding’s beautifully expressed clarioncall had me bristling with excitement. He advances a potential solution to our present solipsisticintrospection. Pat Moylan challenges the pioneers amongst us to step forward, the passionateenthusiasts who can inspire the rest. And Paul Timoney suggests that, in fact, these visionaryleaders might already be here, in the form of the Franciscans at the Multyfarnam Friary who aredeveloping a radical artistic vision for a ‘Caring For Creation Centre’. Could this be the first stepstowards the Barbican-In-The-Bog that John Maher envisions in his humorous piece exploringthe need for better infrastructure in the area?

In the following pages you’ll find a rich collection of thought-provoking ideas, impassioned pleasand humorous suggestions. Some of the most distinguished figures in Irish arts have offeredtheir thoughts. Their varied backgrounds and range of experience provides a valuably wideperspective on the current cultural situation. Arthur Lappin, one of Ireland’s pre-eminent filmand theatre producers focuses on the need for audiences – there is no point producing excellentart and culture, or building great venues, if there is no one there to see it. Finn MacGinty, arecently returned Midlander, offers a fresh perspective on the cultural scene in the region, after20 years in Japan and Seattle. These are just a few of the artists, playwrights, producers, etcwho’ve contributed to this magazine. We are indebted to them all.

MANCHÁN MAGAN

Foreword...

Muireann Ni ChonaillArts Officer, Laois County Council

Sinead O’ReillyArts Officer, Offaly County Council

Martina FinnArts Officer, Westmeath County Council

Shane BrennanArts Education Officer for the

Midlands Region, Westmeath VEC

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FEATUREmidlandsartsandculture

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A message from the Taoiseach...

Brian Cowen T.D.The arts can be seen as a primary mode of

human communication. They are frontierless.They are the means by which we express our

individuality and our sense of community.They represent the zenith of civilisation andthe diversity of humanity. Irish people have

accomplished so much in the field of thearts; personally, nationally and internationally,

and the Midlands is no exception in thatregard. That is why the Government nurturesand cultivates the arts in many different ways,

including the investment of public money.

There are an increasing number of artists in all disciplines livingand working in the midland counties. With that comes thepossibility for the development of new, small, cutting edgecompanies and collectives such as Legitimate Bodies DanceCompany, based in Birr Theatre and Arts Centre, in my ownnative Offaly. A significant and successful arts project that tookplace in Offaly this year was the high profile Patrick DoughertyResidency at Lough Boora Sculpture in the Parklands. Theseartists working in Lough Boora Parkland draw their inspirationfrom the topography, ambience and soul of the midlands. Thefusion of river, lake and pasture creates a rich cultural andartistic backdrop for many art forms.

The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism provides the bulkof capital funding for building and refurbishing arts facilitiesaround the country, mainly in the not for profit sector. The Arts& Culture Capital Enhancement Support Scheme (ACCESS) is akey element in the Government’s regional arts strategy and hasgreatly improved participation in the arts. The scheme hasbeen widely acknowledged as a significant intervention in theprovision of quality arts and cultural venues in the midlands.Under ACCESS facilities that have been funded to date, in allparts of Ireland include integrated arts centres, theatres,galleries, studios, and creative and performance spaces.

Since 1994 Government support to arts projects across theMidlands is over €11m. Under the current round of theACCESS scheme, €4.3m has been allocated to capital projectsin the midland counties of Laois, Offaly and Westmeath, whilefunding of €81m is available for ACCESS nationwide under theNDP 2008 – 2013.

The Arts Council, the Government agency for promotion of thearts nationwide, provides the ongoing revenue support formany of the facilities. The combined Arts Council spend on

Laois, Offaly andWestmeath in 2007 wasover €500,000 while thecombined spend by thethree local authorities inthose counties for thesame period was a sizeable€1,500,000. This has tobe coupled with the ArtsCouncil’s spend on nationalinitiatives, which, alsoimpact, of course on themidlands region.

The Local Authority ArtsServices in this region havedeveloped strongprogrammes that supportand promote access to thearts. This is particularly thecase in arts provision for children and young people. Thebreadth of provision for young people in the Midlands wouldhave been unimaginable a decade or two ago - aContemporary Youth Dance Project and a Youth Film Festivalin Westmeath, a Children’s Arts Festival in Offaly, a network ofYouth Theatres in Laois, a Young Writers’ Programme in Offalyand Westmeath, an award winning School of Music in Co.Laois forming a significant part of our cultural infrastructure,and a Midlands Youth Orchestra made up of young musiciansfrom all three counties.

The Midlands is a hive of artistic activity. With more arts venuesthan ever before, people living in the area have the opportunityand means to enjoy all that the arts have to offer. With the helpof continued Government funding, participation and localinitiative in the arts is increasing. Arts centres such as theDunamaise in Laois are bringing contemporary arts practices tothe Midlands and are enhancing the artistic environment forpractitioners and those who appreciate the arts alike. I amproud that the Midlands have embraced such a range of artisticinitiatives, and I am committed to working to ensure that notonly have the Midlands a place on the Irish stage but on theglobal one too.

We recognise that the Arts are a major employer nationally – inaggregate over 45,000 people derive their livelihoods from thearts. The sector enhances our tourism product and is a key partof the continued success of that vital economic driver. Arts,culture and film contribute to our social and cultural well-beingand above all to our economic fortitude. They generate 1.7%of our GDP and that is something we cannot and should notlose sight of in the current environment.

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EUGENE O’BRIENEncouraging the Young Indeed traditionally, the Midlands has notbeen seen as an Artistichotbed. But at the same time, even in just county Offaly alone, people like myself, Declan Recks, Marina Carr, Niall Delamare,Liam Lawton, Mundyand others have all I feel made a contributionto the Arts/entertainment life of the country.

There are many excellent artistic centres around themidlands, like the Dunamaise theatre in Portlaoise, which Ivisited recently to give a writing workshop with PeterSheridan to a very bright and receptive group of people, halfof whom were in their teens. Indeed this is how youencourage interest in the arts. Connect with the kids andyoung adults to develop their potential.

Projects like Backstage, in my home town of Edenderry, anevening stage school for kids has been invaluable, forcreating confidence and social skills, especially with kids whoare not sporty. But it’s up to us and people in localcommunities to develop arts activities. Sometimes lethargygets in the way.

A friend of mine is trying to develop local drama but finds itvery difficult to get people involved. He knows people wouldget so much out of it if they’d just join in. How could weencourage people to get more involved? Could an ARTSfestival be started, to showcase work done in the county, indrama, comedy, music, art and writing? The recent OffalyFilm Commission set up to promote the area as a location forfilming could screen examples of work shot in the midlands.

A big part of this kind of festival would be to invite localpeople to workshops with the various professional artists.Providing encouragement and a real outlet for people toexplore their potential in whatever area they are interested in,is vital and invigorating for all. Of course as the belts tightennow, the Arts can be the first thing to get left behind. Theyshouldn’t, it doesn’t take that much money; it takes the willand the enthusiasm. Build it and they will come.

BIOG: Eugene O’Brien is an Edenderry-born writer. His play,Eden was shown at the Abbey and London’s West End,winning the Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards 2001, theStewart Parker Best New Play of 2001 and the Rooney Prizefor Literature 2003. He wrote the television series PureMule, and the radio plays The Nest, Sloth, as well as a seriesof stage plays.

Ireland has avoided European history forthe past two centuries, in order to pursuelittle squabbles. And by all the signs thatcame out of the Lisbon Treaty ballotboxes, we seem hell bent on spendingthe next century in isolation once again.

In general terms, Ireland has become impish in itsaffluence; a cute pixie nation that has seen seriousintellectual inquiry and serious public discourse replacedwith indignation and hubris.

In terms of theatre, international success has tended to beethnic, and lavishly dressed in the idiom, the languageand the style of cartoon “oirishness.”

Despite having political freedom in the Twentieth century,we have become the best purveyors of that lampoonwhich once offended us so deeply in the Nineteenthcentury; the stage Irishman. The most successful playsportray a familiar Ireland in strong narratives pepperedwith familiar characters.

Personally I long for theatre that challenges the secularworld with the possibility of opening a door into thesacred; rituals and performances that speak from thecollective unconscious, and challenge society at thosepoints where society is shallow or deceitful.

I believe in making the invisible visible. I believe in theatreas an exploration of sacred space, and as the incarnationof ghosts. You can put any amount of bells and whistleson a theatre production, but if it doesn’t have somethingof the above intention, then it is not worth the effort.

What may get us out of this mess of introspectivebrooding, and self conscious parody that passes withsuch applause in Irish theatre is the presence of people inour society from other cultures that take a more earnest,philosophical and less music-hall approach to theatre.

The Midlands has over the last decade been drenchedwith rich talent from Central Europe; artists, performersand storytellers who are as yet invisible in our culturallife, quietly trying to earn a living, quietly trying to raise afamily. Working at their art, or working in shops and

Michael~ in a

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A great deal of public moneyhas been spent in recent yearson providing physicalinfrastructure for culturalactivities. The big questionnow is if there will be theresources, financial as well ascreative, to supply ‘culturalproduct’ to these emporia andif the ‘product’ is available willthere be sufficient audienceattending to justify the wholething in the first place – I havemy doubts!

Recent consumer polls suggest thatculture consumption still remains astubbornly low priority for the Irishpublic. How could it be otherwisewhen the formal education system ispitiful in its inclusion andencouragement of cultural/aestheticvalues? Most of the midland countiescan hold their own in many sportingpursuits – the GAA is an example of howwell organized sport can be viable on acounty basis. This county approachcannot work for culture. The weight ofactivity in Dublin and the attraction

which Dublin will always have forwould-be cultural consumers in theMidlands (especially considering thework of the NRA) suggests a compellingargument for regional or even non-Dublin, planning for cultural output.Only by Local Authorities, RegionalCultural Organisations and other vestedinterests such as Tourism, working intandem with a coherent policy, is it likelythat we will be able to secure acontinuity of quality cultural productwhich will sustain and develop regionalaudiences.

At present the regions are on a drip-feedfrom Dublin. It is unrealistic to imaginethat significant indigenous productionentities will spring up as a result of acapital expenditure programme.However the regions can take a lead inthe formulation of policies andprogrammes, from wherever they mightcome, that will be available to audienceson a regular and frequent basis.

A start was made on this by the ArtsCouncil in a theatre touring programmelast year and this. A great deal more ofthis on a multi disciplinary basis needs tohappen urgently if the spanking newphysical infrastructures are not tobecome white elephants, but moreimportantly, if audiences’ hungers are tobe satisfied and their tastes expanded.

Arthur Lappin has been a producer onfifteen feature films, two TV dramaseries and several documentaries. Hehas also produced over twenty stageproductions.

He was producer of ‘Some Mother’sSon’, ‘The Boxer’, ‘Agnes Browne’,‘Borstal Boy’, ‘On The Edge’ and ‘InAmerica’. He was also executiveproducer on ‘Bloody Sunday’, ‘Omagh’,and ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin’.

Hardingnutshellbusinesses, but without as yet any serious recognition asartists or theatre practitioners. Connect with them, and thelocal theatre tradition could be radically transformed andenergized. Quarry their stories, their experiences,imaginations and performance skills and the Midlands couldbe a real player in Irish theatre.

Michael Harding is the author of three books of fiction andnumerous plays and has just launched his most recentnovel ‘Bird in the Snow’ He writes ‘Displaced in Mullingar’, a weekly column in The Irish Times. His plays have beenproduced in the Abbey and the Peacock. He is a winnerof the Stewart Parker Theatre Award and the HennesseyLiterary Award. www.displacedinmullingar.com

ARTHUR LAPPIN...on infrastructure

Photo by Bob Morrison


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To the outside world and to most of its citizensIreland is a doughnut - at its centre is an emptyblack hole known as the Midlands - a forsakenSiberia of bogland and lakes. Midlanders earnthe least, we die the earliest, we have the leasteducational opportunities and the highest ratesof suicide. We are the runts in terms of culture,economy, health, investment. We are theanonymous, the expendable, the unfortunates – Ireland’s dirty secret. Only in suicide rates dowe rank supreme. Sarah Jessica Parker does nothave a house here. John Wayne did not makean iconic movie here, nor Jeremy Irons paint hiscastle pink. Until recently our most importantvisitor was the Pope.

Yet all that is beginning to change. The moment that BrianCowen accepted the role as Taoiseach a beacon of light wasturned on in the midlands. Momentum had been buildingover a few years, as though keeping pace with thestratospheric rise of Electric Picnic in the supercool stakes.REM came and settled here for half a year; Michael Jacksonhid out here. Pure Mule and Eden plastered us all over yourscreens.

When I was planning on making a documentary about theresurgence of the Midlands a TV producer said to me,“Forget it, the Midlands are a cultural backwater for a reason.Nobody likes them. Most Midlanders are arguablyaesthetically and socially retarded. No one wants to spendany longer than necessary in their company. Granted, youhave a Taoiseach from there now, but when he’s gone theplace will return to the black hole it truly is.” I wanted to hithim, but I knew that would only compound his ideas aboutus.

It’s important that we know what we’re up against, that webare in mind the stark truth about how outsiders regard us.It’s hard to get a true sense of the Midlands, the only thingone can safely say is that it is changing. We are undergoing aprocess of transformation and that it’s underway, we will notbe stopped. We may have less access to cultural opportunitiesthan our Dublin neighbours and we may perhaps be lessextraverted or flamboyant than those wild, sea-sprayed folkon the Western shores, but nevertheless, we have somethingvaluable to share, we demand to be heard, we demand ourplace in the new Ireland.

For me, the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre Company willalways be the prime example of how the Midlands ought toengage directly with the wider world. Fabulous Beastproductions are conceived, rehearsed and developed in aconverted hay barn in Longford, at Shawbrook Ballet School,before going on to be premiered at the Barbican Theatre inLondon and then touring the world. The company remainboth thoroughly international and yet resolutely rooted in theIrish Midlands. The director, Michael Keegan-Dolan, talks ofhow the Midlands allow him the freedom to plan on a grandscale. He has spent the last six years working on theMidlands Trilogy, a series of large-scale dance-theatre piecesloosely set in the Irish midlands, using the radical socialupheaval the region is undergoing as a lens through which toexplore the strains and struggles of the human condition.

We need to bare in mind that with the revolution incommunication and ease of international transport there is noreason for the Midlands to remain isolated. We can producework here on a par or better than anything that is beingproduced in the great metropolises.

Manchán Magan is a writer and documentary maker. He haswritten 3 travel books and made 30 travel documentaries. Heis chairman of the Comotion Midlands Youth Film Festivaland board member of Fabulous Beast.

Manchán Magan- BADLANDS OR MADLANDS?

‘The Bull’ from Fabulous

Beast DanceCompany


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Paul Timoney is a Mullingarartist, is co-ordinator of oneof the most exciting andinnovative new developmentsin arts in Ireland – the artistsResidency Programme at theFranciscan Friary inMultyfarnam Co. Westmeath.In a recent article for VisualArtists Ireland, he discussed theresidency programme and hisexperiences of being an artistin the Midlands.

I don’t just have a studio…I have abuilding…with a staircase…and atheatre…and a room in which topaint…and another for drawing…andone for sculpture…and one forstorage…and one where I sometimes goto think…and a gymnasium…and 65acres of land. This is where I have beenmaking my work for the past year. It wasonce a prestigious agricultural college.Since it closed down almost a decadeago the location has remained largelyunderused.

That is changing. The Friars haverecently begun a unique two-weekResidency Programme and are offeringfree accommodation and studio space toartists, writers, performers, ecologistsetc who are willing to engage with theFranciscan community and discussideas and plans for their invention of a‘Caring For Creation Centre’.

This invitation is not limited toindividuals from any one gender orbelief system. The Friars welcomeexpressions of interest from all who feelthat they would like to participate. They

hope that the conversations that occuras a consequence of interacting with‘creative people’ will generate ideas toaid in the evolution of their communityand the development of their resourcesat Multyfarnam.

My own experience of working at theFriary has been tremendous. As I havebeen the only person using the facilitythroughout the winter I have had anabundance of time and space toproduce objects and stories for ane x h i b i t i o n / i n t e r a c t i v e - o p e nperformance entitled ‘Things PretendingTo Be Other Things’ which ran in Dublinthroughout June and will continue totour the country during the comingmonths.

Since I began helping to coordinate theResidency Program I have been incontact with many talented anddedicated people who either live in orfeel drawn to this vicinity. They like the

peace and quiet here as well as therelative proximity of…just abouteverywhere really. Due to the Midland’scentrality and improving road networks,car journeying and/or transportation ofartwork to locations all over the countryhas become noticeably quicker.

There are also a number of interestingart venues in and around Westmeath.Some of the newer ones’ tendencytowards showing unusual, daring andcontemporary work, as well as theirburgeoning success and popularity,seems to have impacted on theinclinations of more established centres.

In the past year I have enjoyedinnovative, thought provoking, beautifuland peculiar art at Belmont Mills,Mantua, Roscommon Art Centre,Mullingar Art Centre, The GoodHatchery, Hilltown House and LucyTormey’s Studio Gallery.

PAULTIMONEY

...an artistin a Friary photo by Maja Gara

Recent work:‘Things Pretending to be Other Things’


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JUSTINE STAFFORDon being a young artist Justine Stafford, aged 16, from Kells,Co Meath was the winner of the MidlandYoung Film-maker of the Year Award 2008,at the Co-Motion Midlands Youth FilmFestival. Her precocious, provocativedocumentaries enthused the judges which canbe seen on www.comotionfilmfestival.orgHere she offers her views on facilities foryoung artists in the Midlands.

I think that slowly the midlands are being awakened to itstalents. Many people are unaware that they have a talent,and so, often go unrecognised unless they are encouragedby others, or find courses and classes - which are notalways available.

My introduction to film-making was through a filmworkshop in my primary school. I can honestly say that ifmy teacher Mr. Watters hadn’t signed up for theworkshop, I never would’ve realised I had such an interestin film-making, because how else would I learn about theroles and get such an opportunity to practise the skills andtechniques of filming?

I personally think that it’s pretty amazing! This is one ofthe problems that the Midlands have – the fact thatcourses are usually held in towns/cities where largenumbers are guaranteed. I really hope that small countryareas will not be forgotten, as their contribution is asimportant as anywhere else. I see art groups beingformed, which is great, as you can inspire others and gaininspiration likewise. I’m also aware of writing groups beingformed for young people, especially in Westmeath. I thinkthat is a unique idea. The opportunities for artists in theMidlands are constantly expanding and I think if thingscontinue as they are we might all end up being artists!

FINN...thoughts

It has been claimed by some that the Midlandsdo not have a great artistic reputation andmaybe that is okay. Can we force ourselves tobecome more artistic, or to appreciate anythingbut the popular culture of the day? Shouldeverybody paint, sculpt, dance and sing? Whowould notice those who devote their life tothese disciplines if everybody was doing it? I’vebeen to villages in Bali famous for one particularkind of sculpture and another village that bredwonderful painters. Everybody there paints andsculpts. I’ve been to towns in Japan thatproduce marvellous pottery, so unique that whenpeople see a certain glaze they know exactlywhere it came from.

Maybe we’re not quiet as attuned here in the Midlands, butso be it. We enjoy what’s on offer, see the odd thing, go to

the odd show, enjoy the band fromoutside the bar and then

discover that the whole bandis a backing track behind alone performer! Since myreturn to Ireland a year agoI’ve had some truly wonderful

Midland artistic experiences:contemporary music at Hilltown,

a evening of dance atShawbrook, Improbable

Frequency in Longford, JimPage performing at the

Stables, the Fleadh inTullamore, thewonderful images ofthe Arts Group atthe MullingarResource Centre,the women at theWomen’sCommunity Centrepresenting a tributeto Harriet Tubmanfor International

Women’s Day, JimmyBroder, Peter Doran,

Justine Stanford receiving first prize from Manchán Maganand Fiona MacGinty, Comotion Film Festival 2008


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I am a Midlander, born and bred inPortlaoise. As a child my father used toexplain how Laois was the only county inIreland that was surrounded by countiesthat did not touch the sea – you cant getmore ‘Midland’ than that. Having a lookat the area through the prism of ‘theatre’the first thing that came to mind was thefact that two midlanders are among themost highly regarded of ourcontemporary Irish playwrights. MarinaCarr is a truly unique voice and EugeneO’Brien has come to prominence with hisinsightful writing for stage, television andfilm.

The Midlands is well catered for when itcome to performance spaces. There is noshortage of good quality theatres withstate of the art technical facilities thatare run by professional managementand staff. These venues areprogrammed with a large number ofprofessional touring productions that are

vital for the existence and survival ofthese theatres. The one link that ismissing from the chain of talent andfacilities is the existence of a locallybased professional theatre company. Wehave proof that the audiences are therebut there is no company in the Midlandscreating and presenting theatre. Itwould be a wonderful enrichment ofartistic life if such a company were setup in one of the larger towns. It usuallytakes one or more passionate andcreative enthusiasts to make it happen.People who are willing to face thedifficulties, to suffer the pain and anxietyof birth and development of a project, tosurvive the inevitable financial constrainsbefore they can create work that willattract funding. Any takers?

Pat Moylan is a director of LaneProductions, the independent theatreproduction companies behind I,Keano.She was Artistic Director of Andrews

Lane Theatre for 18 years. She hasworked on Women on the Verge of HRTfor London’s West End, a filmadaptation of Borstal Boy and thehighly successful play Stones in hisPockets by Marie Jones, for Dublin, theWest End and Broadway.

PAT MOYLAN…A Midland Theatre Company please

MacGINTYof a returned emigrantKevin O’Neill, Pete Courtney performing at the Stables, slampoet Marty Mulligan performing his poem “Ireland”, thework of the artists from St Peters in Castlepollard which wason display in all the local shops.... And that’s just to name theevents that come immediately to mind; I’m sure I’veforgotten many.

Living here in the 70’s I used to complain about the lack ofthings to see, hear and do, but not now. Now we can hearCajun, blues, rock, folk and metal any night of the week.Anything else you might want is available a quick drive and afew Euro away. We’re blessed with an Arts Office that workswith, encourages and fosters artists… thank God for thecounty council...first the roads and now arts! What annoysme is the McDonald’s building in Mullingar and the fact thatsomeone has broken the hands off the wooden figuresoutside the arts centre in Moate and the Hummel-esque“sculpture” outside Belvedere. But life is too short to get tooannoyed about these little irritants.....how could we enjoy

what’s good if there wasn’t some bad to balance it out.Ireland’s art and culture is doing very well outside ofIreland.....count the huge number of Irish bars in Tokyo andbodhrán players all over the world. Thankfully, arts andculture changes and morphs and reflects life. Knowing whatwe produced in the arts under the weight of oppression andturmoil makes me wonder what we’ll come up wit now thatprosperity has come (and perhaps gone!). Will we sing songsabout the tyranny of Microsoft’s Media player, the marketingruthlessness of Michal O’Leary, our inability to buy anapartment in Beijing.......?

Finn MacGinty, is a traditional musician who has played inJapan and Seattle. As an actor he has performed in SamuelBeckett’s “Rough for Theatre 1” in Tokyo and severalindependent films in the US. He is currently enrolled in theMusic Network’s Continuing Professional Developmenttraining programme for musicians working or wishing towork in outreach scenarios.


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I was greeted upon entering by MrsLynch, who, eyes sparkling, asked me“Maeve! Have you ever had a nastyburn”? “Well, of course,” I replied.“And what did you do to cure it?”she demanded. Gingerly, I replied,“Ice.”

“No!” came the swift reply. “Peopledon’t know anything nowadays! Youmust go to Gerry Ward, outside ofCoole. He has the cure. He’ll lick thewound. He got the cure by lickingthe belly of a mankeeper; that’s anugly frog, and it would be revoltingto do that. But that is what he did,licked the belly of a mankeeper, andnow he has the cure.” Now, that’s artin the midlands, and if someone isnot inspired by the likes of that, Igive up!

On a more serious note, I’m everhopeful that art can flourish here. It

in no way feels like a culturalwasteland, principally because thereare no preconceived notions of arthere. There is the freedom to createoriginal work without the fear that itis not trendy, hip, correct, etc. Also,local people seem interested in whatartists are doing, in my experience –possibly because there are not lots ofgalleries, concerts, etc. so, they areup for what is going on. In my case,local people visit the studio often andask me about the work. They want toknow what’s next, and always tell meto be sure to invite them to anyopenings, etc.

Here’s a goofy idea of what would behelpful for creative people living inthe midlands: a cafe where you couldcount on bumping into your friends,have a chat, exchange ideas, etc.When I lived in Dijon, I frequented acafe owned by friends of mine who

are musicians, and I met architects,painters, etc there; people whobecame great friends of mine. I wasinfluenced by their very presence,and just the passion for work thatsome people have is often enough toinfluence others to have that samepassion. Inspirational is what I’msaying.

Maeve Hickey is an artist andphotographer whose work focuses onthe Mexican/US borderlands andIreland. She has exhibited extensivelyin Europe and the United States. Incollaboration with anthropologistLawrence Taylor, she published threebooks of photographs: The Road toMexico (1997), The Tunnel Kids(2001), Ambos Nogales (2002). Herwork is represented in institutionaland private collections in Ireland,France, England, Belgium, the UnitedStates, and Mexico.

MAEVE HICKEY...on being inspired in the Midlands

Following a month’s work in Mexico, a strange enough place in its own right,I returned to my Westmeath studio. As I always do, I stopped in to check on my closest

neighbours, a couple in their nineties, who have spent their lives in that farmhouse.

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KEVIN O’NEILL

- Midland ManWestmeath’s rivers have carried the hunter/ gatherer peoples ofNorthern Europe into her heartlands for over 10,000 years. RecentArcheological investigations in the Coole area have shown thatadvanced societies have thrived here for well over 6,000 years. Butwere these pioneers the true ancestors of 'Midland Man' or wastheir arrival being casually observed by an indigenous populationwho knew full well that these newcomers would eventually“..mosey on like the shower before them”.

History tends to support this argument. Where are the many andvaried cultures who arrived over the millennia? Where are theDruids? (not those ones). The Romans got the message, as did thefearsome Viking Warlord, Turgesius...By the year 840 this tyrant hadplundered the entire east coast of Ireland and much of Wales. Hethen signed his death warrant by setting course up the river Boynewith a fleet of sixty warships to enforce his reign of terror, rape andsubjugation on the Midlands.

Now it’s a well known fact that Westmeath women are the mostbeguilingly beautiful in the world. So when Turgesius set eyes uponthe stunning daughter of the local warrior Melaghlin he had to haveher. He commanded the Chieftain to hand the girl over for'marriage'. Melaghlin agreed, but begged that Turgesius respect hertribal right to choose her own three bridesmaids. The ungainlydemeanour and theatrical appearance of this trio was explainedwhen, with a flourish, they tore off their cloaks, revealingthemselves to be in fact three of Melaghlin’s fiercest warriors. Theypromptly grabbed the groom, dragged this blow-in down to thelocal lake and drowned him, effectively ending Viking rule inWestmeath before it started.

Midland Man’s indifference to future invaders bears all thehallmarks of a tribe hard-wired for survival. Eight hundred years ofoppression may seem a good enough reason for the likes of you orI to rise up, but not Midland Man. Over the aeons it appears he hascalmly seen off wave after wave of optimists arriving ...trying toturn Westmeath into their particular vision of a better place ...andleaving.

To prove my point, a newly arrived subgenus, Artist, borne in on afreak wave of National prosperity may afford us a rare opportunityto carry out a snap anthropological study. To help with speciesidentification, Artist shares a number of unique characteristics withinhis tribe. Here are a few:

• They always insist on referring to their etchings, installations, rubbings or happenings as WORK.

• They over-use words like SPACE and FORM • They tend to become very loud when gathered in a group. • Their laughter can be alarming, shrill and unexpected,

all at once. • They usually have had too much to think. about. • Oddest of all, they may, at some stage of the evening ask if you

know where they might source a bit of ‘Fun-Ding’.

A handful of Local Government bodies and the odd altruistic smallbusiness are working hard to find out what this ‘Fun- Ding’ mightbe, and if it really does exist, try to get it to these unfortunates.

What would I like to see in the Midlands?A sort of Barbican-in-the-bog: a centre of

excellence, but well before that, animprovement in infrastructure. I dream of

infrastructure. Life is easier for everyone,artists included, with decent infrastructure.

What would I like? Let’s dream a little.

The NBR (The New Bog Road), a motorway runningdown the spine of the country, from disenfranchisedDonegal (through Norn Irn) to Cork. And a rail linerunning in parallel. MIA (Midlands Internationalairport). I’m easy enough about the location as long asyou can reach it by rail / decent roads.

A dedicated programme of rail expansion (Check outthe old Derry line which used to run throughMonaghan). Footpaths outside all major towns toencourage walking and connecting up towns forpedestrians.

An end to the carpet – bombing (utilities work?) ofmain streets in midland towns. Abbeyleix, even thoughit is on the main Cork Road, is an example of a well -built and well – maintained road surface. The roads inMountrath, on the other hand, look like the Talibanhave been busy with them. Why such a difference?

Maybe we should hire out some outfit like SwitzerlandInc. for a few years (my mother’s idea, as it happens).Then send them home after they’ve shown us how torun our (beautiful) little island as it should be run. Afterall, we buy in expertise to run the (as yet unconnected)Luas. I’m not suggesting for a moment that we inviteour recent colonial overlords to return (I’m not a bigfan of their own shaky transport system), just that werent out a bunch who are capable of building up andrunning the place for a few years. We deserve better.And, when we’ve managed to improve theinfrastructure, then let’s built a centre of excellence forthe arts: the Barbican –in – the – bog. I’m easy on thelocation, because, with all that wonderfulinfrastructure in place, it will be easy to get there.

John Maher (also known as Jack Barry) is a novelistliving in Rathdowney, Co. Laois. He has won theFrancis McManus Short Story Award, the P.J.O’Connor Radio Play Award, with R.T.E. Radio, theArts Council of Ireland’s premier award, The LarCassidy Memorial Award for a novel-in-progress,along with other awards and fellowships.

JOHN MAHERBARBICAN-IN-

THE-BOG

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Apart from an invitation to participate inthe Athlone Literary Festival thisSeptember, my only awareness of aliterary existence occurring in theMidlands was perhaps some years agoin reading an account of James Joyce,who in the company of his father, thelatter in the course of updating theWestmeath electoral roles, visitedMullingar and had come with his son ona visit to this house Levington Park thenin the ownership of R. H. Levinge.Young Joyce in writing of it recalled thatthe front door was opened by a maidservant and that an extensive hall, led toa door to an orchard garden, its fouracres surrounded by a 12 foot highstone garden wall and where on aterrace alongside the house a man wasseen by Joyce reclining in a wicker chair.

However it seems that except for a bit ofjavelin and shot put throwing, and ahelicopter once or twice provided by athoughtful host landing on the frontlawn to take me sixty five miles away tolunch, not that much literary hashappened in the vicinity of LevingtonPark since. But back in the time ofEvelyn Waugh, who when he wasvisiting Lord Longford at Tullynally andfinding Westmeath agreeable, lookedout for a house for sale, in the course of

which in viewing Levington Park,seriously thought of buying it. And suchhouse with its two and a half foot thickwalls has now sturdily stood for acouple of hundred years.

And the house still stands, a not badlooking joint, overlooking the southernshore of Lough Owell half a mile away.And with its isolation intact remainshighly suitable for the agriculturallyminded author interested in advancingin the literary world with a carrot or twoavailable for sustenance. And certainly,this longevity, from the point of viewthat ignominy and rejection also remain

the twin situations authors thrive upon,can, when endured, best help an authorpursue his calling unhindered in hiswork. One must suppose then that thebest area to pursue authorship in, couldsimply be the same as that of sitting ona park bench, or another place found tosit down and to await how long it wouldbe before someone comes up to you tosay “Are you so and so? I’ve read yourbooks.” An encounter so unlikely butfairly certain to cheer up one’s soul. Andsurely beats being ignored and defeated.

The closest I’ve ever felt being in thatsituation was at one of the more dismaltimes of my life, finding myself in Texasnear the Mexican border. Or was itWyoming or Nebraska or some otherMidwestern Southern American state,and invited there by a College to give atalk. Such, on a request through one’spublisher, who in my case at the timewas a very gentlemanly SeymourLawrence operating out of Boston. Anda publisher immensely conscious of hisauthors’ comfort and wellbeing, so thatif an author were requested to hustle hisbooks and head out into the boondockswhere the soul seizes up under that vastindifferent empty sky of America’s West,one would be, by a young lady, assisted.For my part I never hesitated to obligethis publisher who was in return alwaysconsiderate of and obliging to hisauthors. Perhaps he knew the ropes.He had before becoming a publisher,himself once been a textbook salesmanout in the boondocks.

But I was not ready for the astonishingisolation and bereft remoteness of thisparticular University and where I was togive my talk. But dutifully I gave my allin my lecture and dutifully too camewhat seemed to be a respectablenumber of students. But I remained stilltroubled by my suspicion that suchstudents were probably coerced by theUniversity faculty in order to avoid the

J.P. DONLEAVY – REMINISCENCESON THE THEME OF MIDLANDS

photo by Bob Morrison


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Artists? Plato would haveexiled the lot of us from hisRepublic. And for much of

the last centuryRepublican Ireland madeuncoordinated lurches inthat same direction. But

things were on a cuspwhen I blew into Offaly inthe early 1970s. The Tiger

was not even a kittenand I still had to apply to

Big Brother to importcertain Victorian books, but

the trend was upward.Looking at it from this end

of the telescope, I thinktoday’s artists, in every

field, would be astonishedat how little official supportthe arts then received. The

flame was small yet howbright it burned!

The temptation must be to think thatstate and local funding accounts forthe difference between then and now,but I think it’s the other way about.The astonishing renaissance in all thearts has been largely at the inspirationof the practitioners themselves; publicfunding has generally followed wherethey led. Oh, let’s not be modest –where we led. But let’s not beungrateful, either. It would have beenso easy for those who held the publicpurse strings to try to dictate thedirections in which each of the artsshould evolve – the piper-and-tunesyndrome. To their credit, they havechosen, instead, to work inpartnership with us – in fact, to blurthat unhelpful distinction betweenthem and us.

I have no experience of how thispartnership has evolved in othercounties; I can only infer from what Isee (and hear, and read) that thesame is by and large true all overIreland. In practical ways, how does itshow? Thirty years ago, Offalianscould count on a handful of events ina year – Paul Durcan or BrendanKennealy in Tullamore, John O’Connorat Durrow Abbey, amateur paintingsocieties in several towns, often withwork of real quality. And now?

I haven’t actually checked this but Isuspect that, in Offaly alone, it wouldbe possible to visit a different artevent every day of the year withoutonce duplicating a visit. Nogovernment agency and no county-council arts office could have achievedthis with top-down directives. But noartist or group of artists could haveachieved it without help from thosetwo quarters, either. And I’m notthinking only of financial help,important though it is, but of theclose cooperation and, in the latestdecade, the often passionatecooperation of the Offaly arts office.It is never enough, of course, and itwill be even better a decade fromnow, but memories of how it oncewas can only help in that direction.

Malcolm Ross-Macdonald is awriter of some seventy novels andsix plays for radio. Her currentlylives in retirement in Birr and is the moderator of the OffalyWriters group.

embarrassment of such an occasionbeing non attended. And believe methis did happen to more than an authoror two. And once in fact to one whohappened to be, when he told the story,my sponsor, who when no one came tohis lecture, thought he’d go home buthis sponsor said he had to stay and givehis talk anyway to an empty room inorder to be paid.

Ah but I was nevertheless attended byan eager group clapping long and hard,and the next day attempting to hurrymy departure I went at dawn to thedining hall to have breakfast in yetanother absolutely lonely atmosphere. Itwere as if one were on a wastelandsurface of the moon or on some faraway undiscovered planet. Just onefootball player judging by his size andappetites and having his enormousbreakfast at another table.

And so when I had finished my ownbreakfast, I wearily got up anxious toreturn to the building I was staying in atthe college, and to pack up pronto andto, as further rapidly as I could,skedaddle as soon as soon and vanish asfar away as I possibly could in thedirection and cosmopolitan safety ofNew York City. But I was in such agloomy state, that all I could do as Iurged my feet forward, was to staredown at the ground in front of me. Andstopped. There furrowed in the cementwere words written, with a date of ayear or two ago, when the cement musthave been still wet enough to be writtenin,“All I want Is one breakWhich is Not my neck”

Such words taken from the end ofchapter Twenty Eight in a book I wrote,called “The Ginger Man”.

J.P. Donleavy is the author of elevennovels including The Ginger Man(1955); A Singular Man (1964); TheBeastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B.(1970); The Onion Eaters (1971); andThe Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms(1997). His autobiography, The Historyof the Ginger Man, appeared in 1994.Born in New York, he is now an Irishcitizen and lives in Levington Park,Westmeath.

Malcolm Ross-MacDonaldon how far we have come

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midlandsartsandcultureARTS NEWS

Good Hatchery News

Over the past month The Good Hatchery in Offaly has beeninhabited by three visiting artists partaking in the studiosofficial residency programme ‘Sapphire Highway’. Each artistwas asked to explore the surrounding town land and respondto the particularities of this terrain, leading to diverse andunexpected outcomes at the end of their stay.

Sinead Bhreathnach - Cashell was seen working on the banksof the Grand Canal, on a lay-by of the N6 motor way and inthe car park of the new Tescos extra in Tullamore. Her workcomprised of playful interventions in an effort to communicatewith specific audiences on their own terms.

Patrick Corcoran was drawn to the hidden histories and storiesof the area, explored local sites with the idea that buildings andspaces hold a sort of atmospheric residue from their former useand past experiences. The resulting sound and video workculminated in a poignant piece will seep slowly back into thelocal environment through his imaginative means ofdistribution.

Ronan Coughlan investigated the social nature of the localityby first offering his free help to the people that he casuallyencountered. By doing this he hoped to research, higlight andalter the sometimes insular nature of rural ireland. Over thecourse of the three weeks he advertised his free services thatranged from foundation building to turf cutting and childminding. The outcomes of this investigation were recorded andpublished in a small leaflet that he distributed throughoutDaingean town.

The main aims of the project were to create a meaningfuldialogue through very accessible art practice in a ruralenvironment. Each of these projects achieved this to a startlingdegree. The outcomes of all the projects will be documented ina catalogue to be launched at the end of the year along withon going documentation and recorded inverviews on thewebsite. www.thegoodhatchery.wordpress.com

EXHIBITIONSat Mullingar Arts Centre

Gerry Waldron is exhibiting at the Market House Galleryfrom Wednesday 22nd October until 15th November.

Gerry is a native of Mullingar and this retrospectiveexhibition is titled The Truth of the Matter and featuresculptures as well as paintings created from 2001 to 2008.

Gerry says: “one must have the energy to persevere butalso the instinct to recognise the vibrant moment of truthwhen the work is most alive.

The objective is to have the work confidently able tospeak for itself, saying “Here I am” not the artist saying”This is me”.

Market House Gallery are calling for submissions fromartists for a group show entitled The Midlands ArtistsExhibition due to open on 26th November until 13thDecember.

If anyone would like to submit for this exhibition theclosing date is 7th of November.

All Submissions for upcoming group show or for futureSolo Shows should be sent to Maeve Murray at theMarket House Gallery, Market Square, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. Tel no; 0862550967

‘Elodie’ 2008 by G Waldron

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ARTS NEWSmidlandsartsandculture

LAUNCH OF

JOE DOLANSCULPTUREIN THE MARKET SQUARE,

MULLINGAR TO TAKE PLACEON DECEMBER 7TH

Westmeath local authorities are pleasedto announce that the launch of a newpiece of public art, commissioned tocommemorate and celebrate the lifeand music of nationally andinternationally renowned singer andentertainer Joe Dolan will be launchedon Sunday, December 7th at 2pm.

A gala event commemorating andcelebrating Joe Dolan’s work and lifetime achievements will take place at2pm with a live performance from Joe’sband ‘The Drifters’ along with musicand entertainment from the MullingarTown Band. Joe’s brother Ben Dolan hasbeen invited to conduct the unveilingalongside Westmeath County Council’sChairman, Joe Whelan.

At the January 2008 County CouncilMeeting, the Members of MullingarTown Council agreed to the erection ofa Memorial in Mullingar to honour thememory of Joe Dolan. Since Joe’suntimely death in December last year,he has been acknowledged nationallyand internationally, for his wonderfulcontribution to the world of music andentertainment and his loss to the musicand sector is much lamented.

The commission was awarded to artistCarl Payne in association with GenesisFine arts. The Figure will be a life sized,realistic, three- dimensional image ofthe singer, constructed in bronze andwill be sited in the Market Square inMullingar Town Centre. The selection ofthe chosen art work was awarded in atwo staged limited competition processby the Joe Dolan CommemorationSculpture Committee.

The December 7th event will be awonderful opportunity for the town ofMullingar to recognise and celebrateJoe’s lifetime achievements, andeveryone is welcome to attend andparticipate in this gala commemorativeevent.

‘Are We There Yet?’An exhibition of contemporary paintings by Brendan Fox

Aras an Chontae Nov 20 to Dec 19

This exhibition examines evolving relationships with ‘faith’ and questions bothpersonal and collective beliefs.

“In my head there is a constant battle between the real and the abstract, mywork is the disjointed product of that. I place subjects in an uncertain abstractcontext, a form of limbo they must exist in. I am exploring the interrelationbetween one existence and total existence. What fascinates me is therelationship between belief and doubt. I’m just asking questions.” Brendan Fox

Westmeath County Council is pleased to announce that applications are nowbeing received for its annual Graduate & Emerging Artist Awards- Exhibitionand Mentoring programme.

This award is aimed at recognizing and supporting the development ofcommitted emerging artists in kick starting their career and achievingprofessional recognition. The awards aims to promote greater opportunitiesavailable to graduates and emerging artists in the county and the competitionprovides an opportunity for artists to take the next step in their professionalcareer. A mentoring strand was added to the scheme to help the artist to identifyand build on their artistic strengths and to recommend and advise on the mostsuitable art business practice. A professional curator will be appointed to workwith visual artists to curate a final showcase of work providing the artists withtraining in the curatorial process and best practise in visual arts display andexhibition.

The Application should contain:1. Current Biography or CV 2. Artist’s Statement 3. 7 – 10 high quality images of work 4. Image list with titles, medium and dimensions clearly labelled.

Please forward application to The Arts Office, Westmeath County Council, Library Headquarters, Dublin Road, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath or email [email protected]. The deadline for receipt of submissions is 5.00pm on 7th January 2009.

Graduate Artists Awards in Westmeath

The Annunciation


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COMMONGROUNDexhibitionin Birr Theatre

and Arts Centre

Common Ground is a groupexhibition curated byClaudia Woolgar of theSource Arts Centre inThurles on show in BirrTheatre and Arts Centreuntil the end of the year.

Emma Nee Haslam, VenueManager at Birr Theatre &Arts Centre said “we weretaken aback by the number ofartists who submitted”. Thecriteria for submission wassimple – submit two pieces(ready to hang) and all workto be paintings (all media) orcollages. “The two days ofsubmissions, which was a firstfor us in this format, created areal buzz among staff andcertainly a method of submis-sion that we would considerin the future

Common Ground – referringto a group of artists comingtogether to exhibit. Exhibiting Artists are: AileenKavanagh, TatianaBondareva, Jerry Cahir,Mairead Dunne, AimeeGillen, John Gillen, KathleenGormley, Hazel Green,Rowena Keaveny, RosemaireLangtry, Caroline Loughnane,Jackie Lynch, JacquelineMcAndrew, CaitrionaMeagher, Jock Nichol,Kathleen O’Connor, JudyPearson, Alison Rosse, AnnaWiniarska. The Exhibitionwill run, Suas an Staighre untilthe end of December.

PLATFORM artists talks

The second “An Chroi” weekend artsfestival took place on September 13th inKilbeggan in Co. Westmeath. The visualarts events were co coordinated by artistCeline Sheridan who wanted to provide aplatform for artists to discuss their artpractice, their careers, their inspirationsand their artwork.

PLATFORM Artist Talks involved five artistsincluding Geraldine O Reilly, Ann MeldonHugh, Paul Timoney and Jurgita Stuckaiteand Celine Sheridan.Geraldine O Reilly, a native of Killucandiscussed her career from a FulbrightScholarship to America in 1979 to researchIrish emigration to currently preparing anexhibition of prints at the Irish CulturalCentre in Paris in September 2009.Sculptor Ann Meldon Hugh gave theaudience a slide show of her work includingher recent commission ‘Grainne Og’ which

can be seen on the new M6 Motorway nearMoate. Lithuanian painter Jurgita Stuckaitegave the audience a taste of her life livingand working as a non-national artist. Mullingar based artist Paul Timoney sang tothe crowd, using objects ‘pretending’ to bea microphone and a banjo, and then like thePied Piper led them out the door, down thecorridor and into the exhibition space wherehe had installed his artworks entitled‘Things Pretending To Be Other Things’. In June of this year this work was exhibitedat Commonplace Amateur Projects inDublin and will continue to tour thecountry. Paul co-ordinates a residencyprogramme in The Franciscan Friary inMultyfarnham as well as having his ownstudio there. Celine Sheridan gave an overview of herown current work practice and her coursework in IDAT, MaVis.

Artist Geraldine O Reilly discusses her work with Platform Audience

Bwlow: Poet John Sexton with Schoolchildren fromScoil na Maighdine Mhuire during Westmeath Children’s Book Festival


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“Works from the Basement”Seamus Morton

“A primitive painter who paints abstracts”is how Rathdowney-based artist Seamus Morton describes himself.

Every painting or drawing is not acomplete success,” he says, but admitsthat “in a way” he does push himself toget it right the next time. Morton worksmostly in his basement studio at ErkinaHouse and says he appreciates howlucky he is to have a warm, bright andextremely well kitted space. Twopaintings of the old shed he used topaint in feature in the County Hallexhibition.

Paddy Cleary, Clinical Nurse Manager atErkina House says it wasn’t always easyfor Seamus to access the arts, “but sinceMuireann [Ní Chonaill, Laois CountyArts Officer] came on board, it’s beenprogress, progress, progress. In apositive environment and with positivesupport, you can produce anything.”Morton’s first exhibition was held inCounty Hall and was funded by the ArtsOffice and other agencies and Clearybelieves that Seamus is lucky to havefound in Muireann someone whounderstands him so well.

Cleary compliments local artist RayMurphy who has been “exceptionallygood to Seamus. He’s a very regularvisitor, they go for coffee, go to galleriesand Seamus is always stimulated towork afterwards.” Morton himself is

appreciative of the work Ray has donewith him and his guidance and advice.Over their five year friendship, Mortonsays that his technique probably hasn’tchanged but his use of colour has.

Ray Murphy believes that Morton is“very intelligent and can converse aboutany artist under the sun” but he isreluctant to ascribe to him a particularstyle or influence. His main strength ishis spontaneity, and even Mortonhimself says it takes from 20 minutes to2 hours to complete a work oftenworking on more than one at a time.

Morton remembers years when didn’tdo any work at all, “dry periods whenthere were no materials” and he had toinvent. Paddy Cleary tells of thatinventiveness, in how Seamus madefriends with a local bread man who gavehim boards to paint on.

While oil and canvas are his preferredmaterials, he likes using hardboardbecause it’s handier and cheaper butwas advised not to. He doesn’t painteveryday but does visit the studio everyday,” afraid of doing too much work.”Instead he looks through books andrevises. Seamus Morton tells the story ofan attendant at the National Gallerywho warned him “don’t be a painter.They don’t eat well.” In ignoring thatadvice, he has shown himself to be asothers describe him “his own man.”

A resident at Erkina House, Morton isdelighted with the success of his thirdexhibition featuring a collection of 28paintings at County Hall in Portlaoise.The 53 year old sees the event as a greatopportunity and is more than pleasedwith the positive feedback his workshave garnered. “People have respondedwell to them,” he says. 28 paintings are“not a lot” he thinks, considering thethousands of works he has both instorage and in his brightly-lit studio.

Seamus, who has lived withschizophrenia for a number of years wasborn in Dublin but spent his childhood inMountmellick. It was in secondary schoolthat he fell in love with art anddiscovered it as a way of communicatingwith the world. He has high praise for thelate Ivor Holohan, the schoolteacher whotaught him the basics of techniques andinspired him to paint.

In those days he painted mostly portraitsand that’s a love which has remainedwith him through the years. “I paintlandscapes, housescapes andmountainscapes – but not as much asportraits.”

Artists who inspire him includeGiacometti, le Broquy and Gerard Dillon. “In the history of art, the most paintedsubject was the human anatomy” and hesees himself continuing in that tradition.Is he proud of his work?”

by Claire O’Brien

Painting by Seamus MortonPhoto: Andy Mason

Artist SeamusMortonPhoto: Andy Mason


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Lights CameraAction Offaly Offaly has been the location for a number of awardwinning film productions over the past 3 years,Becoming Jane, Eden and Garage as well as TVdramas such as Hide and Seek and Pure Mule andhome to production companies Good Company,Mixed Bag Media and Hello Camera.

Sensing this growth Offaly County Council launchedFilmOffaly a film commission with a two strand approach, to stand up and promote the natural resource of the countyin terms of its locations and expertise in the film business andto support and promote local filmmakers. FilmOffaly’s firstouting was to sponsor the much talked about 72hour FilmWatching and Waiting at the Galway Film Fleadh impressingupon the film industry that this Commission was going to putits money where its mouth is and not just fly a flag for thefaithful county.

FilmOffaly was officially launched by David Collins ofSamson Films with guest speaker’s Mags O’Sullivan DeputyCommissioner with the Irish Film Board. For more information see www.filmoffaly.ie

Dublin Mid-Leinster

PERCENT FOR ART SCHEMECLONBRUSK DISABILITY

RESOURCE PROJECT

The H.S.E Dublin Mid-Leinster invites submissions fromprofessional artists for an Internal public art work in anewly constructed Disability Resource Centre atClonbrusk, Athlone, Co. Westmeath.

This New Centre will provide much needed physicalspace for various services for adults and children with adisability e.g. National Council for the Blind, IrishWheelchair Association, Multiple Sclerosis Society ofIreland.

The Centre will also include a Community Crèchewhich is being funded by Pobail.

The budget for the artwork is €33,000.

This commission will be awarded by openCompetition with a two-stage selection process.

FOR STAGE ONE ARTISTS ARE REQUIREDTO SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING:

A CURRENT CV Examples of work in photographs,

slides or catalogue.

A TYPED PROPOSALoutlining details of the proposed art work, including an estimated breakdown of costs.

A4 SAEif you require any materials to be returned.

Applications should arrive no later thanFriday 12th December, 2008 at 12 noon.

FULL DETAILS AND BRIEF ARE AVAILABLE FROM:

Cathy Keenan, HSE Dublin Mid-Leinster,

Technical Services Department,Arden Road, Tullamore, Co. Offaly.

Phone: (057) 9359954; Email [email protected]

Members of the Offaly Film Commission back l-r Vivienne Clarke, Cllr. Sinead Moylan-Ryan, Cllr. Marcella Corcoran-Kennedy,

Sinéad O’Reilly Arts Officer. Front l-r Gary Hoctor Hello Camera, EvanChamberlain, Good Company Productions and Cllr, Fergus McDonnell

Offaly to Hungaryon a film quest At the time of going to press, Offaly filmmaker GaryHoctor was setting out to attend the 4th Moveast FilmFestival in Pecs, Hungary. The festival took place fromthe 7th to the 14th of October. As a representative ofAccess Cinema - the national organisation for film clubs- Gary sat on the International Film Club jury. Alongwith two other jurors - one from Hungary and theother from Estonia - he assessed all films in competitionand jointly awarded the Don Quixote award.

The festival is designed specifically for films from EastEuropean countries. “It’s a great opportunity to seefilms that normally aren’t shown here in Ireland” saidGary “and hopefully we can attract some of those filmsto Ireland to be shown on the film club circuit”. Gary’sfull report on his time at the festival and a synopsis ofthe best films can be accessed at www.hellocamera.ie

New FILM Clubin Athlone The Dean Crowe Theatre has just launched its newfilm club, screening its first film on Tuesday 9thSeptember 2008 and then on a fortnightly basis forthe first season to December 2008. The AthloneFILM Club has linked up with Access Cinema whichis the resource organisation for regional culturalcinema exhibition in Ireland.

The club of course cannot operate without members and to datealmost 150 members have signed up. Most importantly, it isplanned that club members will be involved in the selection offilms going forward.

Athlone Film Club will also reach out to wider audiences inAthlone, including young children and schools. It is expectedthat films on the secondary school curriculum will also bescreened.

Secondary schools wishing to become members should contactthe club through our new email address;[email protected]


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It was a circuitous route that took Kellsnative Arthur Lappin from aninauspicious start as a student at RoyalCollege of Surgeons via the Bank ofIreland (to keep his parents happy) andthe Arts Council to a successful careeras a film producer of internationalrepute.

His name rolls among the credits withdirector Jim Sheridan for My Left Foot,In America, In the Name of the Fatherand more recently Get Rich or Die Tryin’with 50 Cent. Eight years working inthe bank and playing and directing withamateur drama groups meant he wasthe ideal candidate for the DramaOfficer’s with the Arts Council at a timewhen drama commanded 70% of thetotal arts budget.

By the time he caught up again with oldfriend Jim Sheridan he had left the ArtsCouncil, set up a theatre company andwas involved in film – one of the few inIreland to have taken that leap of faith. It was natural then that Noel Pearsonwould ask him to write a draft of MyLeft Foot with Shane Connaughton.

He had done small budget feature filmsand an anthology drama series forChannel Four called When ReasonSleeps. This experience came in usefulwhen Pearson asked him to line-produce My Left Foot. Noel had neverproduced, Jim had never directed and amatch was made.

He has great praise and admiration forJim Sheridan, describing him as havingan “extraordinary rapport” with actorsand therefore having no problem evergetting the cast he wants. Sheridandisplays an “extraordinary ability toallow them to maximise their investmentin film. Actors being asked to dosomething different are terrified offalling - in a trapeze sense but he’s asafety net. He won’t let you fall.”Everyone would want to work with himagain tomorrow.

With Sheridan he has worked on threefilms featuring Daniel Day Lewis and

apart from the most recent Get Rich orDie Tryin’, all have Irish themes.

He says it’s probably true that there is anotion abroad that Irish have betterstories or are better storytellers and thatmost years there is at least one strongIrish film. However he doesn’t believethat when it comes to film Ireland has awealth of talent. “We really don’t. Thereare a few good writers a few gooddirectors but very few who have madeany international impact. Very few Irishdirectors make it in North America.” AndNorth America is where the funding is.

He has no explanation for why the Irishcan produce great literature but thatcreativity doesn’t translate into film. Buthis comparison between more literaryfilm directors and Jim Sheridan hints thatthe success of the film is not in theliterature but in the story. “Jim lovestalking but hates writing. He loves to sella story to a group of people overdinner.” When listeners lose interest heknows there’s a moment where thestory must be rework.

Perhaps successful film-making is closerto an oral tradition as it is for JimSheridan, than to a literary heritage.Lappin should know. As a producer henot only works on set but spends aconsiderable amount of time sourcingand developing ideas. He receives six toeight unsolicited film scripts a week.One in ten might make it to thedevelopment stage, one in thirty mightmake it to production.

But his odds are shorter than most.Unlike many production companies whobuy up stories and articles with anypotential, he is a little more choosyabout what he takes on. On the otherhand, like all producers, he is always onthe look-out for the next big thing. He talks about beats and heartbeats.

Many writers who submit scripts havedone courses and in technical terms,

know the beats of a story, where thelulls and highs are. “They know aboutplot point 1 and about hitting thevarious beats.” They know thestructures of a good script and are rightin the sense that scripts that conform tothose certain structures like the classic 3-Act tend to be better films.

However he has very little interest in this“academic perspective” and says hewould “prefer to read deeply flawed butwhich has something at the heart thatspeaks truth and doesn’t feel contrived”rather than a script that succeeds inhitting the beats but has no heartbeat.

He admits that it’s “very difficult, almosta fluke” to strike a balance betweenmeeting the needs of the market andcoming with something authentic andreal. People don’t realise how carefullystructured and nurtured high conceptTV shows are, for example.

Because the tax breaks for TV are betterin Ireland than for film, more TVprogramming is being made here thanfilm. Lappin hopes to see that change inthe budget to undo the competitivedisadvantage Ireland faces compared toBritain where film tax breaks are farbetter.

“For what the exchequer foregoes – andbearing in mind what’s received, I don’tthink the government is at a net loss.”Apart from the financial implications film“has brought prestige. It has saidsomething about Ireland as a culturedcountry.” He points in particular to whathe says is perceived as the “mature way

Arthur Lappin – a profile by Claire O’Brien

ARTS NEWS

21

midlandsartsandculture

and very universal way” of dealing withour relationship with Britain. Film hasdone an enormous amount of good foresteem of country and for tourism.” Hequotes Fáilte Ireland who say thatconsistently, film is among three topreasons for people coming to Ireland.”

As a producer he is particularly pleasedwith the work that his productioncompany Hell’s Kitchen (which he ownswith Jim Sheridan) was responsible forseeing five Irish directors make their firstfilms. These films include John Kearney’sOn the Edge with Cillian Murphy andTerry George’s Some Mother’s Son withHelen Mirren.

Here and now, he’s choosy too aboutthe projects he will take on in the futureand in order to take him from Durrowand his four school-going children thatproject would have to be “prettyspecial.”

He would love to do another theatreshow but he says it would be “insanebecause theatre is so difficult moneywise.” His proudest moment hasnothing to do with film but is theproduction of Arthur Matthews play ExitEntrance at the Peacock theatre.

He’s surprised to hear that he’s is farmore animated when talking abouttheatre than film.

Theatre seems to inspire an energy anddynamism which, while not lacking inhis discussion of film, is notably lessevident.

Recently has lent his support to a co-operative film initiative facilitated byDunamaise Arts Centre and Laois ArtsOffice and says he did get that frisson ofenergy that something good could comeof it. However he insists that “the ball isvery much in their court. Nothing willcome of it otherwise.”

Lappin says he knows a couple of peoplein the county who are interested in filmbut warns that it’s incredibly hard. Forthose whose interest extends to thebright lights beyond community arts,getting like-minded people together isnot enough, it’s excellence that counts.

As part of the National Children’s Book Festival celebrations, Westmeath CountyLibrary & Arts Office have joined together to bring the best of local, nationaland international talent to young people in Westmeath. Younger children inMullingar and Castlepollard will get the change to meet Steve Weatherill, theacclaimed author and illustrator of the Babygoz books. While Pat Ryan returnsto challenge children in Athlone and Kilbeggan with riddles, rhymes and stories.Author and Storyteller Chris Thompson will be entertaining children inBallynacarrigy Schools.

Westmeath County Library & Arts Office also offers young people theopportunity to engage with the arts and literature through a variety ofworkshops for a range of ages. Local artists Maggie Dolan, Sheila Fleming, Anja Sammon and Paul Timoney will facilitate workshops throughout the county.Poet Marty Mulligan will be working with 4th & 5th classes in Mullingar Libraryto take the fear out of poetry. Fiona MacGinty will be providing film makingworkshops in Athlone Library and Moate Community School as part of the Co-motion Film Festival outreach Programme.

In addition, Athlone Library will play host to the Midland Health Board PuppetShow retelling the story of the Children of Lir and Mullingar Library will berunning a series of ‘Toddler land story times’, encouraging parents and babies torecognise that it’s never too early to start reading. Other Children’s activities willtake place in Belvedere House during the week of Halloween, including a FancyDress, Trick or Treat Trail on 26th and 27th Oct. For full details of events, pleasevisit www.westmeathcoco.ie and www.belvedere-house.ie

Art and Literary Activities duringChildren’s Book Festival 2008

MAKE THAT CARD

- An Post C Both SidesThe year is closing in onsubmissions to An Post CBoth Sides. Artists TeresaDoyle and Edel O’ ReillyFlynn have had a veryinteresting year negotiatingthe route of the project .Their most recent eventwas celebrating CulturalNight on September 19th inthe GPO allowing thepublic to make their ownpostcards.

The artists have been up and down the country throughout the year encouragingpeople to take part from working with people in St. Vincent’s HospitalMountmellick to The Midland Health Network consisting of Traveller Womenfrom the Midlands to Limerick prison where they spent two days working withartist Paula Rafferty and her group. Most of the journey has been documentedthrough film by Ursula Meehan.

This is the final call to take part ,make that card and let your voice be heard. This project is sponsored by An Post and Westmeath County Council. For more information see www.anpostcbothsides.ie or contact Teresa 087 6421148 or Arts Office Westmeath County Council 0449340781


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Poet Marty Mulligan’s role in the Picniccame about when he was approachedby Naoise Nunn - producer ofLeviathan Political Cabaret in 2006 -with a view to including Slam Poetry asan hour long spoken word show in theLeviathan tent to fit in with the politicaldebate show featuring DavidMcWilliams. The show was a hugesuccess, and in 2007 he was offered hisown stage, Leviathan 2 “The “Word”in what was to be a speciallydesignated Spoken Word area. He wasthen approached by Vendetta TheatreCompany in Galway who proposed toput on a play they had in production“The complete works of Shakespeareabridged”. The mixture of spoken wordand theatre seemed to capture theimagination of the audiences whichdidn’t go unnoticed by the organisers,and immediately afterwards he wasoffered two stages to programme forthe 2008 festival, one for spoken wordand a separate stage solely for theatre. Putting out a call to the “slam”community he was inundated withrequests from performers from all overthe country who wanted to perform.

While at the Glastonbury festival lastyear he also came across some of thetop names in the world of performancepoetry who were more than willing tocome and take part in the ‘The Word’Stage Electric Picnic 08.

Marty’s own career as a spoken wordartist was also beginning to take off

and he was performing at variousvenues across the country, it wasduring a show in Roisin Dubh inGalway that he did an impromptu gigwith Mullingar band Waiting toExplode, The seed was sown, andMarty Mulligan v Waiting to Explodewere to be the headline act at thisyears “The Word “stage. It was whilehe was back in Mullingar working withthe band he heard great reports of RailTheatre’s production of One flew overthe cuckoo’s nest.

When he first mooted the idea to thePicnic producers of having a full scaleproduction on the theatre stage with17 cast members and a crew of 10, theinitial thinking was that it might be abit too ambitious, as most of the otherplays were mainly smaller productions,but he knew Rail Theatre could pull itoff, and the show went on, ‘’It wasspecial moment for me when I saw thecast receive a standing ovation on theSaturday night at La Scala stage.’’

So the Mullingar arts scene was wellrepresented at this years Picnic,headlining two stages. For Martypersonally ‘’it was one of the mostexhilarating and exhausting weekendsof my so far eventful life’’ as he says‘’roll on “The Electric Picnic 2009”

Marty Mulligan [email protected]

MARTY MULLIGAN

at The Electric Picnic

Another summer in Ireland draws to a close with what has to be thehighlight of the festival calendar namely The Electric Picnic in thebeautiful grounds of Stradbally Hall. 33,000 revellers gathered to enjoyall that the Picnic has to offer; from the top class international rockacts on the main stage and various other stages dotted about thispurpose built town in the middle of the Laois countryside. But thepicnic is not just about the music, this years “Spoken Word” area wasgreatly extended and was in itself a festival within a festival.

One flew over the cuckoos nest at La Scala theatre stage

The Word Stage Electric Picnic 08

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St. Anthony’sTongue

“Saint Anthony. Everything rotted,nothing lived of him but histongue. Isn’t that amazing! It’s all done up now andon show somewhere!”

(Mary Ellen Loonam)

Broadcaster and renowned storycollector Nuala Hayes spent a numberof months recently in Birr CommunityNursing Unit collecting stories andmemories from the residents and daycare clients. The project and resultingbook was funded under the per cent forart scheme.

“The process taught me that most elderly peoplehave the wisdom to live totally in the present, andwhat happened the previous day is often of littlerelevance. They might be in great form one dayand not the next, so I recorded on the run as itwere. What they had to tell me came very quicklyor not at all.

Brian Friel wrote in his introduction to The Last ofthe Name, which chronicles the memories of theDonegal weaver and tailor Charles McGlinchy,that older people who have an intuitive sense ofthemselves and whose span is running out areeager to talk about their life and times. So, too,the people I met, who now have the leisure to talkand reflect, seemed genuinely happy to do so. Itwas a privilege to listen to men and women in the21st century whose lifetime’s experience spans theprevious one.

And the stories from the Midlands of Ireland areoften not so clearly heard as those from the coast.Maybe they don’t demand so loudly to be heard.It was clear that their personal life stories werewhat they wanted to share and, of course, I wentalong with that. For each person’s story is uniqueand the desire to tell as they choose is everybody’sright.

The result is the book, St. Anthony’s Tongue,which includes John Minahan’s very personalportraits of those who took part, and a CD ofsome of the recordings, mixed by Peter Kelly inPenny Lane Studio in Tullamore. It is dedicated toall those who participated.”

Nuala Hayes

Midland Master Classes The Arts Offices of Laois, Offaly Westmeath and Longford receivedfunding from the Arts Council this year to organise a series of masterclasses for professional artists across the Midlands. The master classeswere developed as a result of survey carried out of the professionalneeds of visual artists, musicians, writers and performers.

At the time of press the following events have been confirmed, placesare limited on most workshops and a small fee is applicable. Pleasecontact your local arts office for further details.

20 Nov 8pm to 10pm ~ Boglane Theate Ballymahon “HOW TO GET PUBLISHED” with Ciara Considine (Hodder Headline), Peter Fallon (Gallery Press), and Faith O’Grady (Lisa Richards Agency).This seminar will offer practical advice on how to go about gettingyour work published and the role of the literary agent.

Nov 21 10am to 5pm ~ Athlone Community Training Centre SOUND WORKS AN INTRODUCTION TO USING SOUND IN ART David Stalling is a German composer, sound artist and videographerbased in Dublin one-day workshop is an introduction to working withsound in various art contexts

22 Nov 10am 4pm ~ Templemicheal, Longford PRACTICAL PAINTING WITH KEVIN FLOODDrawing and painting in a realistic manner using traditional techniques

27 Nov 4pm to 7pm ~ Birr TheatreARTIST LED INITIATIVES, a discussion on artists creating their ownfutures with Jacinta Lynch Broadstone Studios and Carl Giffneyand Ruth Lyons from the Good Hatchery

28 Nov. 11am to 4pm ~ Movement Skills for Performancewith LEGITIMATE BODIES DANCE COMPANYA practical workshop on improving your presence in a performance,aimed at actors, street theatre performers, musicians and singers.

29 Nov 10am to 4pm ~ Belmont MillPRACTICAL PAINTING - abstract techniques with Rita Wobbe apresentation on the concepts of abstract painting followed by apractical workshop.

3 Dec 10am to 5pm ~ Tuar Ard MoateCOLLABORATIVE ARTS Community, Authorship and PracticeChaired by visual artist and curator Michelle Browne, with artistsMichael Fortune (film maker and visual artist), Deirdre O' Mahony(visual artist), Martina Coyle (visual artist) Mary O’Sullivan (CorkTraveller Womens Network ) and Feidlim Cannon, Co Founder,Brokentalkers. The panel discussion will question and explore ideas ofcommunity participation and issues in relation to shared authorship.The relationships between artists and the communities they work withprovides the context for an art practice that of necessity entailsreflection and negotiation. The panel will bring their experience andprocesses of working in this way to the day. They will also unpackwhat we might really mean when we use contested terms like ‘community’ and ’authorship’.

5 Dec 10am to 2pm ~ Dunamaise TheatreARTISTS WORKSHOP with Sarah Searson and Claire NideckerA workshop on writing artists statements and visual representation ofyour work when approaching galleries, selection panels curators etc


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Writing is not for the faint hearted. Itdemands commitment, dedication, a quickeye and astute sensibility. During my timeas Writer in Residence for Laois CountyCouncil I had the good fortune to readsome fantastic work from up and comingnew writers. Take for example this fine,tense piece of writing by NaoimhO’Connor. Naoimh is currentlycompleting a Masters in Creative Writingin Dublin and has developed a clear,uncluttered style, full of carefulobservation and deftly delivered poignantemotion. She has written a wonderfulshort story called Porcelain Children abouta rural bus driver called Joe. Here is a shortextract:

Joe would wonder many times after thatnight what exactly made him turn aroundat the front door and go back out to checkon the bus again. He had parked it onlymoments before but he was enveloped bythe sense of having forgotton somethingimportant. He might be changing, hethought, the way men do when they starthearing another voice in their own head.

He had the feeling of November in hisbones, even though the boughs were stillboasting summer’s leftovers. An earlyhumid cold had crept in, the kind hisfather used to say would chill the heiferfrom the inside if she was left out. Didthings to the mind, that breed of cold. Hepulled a tawny hat with woollen ear-flapsover his bare head and chewed his tongueas the passenger door began to slide open.

Navy clouds delayed the full close ofnight-time but there was no rush on himand his steel-toed boot stubbed a looseclump of tarmacadem. He kicked at it,watched it bounce under the wheel. Thedoor of the bus opened and he hesitated.He questioned himself, even as he walkedalong the aisle, readjusting arm-rests,fixing seat-covers. He didn’t know whathe was looking for but he wanted rid ofthe restlessness.

And so, when he found her hiddensomewhere three or four rows from theback-seat, all soft and warm, half-concealed under a mound of colouredblanket, he forgot to be surprised. She wasnested in a squeaking plastic rocking chairand he knew it was best to take her inside.

Another writer worth noting is SiobainBroomfield who lives in the Slieve Bloomsand is currently doing a BA with the OpenUniversity. Siobain has written a short

story calledLavender Weddingabout an obsessivebride to be.Considering thesubject matter thestory could havefallen into clichéand sentiment inthe hands of a lesscapable writer.Again here is a shortextract:

Hazel McAfee sat on the floor in themiddle of the sitting room. It felt like theceiling had come down on her head. Shewas vaguely aware of the pieces of brokenchina scattered across the parquet floorand the wine stains on her mother’sfavourite Chinese rug. Was Seamus reallygone? Why had he gone? Could any of ithave been her fault?

It seemed like centuries ago that she hadbeen hoping against hope that Seamuswould propose to her. The feelings of pentup excitement, anticipation, impatience,flooded back in waves of emotion. Sheremembered how she couldn’t wait to say,‘Yes, Yes, Yes!’ She remembered howSeamus had wanted them to get marriedimmediately. She remembered persuadinghim that she would need time to planthings.

Seamus Brennan was tall and lanky withdeep set greeny-grey eyes and a quirkysense of humour. He had known Hazelsince they both went to the little countryschool on the outskirts of Mountmellick.She was the first girl he had kissed, that’snot counting Mary Kelly who charged fiftypence per kiss around the back of the bikesheds. After school they would oftenramble down by the river. Hazel wasn’tlike other girls; she didn’t mind gettingwet and muddy, and she was such greatfun to be with. After he had done hisLeaving Cert, Seamus went off toUniversity in Sheffield. There, he did goout with other girls but none of themseemed to share his dreams the way Hazeldid.

They used to spend hours planning the greatadventures they would have travelling theworld. He was going to be a foreigncorrespondent and she would come withhim on all his assignments; from the Africansavannah to the mountains of Peru. He knewhe was on his way to realising his dreamswhen he landed a job as a junior reporter for

the Dublin Evening Herald. He couldn’t waitto see Hazel again and, when they did meet,it was as if he had never left her. Within acouple of months they were engaged.

The skills for writing a short story arecompletely different to the skills that arerequired to be a poet. Poetry is all aboutaccuracy, about setting up the rightatmosphere and right emotion with as fewwords as possible. The advantage towriting fiction is that you can expand yourtext to whatever length you need to paintthe exact picture you want. The skill ofbeing a good poet is that you contractyour text to the point where it is sharp andsonorous. The wonderful thing about thefollowing poets is how clear anduncomplicated their styles are. Take forexample the work of Paula Byrne whowrote this poem to Sylvia Plath.

TToo SSyyllvviiaa PPllaatthh

If you had justPut the babies in their cotand walked out the doorAcross the ditchAnd through the stubble fieldGolden in September sunAnd up the mountain far awayTill you came to the seaAnd sat

On the pebble shoreTill the sea breezes blew and blewThe tautness from your mindAnd left

It clearer,

Then would you

Have come backThrough the long distanceAnd taken them

Back out of their cotAnd made their tea?

LAOIS WRITERS By Caroline Barry

“Gold” new LaoisAnthology or writing


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The following poem by Jane Meallyis about loss.

NNeeaarr tthhee RRiivveerr

A story somewhere gathersin water gushing over stones

I see sunlight grow on a seat

you are not therewhere I knew you

your smile carries nowthrough still trees in beautiful silence

And finally from PJ Tynan

LLaanngguuaaggee ooff FFlloowweerrss..((ffoorr JJaacckk OO’’CCoonnnneellll))

Badgered by propaganda, they went to fight for freedom;the tenuous freedom of small nations.Leaving a quiet country which erupted into a land of heroes.

Sucked in the ooze of the Somme,as the Easter lilyflowered through pavements.Futile valour in this foreign mud,when hot red blood spills on Irish granite.

Given not credit nor honour,their loss of limban object of derision,while the plumed smoke of destructed Dublin is decked in laurels.

How wear the red Flanders poppywhen the lily white lilysummarises all that’s good,and pure,and holy.

There are two quotes about writing by writers that Ilike to use. One is by Walter Wellesley ‘Red’ Smith.Smith says, There’s nothing to writing. All you dois sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

The other is by Anais Nin, The role of a writer is notto say what we all can say, but what we are unableto say. I think that says it all.

“TOUCHING DISTANCE OFWHERE WE WANT TO BE”

Legitimate Bodies Dance Company, the newestdance company in Ireland recently premiered its firstfull-length professional production ‘Touching Distance’in Birr Theatre and Arts Centre before touring to Cork’sFirkin Crane as well as rural venues in the West.

‘Touching Distance’ is an exhilarating and accessible piece for threewomen reflecting their busy existence as they embrace theridiculousness of modern life with a touching ability to laugh atthemselves. With this piece, Legitimate Bodies hope to clearly placeartistic endeavour at the very centre of the company’s remit and atthe same time welcome people through the door of the theatre.

The ethos of promoting dance as a valid and up-to-date art form isalso emphasised in the extensive educational and outreach work of thecompany at Birr Theatre and Arts Centre and more recently at theDunamaise Arts Centre in Portlaoise with a full programme of danceclasses for all ages.

In line with their strategy of collaboration and expansion around theMidland, both Nick and Cristina would love to hear from other partiesinterested in developing short or long term dance projects.

Legitimate Bodies continue to balancequality artistic endeavourwith dance class provisionon the ground. The hitsuccess ‘Hanging In There’the commentary onNorthern Ireland politicianswith Nick Bryson andDamian Punch will shortlyshow in Brussels andLiverpool and going furtherafield, ‘Touching Distancewill travel to Mexico in 2009

[email protected]


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At the recent A.I.M.S. (association of Irish musical societiesAwards) at the ‘Gleneagle’ in Killarney almost twentymembers of Clara Musical Society were in attendance amongthe large audience representing 140 societies from all overIreland.

Clara Musical Society was nominated in two categories fortheir production Singing in the Rain; Louise Mc Evoy wasnominated in the ‘Best Comedienne’ for her portrayal of ‘LianaLamont’ and Damien Cornally for ‘Best stage management’

Louise McEvoy faced competition from Claregalway andWaterford but collected the winning ‘Ballywillan CasewayTrophy’ from MC Simon Delaney. Damien Cornally was after adouble (having won the ‘Margaret Doherty Trophy ‘in 2005with Clara for ‘Annie) and faced competition from Dundalkand Enniscorthy. The Clara table braced itself again as thewinner was announced; the double was in the bag! The partycontinued in Clara when the cast and crew of ‘Singin in theRain’ returned to toast their success. Watch out for more fromthe award winning Clara Musical Society on www.clarams.com

Clara Musical make it 2 for 2 in Kerry!

Events at Hilltown Studio TheatreSince its inception in 2005 Hilltown HouseStudio Theatre stands out in its achievement andreputation as a unique arena in the midlands fordynamic and exciting opportunities for people toengage with the arts. It has a strong composer-orientated aspect that focuses on the work ofkey composers and performers. This year’s NewMusic festival ‘Experiment 20’, with the supportof Westmeath County Council, presented a daylong event of inspiring contemporary new musicand performances which took place in fiveseparate performance spaces on the grounds ofthe 18th century house.

The festival comprised of new work for flute andtape by established Irish composer, GrainneMulvey, premiered at the festival by GrainneMulvey and flautist Joe O’Farrell. Henry Vega, aNew York composer specializing in electroacoustic music for voice and computer,collaborated with renowned violinist BarbaraLuneburg from Germany. ‘The rite of Seduction’2006 for flute and prerecorded sounds was

presented by Romanian composer Diana Rotaruand Ana Chifu, flautist. Artists Anthony Kelly andDavid Stalling created a memorable new site-specific audiovisual installation ‘Refugium’ in theruins of Nugent Castle, employing their sharedpractice of recycling found sonic and visualmaterial. Building on the success of this year’sNew Music festival a more ambitious two dayfestival with a line-up of national andinternational artists is planned for 2009 atHilltown Studio Theatre with provisional datesfor the 18th and 19th July.

Hilltown Studio Theatre’s Autumn Programme“Sculpture in the Walled Garden”, now in itssecond year features the work of one of the newgeneration of Romanian artists Virgil Scripcariu.

Virgil completed a three week residency atHilltown, after participating at this year’s VeniceArchitectural Biennale, His work “Compositionwith a Serpent” was unveiled on Sunday, 26thOctober. Photos by Mihai Cucu.


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New Managerat Tuar ArdArts Centre

Martina Hurson has recently takenup residence as the new Manager ofTuar Ard having previously workedin Arts Administration inMonaghan. Martina is keen to keepTuar Ard on the map when in comesto arts events in the Midlands.

“I hope that one and all will findsomething of interest and willendeavor to come and visit us in thecoming months; events are open toall with discounts given to any groupbooking.

I look forward to meeting all newand old patrons of the centre andproviding good entertaining andenriching arts events.

If you have any questions regardingany of our events or would likefurther information please do nothesitate to contact me or a memberof the Tuar Ard staff” on 0906482042

All details can be found atwww.tuarard.ie or if you would likea copy of the venue programme call090 6482942 or [email protected]

Mark Keenan is a new resident violin maker, restorer and repairer at Belmont Mill.Mark, whose great grandfather was also a violin maker has recently returned fromOxford UK to practice his craft in Ireland and is delighted with the response sofar and looking forward to providing a much needed service to string musiciansin the Midlands.

Traditional boat builder Dougal McMahon is now building the handmade Shannon1 design sailing boat at the mill. He also restores and repairs other wooden boatsfor sailors in the Shannon waterway system.

Restoration of the 18th century Oatmill; the newly restored working oatmill andgranary is open to the public. Part of the tour includes viewing the mill archivedating from 1845.

Exhibitions: With so much creativity taking place in Belmont mill, a new gallery hasbeen developed to host contemporary art exhibitions. An Indian textile exhibitioncalled Stitching Women’s lives which was previously shown in London was the firstwhich raised proceeds for a children’s education project in India. This was followedby an exhibition of architectural ceramic pieces Bridges by Elaine Riordan who hastaken up a post as lecturer in Limerick Art College.

In 2009 two Midland artists will exhibit, Caroline Conway (printmaker) and IsobelEgan (ceramic artist). A Schools’ Tour programme is being developed for May 2009which will contain elements of art, history and outdoor fun on the Grand Canal.

Contact is welcome from Midland artists who wish to show/sell their work whenthe mill is open to the public in the summer. The bursary programme will continuein 2009 for invited national artists to work and live at Belmont Mill for a threemonth stay. For more updates and contact information see www.belmontmill.com

NEW AT BELMONT MILLand Artist Studios


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John Davidson, originally fromAberdeenshire in Scotland and AislingWalsh, a Laois-woman have been livingin the apartment – which boasts amarvellous performance space underhigh, sky-light windows. Aisling is adancer and John provides the music.

Students across the county will benefitfrom their teaching as they work inprimary schools for eight week blockscombining music and dance. “We letthem choose the music and then webuild up the routines,” says Aisling, whofeels that the children have a greatersense of ownership when they pickmusic that means something to them.

John adds “we have a structure we workto and then at the end there’s a show.”He has also begun an innovative seriesof free bimonthly concerts at the library

downstairs, featuring semi-professionaland professional musicians of all kinds.

If patronage is designed to fostercreativity for the benefit of thecommunity, where better to that thanthe studio where the couple have built aspecial temporary dance floor over anacoustic pad and installed a wall ofmirrors. This was where they developedGlobal Trad Underground, a show whichdebuted at a festival in Slovakia earlierthis year where it played to over 8,000people.

While John is a classically trained violinistand Aisling is a renowned step dancerand teacher – and niece ofinternationally acclaimed Irish dancingteacher Maura Shanahan, their work is

not limited by strictures imposed by theirroots. So their classes and their ownwork features a combination of thetraditional with hip-hop, drum and bassand other styles.

Having toured the world with othergroups over the years, the couplerealised a dream of doing their ownshow with Global Trad Underground,which is a real cross-over productionmarrying Irish and hip-hop dancing, aDJ, guitar, percussionist, two fiddleplayers and singers.

The idea came about in conversationwith an Italian percussionist. They gottalking about traditional world musicand decided to “shake it up.” It was asmall step from there to use that musicfor dance routines choreographed byAisling. The Slovakian festival at the end ofAugust was a showcase and a baptismof fire. Prophets in their own land, theyadmit it was very difficult to get anagent to take on the show in thiscountry, because having dancers onstage with musicians is not somethingmany agents are willing to take a chanceon. “Nowhere here would give us thatfirst gig,” says John.

Going to Slovakia was the right moveand has led to talks with interestedagents in Denmark, Holland and Italy.Closer to home, the Dunamaise Theatrein Portlaoise has bitten the bullet onwhat was a hugely successful show onits first outing and the couple havebooked the venue to run the show onApril 18.

“We devised the whole thing in thisspace,” says Aisling, referring to thestudio. “We had been touring andperforming but having our own spacehas allowed us devise our own stuff. Itwould have been much harder withoutthe studio. Having the space to have sixor seven dancers in a line makes it a loteasier.

Global Trad Underground is the focus forthe future and the 20ft by 20ft studioallows them to plot out the show on asmall scale, even if the performances willtake place on stages many multiples of

Going underground

by Claire O’Brien

In Renaissance times it wasn’t uncommon for greatartists to be supported by patrons who looked after theirbasic needs in return for the fruits of their artisticlabours. Laois County Council has undertaken aprogressive but at the same time old fashioned approachto promoting the arts in providing accommodation at apeppercorn rent to two performing artists in anapartment above the library in Mountrath.

Dance and Music duo Aisling Walsh and John Davidson.Photo: Andy Mason


29

that size. It’s an innovative conceptand energy and ability they have tothink outside the box, means thatthey both see potential forimprovement in the way youngpeople experience the arts inIreland.

Aisling, who says she was “bornwith a passion” for dancing,believes there is a lot of pressure onchildren to dance to very highstandards and her advice to parentsis to “let them enjoy it for a coupleof years and then decide if theywant to train for competition.” Sheherself gave up dancing at ten yearsold because her friends were doingother things, but eventually foundherself “crying to go back.”

In her classes across the county sheintroduces the children to differentkinds of music including swing tunesor music for the Afro Celt SoundSystem because it’s not good fordancers to get used to dancing tothe same pieces all the time.

John, who started playing the violinat 6, believes that Scottish schoolsoffer a far better musical educationto all children. By the time he was 18he had his diploma and went on tostudy sound management andtheatre. “At home everyone had todo music to the end of second year– we’re really lucky. All schools arethe same but sadly there’s notradition of music in schools here.”

Moving on, the couple are keen toadd a visual dimension to the showand appealing to visual artists who’dlike to get involved in puttingtogether a film projection thatwould run on the back wall of thestage.

“We’re looking for visual artists whowant to collaborate on a cross-media application for Global TradUnderground. We’re well up forthat,” says John. “We want to tiethe show to the area, after all, it’scome out of here,” he saysindicating, courtesy of the LaoisCounty Council Medicis, to thestudio.

in Mountrath Drinkingthe Colour

Blue

Offaly Poet Eileen Casey launchedher first collection of poetry,Drinking the Colour Blue duringBirr Vintage Week and arts festivalin Birr Library, a building designedby Augustin Welby Pugin in 1845.

“It seems right that the collection should firstmake its entrance into the world in thisbuilding, once a convent chapel where myown two sisters were married long ago, andattached to the secondary school where Ireceived my post-primary education.”

Margaret Hogan, historian, friend, mentor andformer English teacher of Eileen’s formallylaunched the book. Eileen paid tribute toMargaret “during those formative years, herabsolute commitment to literature stokedthose inspirational fires. She was a wonderfulteacher

Drinking the Colour Blueis available online from New Islandwww.newisland.ie

Trade Enquiries to Gill & McMillanDistribution 10-5009555, price €12.95.

Photo: Andy Mason

Photo: Andy Mason


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MNiC: WHAT DOES YOUR JOB INVOLVE?

WW: I’m Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Project so thebuck stops with me, though I’m fortunate in that I haveexcellent colleagues whose work enables me to mostlyconcentrate on the artistic aspect of my brief. Everything thatends up in our performance programme passes by me - ourexhibitions are the responsibility of the Curator of Visual Arts.The programme is theatre, dance, music and literature in thatorder of busyness.

Last year we had over one hundred productions at Project,ranging from one off gigs and readings to a number of fourweek runs of plays. During times like Dublin Dance Festival,the Fringe and the Theatre Festival we are particularly busy; Ithink we had over a hundred performances over two weeks inlast year’s Fringe. We work with practitioners, festivals andcompanies at all stages in their careers from those who havebeen doing it for over twenty years to others who are juststarting out.

With emerging artists we provide advice, encouragement,discounted rental and sometimes even money for theirproduction budget. The most important consideration for me isthat the work in the programme is pushing boundaries,whether in form or theme or in who is making it. Project is acontemporary arts centre, not a museum.

MNiC: DID GROWING UP IN ABBEYLEIX INFLUENCEYOUR ARTISTIC MAKEUP, HAS IT IMPACTED ON YOU?

WW: Growing up in Abbeyleix has influenced me certainlyalthough it’s hard to say exactly what impact this influence hashad on where I am now. My first experience of the arts was inprimary school and I’m sure that, were it not for enlightenednuns and brothers, I might have had no experience of the artsin any form, as the opportunities to do so in the curriculumwere scant. In my early career in the arts I played Fáinne Gealan Lae, Scotland the Brave and Eroika in on the tin whistlewhile marching in formation in a fetching orange kilt during anumber of Maytime festivals. Later on I was picked to be oneof the cast for the Abbeyleix entry into the Community Gamesvariety event, for reasons that are still not clear to me. In anycase we won the heat and represented the county in the 1982Games. I remember feeling outclassed at Mosney by some ofthe more sophisticated counties but I was undeterred (I alsoremember that I left behind a nice new pair of slippers in mychalet.) I suppose Abbeyleix was important in stimulating anearly interest in performance and creativity.

MNiC: HOW DID YOU BECOMEINTERESTED AND INVOLVED IN THEATRE?

WW: The first play of any kind that I saw was a production ofHome is the Hero in the Macra na Feirme hall when I was atprimary school and then there was also clomping around thestage to The Skater’s Waltz in the Community Games show. Iacted in plays throughout secondary school but I didn’t see aprofessional production for a good few years after that. I did ayear of Science at UCD in the late eighties and promptlytransferred to arts where I studied English. To say that Ienrolled in an English course would be more accurate as Imostly applied myself to my involvement in UCD Dramsoc,from the first few weeks in college. As a member of Dramsoc Idirected and acted in lots of plays, was its Auditor and one ofthe organisers of the student drama festival (ISDA) anotheryear.

After eventually leaving college and Dramsoc I set up a fringetheatre company with some friends, with an ISDA Best Directoraward on my bookshelf and ambitions to be a theatre director.One of those friends, Jason Byrne, turned out to have a betteridea for a first production than I did so I ended up producingJulius Caesar at the late Crypt Arts Centre in Dublin Castle in1996. I continued to produce for Loose Canon, barring aproduction of Woyzeck that I directed in 1997, up until Istarted at Project in fact, in 2002.

Muireann Ni Chonaill interviews...

WILLIE WHITEArtistic Director of Project Arts Centre

Willie WhitePhoto courtesyof the artist


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In the early years Loose Canon was known for its lucid andpared back productions of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays.Loose Canon was my introduction to the independent theatrescene in Dublin. The great irony of my involvement in Dramsocwas that it was so all consuming and UCD’s location soperipheral that I saw hardly any professional theatre the wholetime that I was in college. Loose Canon made a big impressionin its early years, was very prolific, and before long was inreceipt of modest funding from the Arts Council.

Through Loose Canon I first encountered Project Arts Centreas a would be professional theatre practitioner (it was profitshare almost all the time). Fiach MacCongail was in his heydayas Artistic Director of Project and he invited the company to doa show. By being part of the Project family I was brought up tospeed on the contemporary practices that I had been utterlyunaware of while plugging away at Dramsoc.

I had important experiences of experimental theatre, visualarts, contemporary music and contemporary dance in project@ the mint, the temporary venue during the redevelopment ofthe East Essex Street site. In the early to mid nineties a braceof new theatre companies like Loose Canon, Pan Pan, Bedrockand Corn Exchange were emerging and presenting work atProject, it was an exciting time.

In the mid nineties also I visited Edinburgh for the first time tosee shows in the Fringe and the Festival. The first time that mymind was really blown by a performance piece was seeingNelken by the German choreographer Pina Bausch, a showthat I went to on the recommendation of a guy I knew fromQueen’s Drama Society who I had just bumped into in thestreet.

There we thousands of carnations on the stage, Alsatians, menin dresses, dancers speaking to the audience, people jumpingoff scaffolding towers. I simply had no idea that you could dothis in a performance. I also got to see loads of shows one yearwhen I worked in a venue during the Fringe. People say thatthe Fringe is too big now or that it’s all about the comedyshows but I learned a lot about theatre by seeing a range ofshows in successive visits to the Fringe over subsequent years.

MNiC: YOU ARE ALSO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OFDUBLIN YOUTH THEATRE, HOW IMPORTANT DOYOU THINK YOUTH THEATRE IS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

WW: It’s hard to say how important Youth Theatre is for youngpeople; I think you should ask the young people this. What Ido try to achieve in DYT is to give them the tools to make thekind of theatre that is interesting and meaningful for them.

Through the workshop programme I aim to connect themembers with a wide range of practitioners who canencourage and inspire them to make work that uses theinformation and techniques of the contemporary world torepresent it back to their peers in live performance.

While I’ve been asked to do the job based on my experienceand a certain perspective on theatre I also try to make sure thatsome of the practitioners they meet are just a few years olderthan them to give the message that you don’t have to waituntil you are old like me to be involved in theatre. It’s also veryimportant that their time at DYT is enjoyable.

MNiC: THE LAOIS ARTS OFFICE RUNS 5 YOUTHTHEATRE GROUPS, HAVE YOU ANY ADVICE FORTHOSE YOUNG PEOPLE INTERESTED IN THEATRE?

WW: I think that young people interested in theatre should goto see as many performances as they can and as audiencesthey should demand to be offered good work that isconnected with the world as they experience it. I feel thatyoung people are too often patronised by being made to sitthrough stuff that seems kind of irrelevant to them or that issomeone else’s idea of what they should like. Also it’s reallyimportant to see international shows, particularly work that isnot text based, just to get an idea of the possibilities.Depending on where you are living this can be more or lesseasy to do but there are lots of festivals during the summer andDublin Fringe Festival and Dublin

Theatre Festival are just at the beginning of the school year sothese shouldn’t be too much of a distraction if the youngpeople are studying. Any worthwhile arts organisation will befalling over itself to encourage young people to attend showsmaking it likely that you can get a discount on tickets,particularly if you are going in a group, so price need not be anobstacle. There are also frequently opportunities to intern withfestivals and production companies, which gives an insight intohow professional theatre works. This is experience that youcan’t get from a book.

MNiC: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE ARTSCLIMATE IN IRELAND AT THE MOMENT?

WW: Government funding to the Arts Council, the mostsignificant body for much arts practice in Ireland, has grownfourfold in a decade and a half. This has led to increasedopportunities for artists to make work and for the public toexperience it.

However, in my opinion, even though a lot of the theatre thathas been produced over this time has been of a very highstandard, there is a niggling lack of artistic risk. We’re anisland, maybe it’s a function of our size or because our text-based theatre is often very good, but we still seem a littlebehind what is going on elsewhere.

It’s also a real shame that there isn’t much more emphasis onall the arts in the school curriculum, particularly secondaryschool.

MNiC: WHAT ARE YOUR ASPIRATIONS FOR THE FUTURE?

WW: I want to keep working with contemporary artists in alldisciplines, in whatever job, to facilitate their attempts to makesense of the world we live in in a way that is exciting andsometimes challenging for the public but that always intendedto make us feel more alive.

MNiC: IF YOU WEREN’T INVOLVED IN THE PROJECTARTS CENTRE WHAT WOULD YOUR IDEAL JOB BE?

WW: I would like to be an in demand theatre director in thefirst week of rehearsals for a truly radical take on Chekov’s‘The Seagull’, having just finished postproduction for my firstfeature film.

An introduction to the UNIT concept’

The concept of this project is to conceive a UNIT asrepresenting a single undivided aspect occurring in thecomposition of something else and ultimately to regard thisUNIT as being part of the wider context.

Work produced as part of UNIT is expected to develop in wayscharacteristic to the artists existing practice, and it is ourintention to support their interests and thus that of a widerpublic. Supporting a culture of research, helps towards thecreation of “free space” thought and investigation. UNITinvestigates seen and unseen visual cultural aspects ofPortlaoise. The project will ask artists to commit to spendingtime working within the physical and material sphere of thetown.

The project UNIT itself supports a level of exchange andinterchange between artist practice and curatorial support.The curatorial framework for the project which should developand investigate the artists work through writing about theirprocesses. Curator and writer Padraic E. Moore has selectedartist Theresa Nanigian, curator and writer Cliodhna Shaffreyhas invited artist Vera Klute, and artist, writer and curator,Sally Timmons has chosen artist Ruth Lyons (The GoodHatchery). I have chosen to work with Hope Inherent artistsJennie Moran and Tara Kennedy.

UNIT directs artists’ research towards their own particular andunique interests in local knowledge and cultures. The LaoisCounty Arts Office are the commissioners of this project, underthe direct leadership of Arts Officer, Muireann Ni Chonaill, thelocal authority have been foundational in supporting theproject relationships and a culture of intellectual freedom,through, research and investigation.

Project planning commenced in June 2008, the main focus ofthe artists time will run from early November to February2009. A launch celebration will take place on November 13that 3pm in County Hall, Portlaoise. An interim presentation ofthe artists works will take place in early December.

Sarah Searson Curator

Padraic E Moore, Curator isworking with Theresa Nanigian, Artist

Why/How/What...Having been invited by the initiator of UNIT, Sarah Searson, tonominate an artist with whom I would be interested incollaborating as part of this Project, I thought immediately ofTheresa Nanigian. As the progression of this project relies uponthe potential of dialogue unfolding between the artist andmyself it was vital that I work with an artist whose work I findengaging and relevant. I first became aware of Nanigian’s workin autumn of 2005 via Time Value Analysis, her solo exhibitionat the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council Concoursewhich was an integral part of The Concourse InstallationSeries. In the three years which have passed I have followedNanigian’s work with interest and found that her work appealedto me increasingly in terms of its formal and conceptual qualitiesas my own practice and sensibilities developed. I am attractedto and fascinated by Nanigians rigorous methodical approachand though the projects of hers which I have viewed have beenvaried, the idiom which she utilises is distinctive and dullsdistinctions between critical analysis, investigative research andsubjective even personally expressive artwork. The artist’sintention for the project in Portlaoise is to employ this diverseapproach in exploring the increasing cultural and nationaldiversity of the city and its environs.

Pardraic E Moore


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UNIT – a residencyproject for Portlaoisetown and surrounds

Sarah Searson, Curator is workingwith Hope Inherent, Artists

Jennie Moran and Tara Kennedy

Environmental Study of Portlaoise Prison Hope Inherent’s recent Arts Council project funding had leadthem to making a project proposal to the Laois Arts Office priorto the development of UNIT. It is their intention over the nextyear or so to develop a series of mobile investigations, projectsand interventions. It was fortuitous and interesting that therewas a natural fit between their plans and UNIT’s curatorialremit. Hope Inherent’s work in Laois will, ideally, form anintegral aspect of a longer-term project whose elements willbe sited at various locations of interest to them in Ireland. Hope Inherent past projects have highlighted a playfulness anda common humanity which evolves in the ways physical spacesare negotiated. They consider how from social pressures,desires and aspirations we develop roles and they investigatethe “creativity of the non cultural producer in society”1. Forthis project their research and work will be with the inhabitantsof Portlaoise Prison. They will communicate with the prison ‘s various populations through meetings and correspondence. Aparticular focus will be on researching, documenting andcommunicating methodologies and initiatives employed byindividuals in prison and how these actions are resourceful andof use to a wider public.

By posing questions about strategies for living and negotiatingthe environmental conditions of prison they intend to exposea series of quiet , small and imaginative responses to theprisons remit to unify, regulate and control through disciplinaryorder. The site of their investigation does not question theprisons role - but how this world works?

They intend to highlight the self-reliability, individual initiativesthat navigate restricted space, the populations sense ofinventiveness. This work proposes a change towards a morepositive perception of the prison. They will highlight thepotential to see the Prison as a resource and they willcommunicate this to a wider population so that the researchcan be applied to our own pressurised environments. They arethereby proposing a positive perception of the prison and thetone of the project will be cautiously celebratory.

Cliodhna Shaffrey, Curator isworking with Vera Klute, Artist

The mind as machineVera Klute’s practice stems from an interest in exploringsystems of human behaviour patterns. She uses imagery ofmachinery, scientific apparatus and medical equipment as ametaphor to analysis and dissects such patterns that can oftenread as messy, untameable or organic. Within such quasi-

clinical strategies the mind (and body) is conceived by Vera asa machine. She is like a scientist looking through a microscopeto dissect, decode and to figure out how things really work. Ataking apart or juxtapositioning of isolated elements presentsan alternative ordering and, in her films, drawings andsculptures a surreal, witty and strange undercurrent creeps in topresent the unexpected. Here, there is a paired-backplayfulness in operation through works that possess anexistentialist’s drive - a thinking on the human existence.

Perhaps, it is not surprising therefore that Vera Klute after afew short visits to Portlaoise has decided that she would like toexplore the hospital. The hospital is considered by her not asmuch as a place or institution for healthcare treatment but,rather as a micro system for observing the cycle of life. ‘In asmall town like Portlaoise, many people might be born hereand die here, they might never have moved away’. Vera isinterested in researching medical equipment and imagery inthe hospital as an entry point into the concepts andmethodologies behind her work. Medical equipment createssome distance between the patient and the surgeon, or thedisease and the pathologist - it supports an objective stance.But medical equipment is also fascinating, beautiful, andstrange in its own right as an isolated object. It is through thecombination of such elements - the instruments of medicineand the hospital, conceived as a micro-system, that Klute plansan examination that might bring some small insights intopatterns of a modern society - as viewed through a smalltown’s hospital - and its cycles of life.

Cliodhna Shaffrey

Sally Timmons Curator isworking with Ruth Lyons, Artist

Ruth Lyons, Studio shot in The Good Hatchery (sometime in 2008)


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I have selected emerging artist, Ruth Lyons whose practiceinvolves the assessment or measurement of meaning througha constant attempt to reconcile the environment in which shehas found herself. One might consider all artistic endeavour toinvolve such processes. However, in the case of Lyons, thework that she produces as a result of the circumstances withinwhich she has both constructed and found herself ismanifested as unique in its aesthetic, and functions withoutreference to a predetermined culture, yet holds meaning inalignment with the environment in which one might encounterher or her work.

UNIT is a measurement or part of a bigger whole. Forexample, a carriage is one part of a train, and a stone canamount to stepping stones that facilitate movement from oneplace to another, with each part adding up to a whole UNIT orpurpose. In a recent solo exhibition that took place during theKilkenny Arts Festival (2008), Lyons constructed a sculpturalinstallation titled God Ball in which a small colony of suspendeddead moths (each housed in small glass vehicles) weremagnetically drawn to a kinetically revolving papier mache ballor moonlike sphere. What is interesting about this piece inrelation to the current brief for UNIT is that unlike the moths inGodball (whose purpose was to be drawn to the moonlike ballat certain moments in its evolution, to then fall off and awaitthe next moment of contact that would occur sometime in thefuture), the artist has observed that the physical structure of atown such as Portlaoise facilitates movement ‘away’ from thetown to another place (or places) with a return journeypending sometime in the future. Thus disrupting the whole orUNIT of what might be considered urban. She has questionedwhat might drive a potential magnetism, not away from buttowards a place such as Portlaoise? It is from this starting pointthat the artist intends to commence an investigation towardsthe possible construction of a physical means or purpose bywhich movement might be facilitated in a direction towardsPortlaoise that is indeterminate yet purposeful.

Sally Timmons

Web links: www.commonplace.iewww.kildare.ie/artsservice/temporarycollection

Artists Workshop with Sarah Searsonand Claire Nidecker and UNIT

Conversations with Curators and Artists

The Dunamaise Arts Centre, PortlaoiseFriday, 5th December 9.30am to 1.30pm And 2.30pm to 4.30pm.

The Artists Workshop will run in the morning session and willdeal with two areas:- Written Representation and VisualRepresentation.

Written Representation: A poorly written artist’s statementmay weaken an otherwise strong presentation. Althoughstrong images can speak for themselves, curators, and selectorswith public and private bodies are skilled critical readers andthere is increasing expectations placed on artists to representthemselves clearly and articulately in written proposals. Thisinformal workshop will be lead by Sarah Searson’ participantsto give themselves time to review/revise their statements andbiographies. The workshop will be informal and somehandouts will suggest further research.

Visual Representation: There are significant technologicaladvances in the last number of years, and visual artists nowhave numerous computer programmes and packages that helprepresent themselves visually to a wider public. The workshoplead by Claire Nidecker will suggest ways of organizing yourportfolio, understanding available technology, and how best tointeract visually with organisations, graphic designers and web-platforms.

The focus will be on the importance of understanding digitalimagery, compatibility, and how this knowledge makes it easierto upgrade your own representation.

Claire Nidecker is an artist andlecturer in Fine Art Media in

National College of Art and Design

UNIT Conversations: Artists and the curators from the projectwill present and discuss aspects of their practice and theirresearch experiences.

UNIT Conversations will run in the afternoon from 2.30pm to4.30pm - All welcome. There is no fee for attending. The Unitproject comprises of 4 curators:- Sarah Searson, Padric EMoore, Cliodhna Shaffery and Sally Timmons and 5 artists:-Hope Inherent (Jennie Moran and Tara Kennedy), Vera Klute,Ruth Lyons and Theresa Nanigian and all will be present.

Artists Workshop and Unit Conversations are supported by TheMidlands Arts Network, CREATE, The Dunamaise Arts Centreand Laois County Council. Fee: €10. Booking at DunamaiseArts Centre, Tel. 057-8663355.

Supported by: The Midlands Arts Network, The Dunamaise Arts Centre and Laois County Council Fee: €10. Booking at 057 8663355

For more information contact: The Arts Office, Laois County Council Tel: 057 8674344/43 email: [email protected]

Note: A reference to Michel De Certeau, from Sarah Lincoln’sVisual Artists Newsheet article about Hope Inherent “DailyDevilment” 11/06


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The Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoiserecently launched its exciting newprogramme of events contained withinits Autumn Winter 2008 brochure. Thebest of comedy, theatre, music, dance,film and visual art pack the newprogramme full with a fantastic array ofevents that caters for all the family.Bookings are now open at the BoxOffice Tel: 057 8663355 or online atwww.dunamaise.ie

The programme contains a veryimpressive line-up of shows and eventsonce again including the worldrenowned Gate Theatre on their firstever visit to the Dunamaise with theiconic production of Waiting for Godot.Following a nationwide launch in May,the tickets for this show were on salethroughout the summer and,unfortunately, are now sold out.However, theatre-goers who miss thiswill be delighted to see the return ofanother Irish company of world renown,Druid, with its production of The Crippleof Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh.This tour includes dates in the Dublin

Theatre Festival, the UK and New Yorkso audiences in Portlaoise will be in goodcompany!

The Dunamaise is thrilled to be able towelcome the RTÉ National SymphonyOrchestra once again on December12th, for a seasonal celebration, as wellas Eurovision winner, Eimear Quinn onDecember 7thand of course PortlaoisePantomime Group’s 25th anniversarycelebration in offering Cinderella as its2009 performance from 24th to 31stJanuary 2009. The programme will alsosee the return of the inimitable LiamClancy(sold out) on October 30th,Preston Reed on November 8th , TheCafé Orchestra on December 6th as wellas the much loved Jack L on January17th. The Carlsberg HalloweenHowls festival will also present twonights with Ardal O’Hanlon on October25th and 26th as well as the spectacularKatzenjammer group on October 24th.

Children’s and family shows will alsofeature in the Dunamaise autumn winterbrochure with Fables, Tales and Tattlers

on Bank Holiday Monday October 27th;the beautiful Swan Lake story presentedby Ballet Ireland on December 11th &12th; Maisy Daly’s Rainbow fromDecember 15th to 17th and AChristmas Carol on December 18th toname a few.

A fantastic selection of films will also beshown this winter at the Dunamaiseincluding Savage Grace and Man onWire.

The Dunamaise will also hostexhibitions by the very talentedStradbally based artist Gemma Guihanin October, as well as Caroline Canningin November and much more.

The Outreach & Education programmewill also present Dancing for All Ages,presented by Legitimate Bodies DanceCompany for 8 weeks from October 6thand due to phenomenal demand theseworkshops will be offered again in thenew year.

For full details of the Dunamaise autumnwinter programme see the brochure outnow, available from the Box Office Tel:057 866 3355 or online atwww.dunamaise.ie

Brighten up those winter days at...

DUNAMAISEARTS CENTRE

Autumn Winter 2008 Brochure Out Now!

Eimear QuinnCourtesy of the artist

RTÉ NSO StringsCourtesy of the artist

ContactInformation

LAOIS

Muireann Ni Chonaill,

Arts Officer,

Laois County Council,

Áras an Chontae,

Portlaoise, Co. Laois.

Tel: 057 8674344

Fax: 057 8674382

email: [email protected]

website: www.laois.ie

OFFALY

Sinead O’Reilly,

Arts Officer,

Offaly County Council,

Aras an Chontae,

Charleville Road,

Tullamore, Co. Offaly.


website: www.offaly.ie

direct line: 057 9357400

fax: 057 9346868

WESTMEATH

Shane Brennan,

Arts Education Officer

for the Midlands Region,

Midland Arts, Old School House,

Kinnegad, Co. Westmeath.

Tel: 044-9379040


Martina Finn,

Arts Officer,

Westmeath County Council,

County Library HQ,

Dublin Road, Mullingar.

Tel: 044-9340781


This publication was coordinated by

Manchán Magan

INFORMATIONmidlandsartsandculture

36

EDEN DRAMA NEWSEden Drama Society’s production this year will be HHaappppyy BBiirrtthhddaayy DDeeaarrAAlliiccee, a comedy by Dublin playwright Bernard Farrell.

The play focuses on Alice, an elderly widow who has another birthday thrustupon her and with it the annual visit of her children. Her overpoweringdaughter Barbara and gormless son Barry, do all they can to get Alice into aretirement home so that they can carry out their lives without guilt or worry.Alice however, with the help of her friend Jimmy, has other ideas.

The cast are Paula Murphy as Alice, Paul Muldrew as Jimmy, Nuala Keownas Barbera, Andy Feeney as Barry, Adrian Baker as Cormac and Karen Hurstas Sandy. The play is directed by Jim Lawlor.

Happy Birthday Dear Alice runs from 3rd to 6th December 08, in the GirlsNational School, Edenderry. Shows start at 8pm. Tickets can be booked bycontacting Ger at 087 2281493, or purchased at the door on the night.

midlands contents arts and - offaly€¦ · winning the irish times/esb theatre awards 2001, the...

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