Organised by the traditional singer Padraigin Ni Uallachain and funded by the Arts Council, the annual event O Bheal Go Beal will be held today in Mullaghbawn, Co Armagh.
The intention is to bring together poetry, sean-nos singing and traditional music, creating an unusually diverse evening's entertainment. The venue will be the well-known Mullaghbawn folk club, The Stray Leaf. Padraigin Ni Uallachain (who will also act as host for the evening) explains: "It makes for a good, varied night. Besides, if I were to bring up a few top poets to perform you'd probably have an audience of about 15 people - the same would apply to seannos. But when you mix them together you get a full house, so audiences are going out to hear something they wouldn't normally hear."
The line-up for this, the fourth year of O Bheal Go Beal, includes poet Paula Meehan, Scots-Gaelic singer Mary Smith, fiddler Seamus McGuire and Garry O Briain, who plays guitar, mandocello and keyboards. adraigin Ni Uallachain emphasises that this is a bilingual event, not one exclusively concerned with Irish, and in keeping with this she has chosen Dublin poet Paula Meehan, who writes in English and whose work often takes music as a central theme.
Mary Smith, adraigin Ni Uallachain explains, is "a seannos singer from the Isle of Lewis, off the Scottish Highlands. There's a common musical tradition between the Highlands of Scotland and the North of Ireland." Smith is also a frequent visitor to Ireland. Seamus McGuire (no relation to Sean) is a highlyregarded fiddler who also works as a paediatrician in Letterkenny Hospital, Co Donegal. He will be accompanied by Garry O Briain, known both as a musician and a producer.
O Bheal Go Beal, together with an annual autumn singing festival and the success of The Stray Leaf, has placed the small, rural village of Mullaghbawn firmly on the artistic map. And now there is the prospect of a further development through Ti Chulainn, an umbrella organisation for various cultural groups in the area. This organisation recently got Government funding in the region of £1 million for the construction of a Cultural Activity Centre in Mullaghbawn. The centre, which is due for completion by next autumn, will include a restaurant, theatre, and art gallery. Hence, Padraigin hopes that it will act as a venue for O Bheal Go Beal in future years and that it will also make it possible to expand the event over several days.
O Bheal Go Bheal runs today at Ti Chualainn, an, Mullaghbawn, Co Armagh. Contact (08) 01693 888135