Coole Park will host a number of events this weekend as part of its celebration of Tree Week.
Coole Trees in Spring will take place on Sunday March 14, with guided walks of the park by NPWS guide Áine O’Loughlin, who will discuss the history of the park’s trees from Lady Gregory’s time to the present day. This event will take place from 2.30pm to 4pm.
The Gringo Stars will perform a concert of Mexican music at Coole from 4pm to 5pm on the same day. American fiddle player Frank Hall (Moonshine, Higglers, Buffalo in the Castle ) has gathered a tasteful repertoire of old Mexican folk tunes and brought together well-known Galway musicians Paul Gunning (accordion, Máimín Cajun, Fantango ), Johnny Moynihan (Sweeney's Men, De Danann, Planxty, and Moonshine ), Peter Brazier (guitar, Cafe Kinvara, Fantango, Ain't Misbehavin' ), and John Martin (Boucherie, Máimín Cajun Band ) to form The Gringo Stars. The band bring to life Mexican based roots music from the sweet and lively twin harmony fiddles of orquestas de cuerdas (traditional string bands ) to the pulsating folk accordions of Tex-Mex border music. Singing en Español, and backing the music with guitarron and bajo sexto, The Gringo Stars deliver a varied and engaging mix of upbeat, dramatic, and enchanting listening and dance music with a healthy dose of fun and sun.
There has been a great attendance at the ‘Reading and Understanding the Landscape’ course. The course, which is funded by Galway Rural Development, offers a detailed study into the layers of the landscape. This course is a guiding template for landscape mapping throughout Co Galway.
Today (Thursday ), Elaine O’Riordan, project manager with the Galway County Biodiversity Project, will discuss ‘Biodiversity and the Landscape’. The final lecture in the series will take place on Monday March 15, with a discussion of ‘Printed Sources and the Landscape’ by Miriam Moffitt, lecturer in local history studies at NUI Maynooth.
All events in the Coole Park Spring 2010 programme are free.
