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| brian
farrell :: |
academic, author, journalist, broadcaster Born in Manchester,
Brian Farrell was educated at Coláiste Mhuire, Dublin,
University College Dublin and Harvard. In 1955 he joined the
administrative staff of UCD, became director of extramural studies
and assistant to the registrar in 1957. From 1966 he lectured
in the department of ethics and politics, going on to become
senior lecturer in politics, acting head of the department and,
in 1985, Associate Professor of Politics. On retirement from
UCD in 1994 he became director-general of the Institute for
European Affairs.
He has written a number of books on Irish political history,
including Chairman or Chief?, The Founding of Dáil Éireann and
a biography of Seán Lemass. As a media commentator he contributed
to the Irish Press, Irish Independent and Radio Éireann in the
1950s and 1960s, and for more than 30 years has presented RTÉ
television's main programmes of comment and analysis, successively
Broadsheet, Newsbeat, Seven Days, Today Tonight and Prime Time.
Following his appointment by Síle de Valera T.D., Minister of
Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, he was chairman of
the Arts Council of Ireland from 1998 to 2000. Brian is currently
president of the Dublin Business School and in April of this
year was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the National
University of Ireland. |
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| cathal
o'searcaigh :: |
Cathal Ó Searcaigh has, over the past decade, emerged
as one of Ireland's most distinguished modern day poets. "His
confident internationalism" according to Theo Dorgan, writing
in Irish Poetry Since Kavanagh, (Four Courts Press 1996), "has
already begun to channel new modes, new possibilities, into
the writing of Irish language poetry in our time." Ó Searcaigh
is fast becoming a poet of international renown - particularly
since the publication of his bilingual collections Homecoming/An
Bealach 'na Bhaile (Cló Iar-Chonnachta 1993) and Out in the
Open (CIC 1997). Selections of his work have already been published
in translation to ten languages.
His latest collection, Ag Tnúth leis an tSolas was awarded the
Irish Times Literature Prize for Irish Language Books in 2001.
In the past few years Cathal has read his work at Arts Festivals
and literary celebrations in Belgium, Italy, France, Germany,
Spain, Wales, Scotland, England and Canada. In the spring of
1995, he was elected a member of Aosdána. His collection Na
Buachaillí Bána (CIC 1996) has received more media coverage
than any other volume of verse published in the Irish language
in recent years. "The best poems in the collection," according
to The Irish Times, "are exceptional and single Cathal Ó Searcaigh
out, not so much as a maker of poems - of which the Irish language
has its fair share - but as one of our finest working poets.
This is not meant as faint praise but as a statement of fact."
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| dermot
somers :: |
Dermot Somers Born in Tremane,
County Roscommon in 1947, Dermot Somers can be concidered a
climber, writer and broadcaster. He has completed numerous mountaineering
expeditions worldwide including most notably Mt. Everest in
1993. His books include Mountains & Other Ghosts - 1990, At
the Rising of the Moon - 1994 and Rince ar na Ballai - 2002.
Dermot is possibly best known for the many programmes he has
written and presented for TG4 and RTE, with Crossing the Line
Films (CTL Films), including Cuairt na Cruinne, Bealach o Dheas,
Turas Feasa, and the current series of nomadic journeys through
Siberia, the Sahara, and Iran, Turas i mBaol.
Mountains & Other Journeys
Dermot Somers will talk about his travels worldwide as
a mountaineer and as a presenter of documentaries on remote
cultures with slides, and readings from his work in Irish and
in English. Within that context Dermot will emphasise the notion
of culture, landscape, journeying and adventure in his own writings.
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| lasairfhiona
ni chonaola :: |
Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola
is from Inishere, the Aran Islands. Her solo album An Raicín
Álainn (The Beautiful Comb), launched at The Interceltic Festival
in Lorient, Brittany in 2002, continues to receive critical
acclaim. It was chosen by HotPress music magazine as one of
the top 10 Folk/Traditional albums of 2002 and the American
Celtic Connections radio show chose it as one of the Best of
Irish CDs released in 2002.
Lasairfhíona has performed on many radio and television programmes
including The Late Late Show, Up For The Match, The John Creedon
Show and on a documentary about Sinéad O'Connor. Lasairfhíona
was the subject of a special documentary about her life and
singing on Léargas, RTÉ. Her album was described by fRoots music
magazine as "one of the most sumptuous albums of traditional
singing to have emerged for some time." |
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lasairfhiona
ni chonaola ::
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| mary
o malley :: |
Mary O'Malley is the author
of four collections of poetry published by Salmon Press and
"The Boning Hall" New and Selected Poems published by Carcanet.
She grew up in Connemara, has received a Hennessey award for
her poetry, as well as three arts Council bursaries. She travels
regularly to the United States and Europe to read her work and
lecture on contemporary Irish poetry. She lived in Lisbon for
eight years and has edited three anthologies of new writing,
including "The Waterside Book" which arose out of a residency
in the Verbal Arts Centre. She broadcasts regularly on radio
and recently presented a series of six programmes drawing on
her interest in working with musicians and young people.
She was closely involved with the organisation of the Cuirt
Literature Festival for many years, programming both the regular
festival and initiating and developing its educational programme.
She regularly participates in both Letterfrack Sea Week and
Bog Week and the Clifden Community Arts week. Her collection,
"The Knife in the Wave", deals with what she sees as the threat
to a city and its way of life from economic greed and questions
Galway's image of itself as a city of the arts. "Asylum Road"
addresses the changing Ireland and in particular the new Irish.
She has been Mayo Writer-in-Residence and held residencies in
the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry, in Manhattanville University
in New York, in Ty Newwydd in Wales and unofficially in the
Aran Islands, where she has aided the writer's group for many
years. She has recenly formed links with Spanish, French, Corsican
and Portuguese poets through PEN Clube International. Some of
her poems have been translated into French, Portuguese, Italian,
among other languages. She has worked on translations from a
number of languages, most recently the poems of Pura Lopes Colome,
the Mexican poet who translated Seamus Heaney's work into Spanish.
She has two children and lives outside Galway in the Moycullen
Gaeltacht and is a member of Aosdana. She is currently the writer
in residence in the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris. |
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| michael
gibbons :: |
Michael Gibbons, one of Ireland's leading Archaeologists,
writer, broadcaster and mountaineer who's unique interpretation
of Irish landscape has been the focus of newspaper articles
and numerous television programmes worldwide. Michael is a Graduate
of University College Galway, and a native of Clifden, Connemara.
Michael is a member of the Archaeology Committee of Heritage
Council, a member of the Croagh Patrick Archaeological Research
Group, Galway County Council Heritage Working Group, Owner/Manager
of Dun Gibbons - an Asylum - Refugee Centre in Clifden. He has
worked for three years in the Middle East and London on Archaeological
projects.
Michael was formally Co-Director of National files and monuments
Records Office for ten years. This innovative project pioneered
the integrated use of vertical aerial photography in landscape
studies. During the course of this project many thousands of
'new' archaeology sites were brought to light, some encompassing
several hundred hectares in area. Current research includes
Pilgrimage Mountains and Islands of Ireland and the World, especially
in South America and the Near East.
Lecture and field trip
Michael's illustrated Lecture and field trip will focus on the
long 9000-year settlement history of Roscommon from its beginning
in the early Mesolithic times to the destruction of Gaelic Ireland
in the late 17th Century. The optional field trip to North Roscommon
will visit one of Ireland's best preserved Portal Dolmens, a
late Neolithic Ceremonial enclosure and Barrow group near Boyle
and an explore the extraordinary Doon of Drumsna, a first century
BC Border Fortification of international importance. |
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| nuala
ni dhomhnaill :: |
Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, one
of Ireland's foremost women poets writing in Irish, was born
in 1952 in Lacashire. In 1957, her family returned to Ireland,
in the Dingle Gaeltacht in Kerry, where Nuala grew up. She graduated
from the University College Cork and then moved to Holland with
her husband. After a few years in Holland, she and her family
moved to Turkey and spend several years there. Eventually, she
returned to Ireland, where she has lived since 1980, and is
currently living in Dublin with her husband and four children.
Over the years, Nuala has gained prestige and recognition for
her works which focused on Irish folklore, myth, and culture.
She has won numerous international awards for works which have
been translated into French, German, Polish, Italian, Norwegian,
Estonian, Japanese, and English. Her works include Cead Aighnis,
Astrakhan Cloak, Pharaoh's Daughter, Selected Poems, and Spionain
is Roiseanna. Nuala has the distinction of being one of the
few women Irish poets who writes exclusively in Irish and has
been praised for her efforts to revitalize the Irish language
in modern poetry. She is a member of Aosdána and the recipient
of the 1988 O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry and the 1991 American
Ireland Fund Literary Award. Nuala chose to write in Irish as
she feels that Irish is a language of beauty, historical significance,
ancient roots and an immense propensity for poetic expression
through its everyday use.
Her writings tend to focus on the rich traditions and heritage
of Ireland. Poems about myths, folklore, women's feminine strength
or logos, and strong affinities to the land are
quintessential themes. Her poetry is subtle, unassuming, and
free of metaphors, which she believes are static and in which
it is difficult to exercise one's poetic expression. Her literary
upbringing was peppered with exposure to classic Greek and Roman
myths, of which she still writes. Her myth poems express an
alternative reality which is as much a part of our world as
it is alien. She speaks of her reasons for writing about myths
as those that are an integral part of the Irish language and
Irish culture and therefore must not be ignored. |
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| tony
mac mahon :: |
Tony Mac Mahon is one of the great Irish traditional
musicians of our time. His music has been described as a language
of passion - a wounding music. His extraordinary interpretation
of the old song airs of Ireland, in particular, stands alone
- inhabiting spaces where mystery and magic find full expression.
Most interviewed and quoted in the world of native Irish music,
Mac Mahon is its least visible icon - and its most respected,
even feared, ideologue. His contribution to Irish music as broadcaster
and has been equally singular; Ireland and its music were always
made to appear noble & strong in his five major radio & television
series for RTE - a far cry from an Ireland now sporting the
For Sale sign.
He has played & worked with the greats - including Seamus Ennis,
Tommy Potts, Joe Cooley, Willie Clancy and Sean 0 Riada. It
was at his desk in RTE that The Bothy Band originated, during
production of his radio series The Long Note in 1974. His recent
CD 'Mac Mahon from Clare ' has attracted much critical acclaim.
The Kronos Quartet commissioned arrangements of five selections
from this CD shortly after its release. His airs of lamentation
are marked by exquisitely measured timing, masterly proportioning
of space and silence - as well as astonishingly subtle control
of dynamics, ornamentation and harmony. His music has a call
- a draiocht - which has moved more than one listener to tears.
Miles and Miles of Music
The Scottish folk music collector Ewan McColl once described
for me in a radio broadcast how certain London pubs came alive
with music on weekends: a small stage in the comer would be
crowded with Irish flute & fiddle players, playing for all they
were worth - as soon as one got off the stage to go to the lavatory,
you'd see a drinker hop off his stool at the bar & rush to the
stage, whipping a tin whistle or a flute out of his pocket -
afraid he's lose the vacant spot to one of the many other traditional
players in the bar! Their names have since become legendary:
Willie Clancy & Bobby Casey of Clare, Mairtin Byrnes & Raymond
Roland of Galway, Peter Mulligan & Jack Dolan of Leitrim and
so very many more. They worked for the most part in the building
trade during the post-war boom. With Liam Owens, Tony Masc Mahon
will offer an evening of reels, jigs, hornpipes and repartee
- stories & memories from the floor will be welcome! |
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