MORE THAN 200 events, featuring international, national, and local artists will take place over the 11 days of the 38th Clifden Arts Festival which runs from September 17 to 27.
The festival will feature music gigs, theatre, poetry, literary readings, talks, comedy, visual arts, street theatre, and schools' performance workshops, with the opening performance coming from Moonmagic on Thursday September 17. Moonmagic is a local drama group of people with learning disabilities aged between 20 and 60.
The highlights of this year's festival will include The AIB National Art Collection alongside art exhibitions from Brian Bourke and Padraig Rainey; the premiere of Pat Kinevane’s third solo play, the blackly comic, Underneath, directed by Jim Culleton; The Man in Womens’ Shoes, the acclaimed drama written and presented by Mikel Murfi; comedy from RTÉ Aprés Match team, Barry Murphy, Risteárd Cooper, and Gary Cooke; concerts from Christy Moore, The RTÉ Contempo Quartet, Finbar Wright, Mick Flannery, Sharon Murphy (The Voice UK ), Finghin Collins and Elizabeth Cooney, Brendan Shine, and Johnny Cash tribute band, Walk The Line.
There will also be readings by Paul Durcan, Jennifer Johnson, Mary Costello, Tony Curtis and Joe Woods, as well as a Yeats 150th Anniversary event with poet Bernard Donoghue. The festival will also hear talks by meteorologist Evelyn Cusack, who will speak on Ireland’s Weather - A Journey through Time. The John Moriarty Memorial Lecture will be given by Fr Peter McVerry. The composer Bill Whelan will mark the 20th anniversary of Riverdance with a talk entitled Riverdance Revisited. There will also be a talk on Walter Macken.
Entertainment for children is central to activities on Saturday 19 with interactive performances from Macnas. There will also be the Clifden Fairy Trail in aid of Clifden Tidy Towns projects.
For more information and tickets see www.clifdenartsweek.ie
