Clifden Arts Festival, Ireland’s longest-running community arts event, returns for a 45th instalment next month (September 15 to 25 ).
Back to full capacity in venues across the region, Clifden Arts Festival delivers with a community-led spirit and diversity of inspiration that President Michael D Higgins has hailed as a “unique and outstanding experience.”
As always, the great and the good in the arts world have answered the call of long-time festival pillar Brendan Flynn, the former schoolmaster who dreamed up this annual celebration of art, music and illumination.
Margaret Atwood, the Booker-winning literary giant behind The Handmaid’s Tale, will be in conversation with award-winning writer Elaine Feeney. With the fractured state social and political issues worldwide, this promises to be a riveting event
Much-loved writer and cultural historian Manchán Magan will give the annual John Moriarty Memorial Lecture, while John Creedon, popular nighttime DJ, will bring his treasury of knowledge about Irish folklore and placenames to a special Station House Theatre event. Meanwhile, celebrated wildlife filmmaker Doug Allen takes us under the ice with An Eye Below Zero.
Included in Clifden’s spirit of homage will be events to mark this year’s centenary of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Nuala O’Connor, among the most celebrated Irish novelists of her generation, will discuss her bestselling Nora. Also channelling Nora Barnacle will be NORAMOLLYANNALIVIALUCIA: The Muse & Mister Joyce, Curlew Theatre Company’s “Portrait of the Artist's Wife as an Older Woman”.
In a new departure for CAF, multi-award-winning filmmaker and ISA-nominated actor Tristan Heanue will premiere a specially commissioned film installation that combines Joyce, the Connemara land-scape, and world-renowned screen icon Olwen Fouéré. This not to be missed.
As always, music is the festival’s pulse, and organisers are delighted to once again welcome a wide array of tempos, styles and sensibilities to Connemara.
The Legendary Ingramees – revered as the “First Family of Gospel Music” – will bring their rousing show to town. The spectral wonders of much-touted Galway song-writing trio The Whileaways are headed to Clifden, as is the chance to step back into the golden age of jazz with the RTÉ Concert Big Band’s tribute to the timeless dream-team of Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington.
Máirin O'Connor, and Zoë Conway and John McIntyre, are among the trad and folk heroes descending on the Twelve Bens to get toes tapping, while The Drew House Band remembers the late, great Dubliners legend, Ronnie Drew.
CAF’s unique visual arts programme includes an island excursion to see the work of German artist Hanneke Frenkel, and an exhibiton by Irish fashion designer Alison Conneely specially commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund exploring justice and equality for women.
“A unique and outstanding experience... a ‘meitheal’ between artists and audience forged on a profound respect for community and belonging," says President Michael D Higgins.
Visit www.clifdenartsfestival.ie for news and the full programme.
