On The Town:There was rí rá agus ruaille buaille at Temple Bar's Oliver St John Gogarty pub this week at the launch of the Temple Bar Trad festival, writes Fiona McCann.
With musicians Andy Leighton, James Kiely, Barra McAllister and Ros McVeigh providing the ceol, it was up to the assembled crowd of festival participants, trad fans and locals to look after the craic.
To help out in that department, broadcaster Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh was on hand to kick-start what he termed "the gathering period" in advance of the five-day festival. "It's the type of event you couldn't visualise 10 years ago: traditional Irish music in the dead centre of Temple Bar in Dublin. If somebody had suggested that 10 or 15 years ago, people would have said 'you're dreaming'," he said, adding that he was particularly drawn to the lively and casual nature of traditional music.
Martin Hart, general manager of TASCQ, the organisation of Temple Bar traders behind the festival, which is now in its third year, says it offers something for all ages and tastes. "We have something for everyone: adult and children's storytelling, live music concerts, pipe bands, street theatre, from the young to the old, from the free to the not-so-free, from the street to the pub."
This year, Temple Bar Trad's patron is actor Stephen Rea, who expressed his regret at missing out on the launch in a DVD clip, reminding those who had made it that Oliver St John Gogarty, after whom the launch venue was named, had himself won a medal for poetry in the 1920 Olympic Games, reinforcing the pub's link with the country's cultural history.
Fiddler Niamh Ní Charra, former member of the Riverdance troupe, was impressed by the programme, which brings together some of the most highly regarded traditional musicians in the country. "A lot of the names involved are the purest names, but not necessarily the most commercial. It's a huge honour to be in the programme with them," she said.
For the festival's concert programmer, Finbar Boyle, the event has become increasingly significant due to the audience it reaches. "The festival is important for traditional music in the sense that it gives it a stage in the capital city, a national profile. People travel to it from all over Ireland and abroad," he said.
As if to mark how far traditional music has come from its flat cap and pint of stout image, those in attendance at the launch were instead served wine and canapés, with glasses of Bushmills, the event's official sponsor, also circulating among the revellers, who included broadcaster Leo Enright and Ken Allan, commercial director of Diageo in Ireland.
The festival boasts a packed programme, with Dónal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Julie Fowlis and Tommy Peoples among the musicians convening in the capital for the event. As Ó Muircheartaigh put it while waving the programme at the assembled guests: "How about that for a match programme? All the All Stars are present."
Temple Bar Trad takes place in various venues from Jan 23 to 27
Picturing Tehran and Donegal
The contrasting landscapes of Iran and Donegal provided much of the inspiration for artist Ann Quinn's exhibition, Autumn in Middle East, Summer in West, which opened in Dublin's Cross Gallery this week.
Speaking at the opening, the 29-year-old artist said that while both places were extremely different, each left a mark on her creative consciousness. "They were like chalk and cheese really," she said.
Paying tribute to the "breathtaking landscape" she encountered in Iran, she also said that her time as artist-in-residence at Glenveagh National Park in Co Donegal last summer had a lasting impact. "It left some sort of fingerprint on me," she admitted, a fingerprint that is clearly visible in the work that went on public display for the first time on Thursday.
Also at the opening, Carmel Kelly of Friends of the National Collections of Ireland said she was particularly enamoured with the skies depicted, which have been a theme in Quinn's work for a number of years. "I love her skies. I'm very keen on skies and her skies are so interesting, and the silhouettes are really beautiful," she said.
Tony Strickland, curator of Art Ambulance, a 1973 Ford Custom Ambulance that travels with art to festivals around the country, was also impressed by the 12 works on show in the exhibition. "I love the natural quality to them and there's a mysticism in the ones in Tehran that comes across," he said.
Painter Mary Noonan, currently completed a master's at NCAD, said she was particularly taken by the way the artist had used the Cross Gallery space to display her work. "It's so sparsely hung it focuses your attention more," she said of one particular room dominated by three striking paintings.
The opening was also attended by artist Gillian Lawler, architect Paul Quilligan, and Quinn's boyfriend, artist Alex Conway.
Autumn in Middle East, Summer in West runs at the Cross Gallery, Dublin, until Feb 2
DanceHouse do goes with a swing
Better known, perhaps, for their rhythm, dozens of dancers nonetheless showed their aptitude for melody when they joined voices to sing "Happy Birthday to DanceHouse" as the home of Dance Ireland celebrated its first birthday this week.
As glasses were raised in one of the building's spacious northside studios, Liz Roche, who is chairwoman of Dance Ireland, said the first year on Foley Street has been "a really exciting time and we've been really lucky in the support of the community. We have a home now." Dance Ireland chief executive Paul Johnson then called for a toast to the base for dance in Dublin.
Arts Council chairwoman Olive Braiden addressed the throng of dance enthusiasts and practitioners, paying tribute to those who had put DanceHouse firmly on the map of the capital's arts world, and to the dancers present, who she said she could easily pick out of the crowd by their wonderful posture. "In DanceHouse we are celebrating not just the success of a much-needed resource, but an idea whose time has come," she said.
Dancer Megan Kennedy, who was joined at the event by Coiscéim's Philippa Donnellan, said DanceHouse was an essential resource for dancers in Ireland, who had been a long time waiting for a place in which to work and exchange ideas. "This is hugely important, and of unspeakable value to the dance community and to Ireland in general. We've been eagerly anticipating this building for 10 years," she said.
For choreographer Cindy Cummins, who was recently elected to Aosdána, the existence of DanceHall shows the changing attitudes towards dance as an art form within this country. "This is a manifestation of that change. We now have a physical space where we can practise and develop what we do. I think it's very exciting." Cummins, who is currently putting the finishing touches to a new installation piece that she has been working on with American composer and artist Todd Winkler, said the presence of so many dancers at the event was also a tribute to their determination to continue to practise their art even when there was no space for them to do so.
"I look around and see all of these people who could easily have given up on what they wanted to do because there was no place to practise, but they continued in the hope that this place would come," she said.
Also in attendance at the celebration were Katherine Lewis, artistic director of Irish National Youth Ballet; Robert Connor of Dance Theatre of Ireland; Culture Ireland's Eugene Downes; Rachel Goode of the Goode School of Dance; and Willie White, artistic director of the Project Arts Centre.
Painted parables draw them in
'It's like this person's maturity is giving us these parables about life from an older perspective," commented artist Fergal McCarthy at the opening of a new exhibition by septuagenarian artist Patrick Hall. Fifty years into his painting career, Hall's interest in the exploration of the metaphysical come to the fore in recent works like Yellow Mountain and The Eagle of Courage, pieces that form part of this latest exhibition at Dublin's Green on Red Gallery.
It was clear from the presence of so many young artists that Hall's work still has huge relevance to an emerging generation of artists in Ireland. For artist Niall de Buitléar, who is mounting his own show in the Lab on Dublin's Foley Street next month, Hall's work from 10 and 20 years ago has a particular draw for him. "I'm a fan of his stuff from the eighties and early nineties. There's a visceral quality that appeals," he said.
Also at the opening, Toby Dennett, head of artist support at the Arts Council, said he was a great admirer of Hall, who studied in London and lived in Spain for some years before returning to his native Ireland in 1974. "The imagery is very intriguing, and there's a sensitivity in the smaller drawings," he said.
Architect Des McMahon, whose firm Gilroy McMahon was recently appointed to design the replacement for Liberty Hall in Dublin, was also at the launch, where he paid tribute to the artist and the collection of works on show. "There's a wonderful synthesis of meaning, of the overt meaning and the deeper connotations of the subject, and they're all coming perfectly together in his work," said McMahon.
Temple Bar trader Tom Blake found a lot to take in as he perused the paintings. "I'm quite impressed, there is so much in his art, and it's quite intense in its own way," he said.
Enrique Juncosa, director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and Jerome O'Drisceoil, director of the Green on Red Gallery, were also present.
The Patrick Hall exhibition runs at the Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, until Feb 2