The highly successful Lady Gregory Autumn Gatherings continue in Coole Park, Gort, Co Galway, running from Friday to Sunday, 23 to 25 September, and will this year recognise the remarkable influence of Lady Augusta Gregory on the development of Irish theatre and literature.
Translator of Irish legends and folklore, writer of comedies and fantasies, co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, and lifelong patron of William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory was active in many artistic areas. Although her stunning home at Coole Park is no longer standing, several other buildings remain and the area has been developed as a nature reserve and boasts a well-designed interpretative centre. Within its historic walled garden sits the famous autograph tree where world-renowned authors such as Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey, John Millington Synge and George Moore, carved their initials, marking Coole Park as the centre of the Irish Literary Revival in the early 20th century.
Highlights of the gathering include lectures, discussions, readings, social events, a guided walk through Coole Park woods and a special visit to Kilmacduagh’s monastic site, dating from the seventh century.
Key speakers and their topics will include:
Angela Bourke, MRIA, emeritus professor, UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore and Linguistics - Lady Gregory’s Folklore Collecting and Publishing
Sr. Mary DeLourdes Fahy, local historian, ‘Ireland Reaching Out and Lady Gregory’s Diaspora’. The stories of tenants and staff who emigrated as revealed through US Census reports and Shipping Lists.
Dr. Brian Walker, Queens University Belfast - ‘Villain, victim or prophet: Sir William Gregory and the Great Irish Famine.
Judith Hill, architectural historian and author - ‘Lady Gregory in the Ireland of her time’. Varied relationships, contradictions and achievements, place Lady Gregory in the Ireland of her time, showing how her nationalism in politics and literature shaped her life and work.
Dr Cecily O’Neill, an internationally recognised authority on drama and arts education – ‘Voices from the Abbey Theatre’, an interactive celebration of Lady Gregory’s unique role in the founding of the Abbey Theatre, as told through the voices of its actors.
The chair is Hedy Gibbons, recent winner of Cuirt’s Festival of Literature prize for Memoir. Much of her work has been broadcast on RTE’s Sunday Miscellany and Lyric FM’s Quiet Quarter, and published in their subsequent anthologies. A chapter from her memoir has been published in County Lines (New Island, 2006 ). Her poetry has been published in Divas! A Sense of Place (Arlen House, 2005 ) and Ropes – In Knots (NUIG, 2007 ), and has been short-listed for a number of awards.
Participants can continue to enjoy the open forum discussion, plus entertainment and the candlelit dinner on Saturday.
For further information and booking, contact Marion Cox, 1 Kiltiernan East, Kilcolgan, Co Galway. Tel: 086-8053917 email: [email protected].
