THE POET Cathal Ó Searcaigh is due to perform at the Earagail Arts Festival in Co Donegal tonight but without the fiddler Tommy Peoples, as had been previously advertised.
Peoples said he had not been told he would be sharing a stage with Ó Searcaigh or that the event was part of the Earagail Arts Festival, although he had agreed to play in the venue, Maggie Dan’s in Gortahork.
Asked if he withdrew because of Ó Searcaigh’s involvment, he said: “I’m not even given the option of making the choice myself. The choice was made for me. I certainly have a problem with that.”
Peoples said he outlined this in a letter to festival promoter Paul Brown on June 15th.
Brown said Peoples name was immediately removed from the website. A message posted on the festival’s blog on Wednesday said Peoples would not be performing “due to circumstances beyond our control”. It said inquiries should be directed to the promoter, who it names as Milo Butler.
Brown said the issue was between the promoter of the event and the artist and he was awaiting the outcome of that.
Butler, who is the owner of Maggie Dan’s, said he received a letter from Peoples’ solicitor “which stated that Mr Peoples does not intend to proceed with the contract to perform”.
Ó Searcaigh said: “I don’t want to get involved in it. That’s up to Tommy. I had nothing to do with the selection of Tommy – I wasn’t even aware of it until I saw it in the Earagail Arts Festival brochure. I admire his playing.”
Meanwhile, Ó Searcaigh said some of the participants in a controversial documentary about him, Fairytale of Kathmandu, had appointed a lawyer in Ireland.
David Rane and his partner Neasa Ní Chianáin made Fairytale of Kathmandu, which raised questions about Ó Searcaigh’s relationship with young men in Nepal. It was broadcast on RTÉ last year.
The hour-long film’s central argument was that Ó Searcaigh’s relationships with young men, though not illegal, were exploitative due to the disparity of power between them.
“Many of the participants in that documentary are absolutely outraged about how they were used and they are now taking legal action,” Ó Searcaigh said.
“They have appointed a lawyer in Ireland to take up their case.”
Poet Paddy Bushe recently made The Truth about Kathmandu, which he said showed Ó Searcaigh had been falsely depicted as an exploitative sex tourist in Fairytale of Kathmandu.
Rane said he had not yet seen The Truth about Kathmandu. It features Narayan Pant, who also participated in Fairytale of Kathmandu.
Rane said he understood the new film claimed Mr Pant “was intimidated, bribed and given rehearsed questions and answers in the interview that he did with Neasa Ní Chianáin”.
Rane denied that this was the case. “I would like to put the record straight on this, as these are very serious and defamatory allegations, and this is clearly an attempt to discredit Neasa and her film, and to damage her reputation, and the reputation of my company, Vinegar Hill Productions.”
Rane said unedited transcripts of Mr Pant’s original interview were available.
However, Bushe said he was being accused of things he had not said. Mr Pant’s accusation was that a hotel manager coached and intimidated him. There was no accusation that a bribe was paid, he said.
During Bushe’s voice-over of his 20-minute film, he said the young people he had spoken to in Kathmandu felt exploited. “Their anger, however, was not directed at Cathal Ó Searcaigh but at Fairytale of Kathmandu, which they felt abused their goodwill, their co-operation and their legal rights.”
Bushe said he left Nepal convinced “that the accusation that Cathal is an exploitative sex tourist is a lie”.
Bushe added that he believed “both Vinegar Hill Productions and RTÉ themselves stand accused of exploiting the young Nepalese people without whom there would have been no film”.
An RTÉ spokeswoman reiterated the State broadcaster’s support for the film. “We absolutely stand over the film Fairytale of Kathmandu. It was made to rigorous journalist standards and we stand over its integrity.”
Ó Searcaigh has previously described Fairytale of Kathmandu as a “salacious, tabloid piece of work” which did him a “great injustice”.
