Where will you spend your evenings June bank holiday?
We have an amazing lineup for these coming evenings. As the sun hesitates to set on Mountshannon, music, words and images will fill the air.
Thursday 30 May - Mountshannon Arts Official Opening
8pm - Church of Ireland
with Poet Kerri ní Dochartaigh who will launch the Festival. Followed by
Aisling Lyons & Kseniia Rusnak
Aisling Lyons (Clare, Ireland) and Kseniia Rusnak (Ukraine) met in April 2021 through their mutual love of music, specifically the harps of their native countries. Their pairing explores the similarities between Irish and Ukrainian cultures.
An Tara (Tommy Hayes & Matthew Noone)
"not so much challenging the borders of Irish Traditional music but playing with it and expanding our senses of what’s achievable" (Folk Radio UK)
An Tara are Tommy Hayes and Matthew Noone. They explore the spaces in between the traditions of Irish music and Indian Classical music. Both regarded as pioneers on their chosen instruments and fearlessly inventive; they create a diverse yet cohesive musical experience.
Matthew Noone, an ex-indie rocker and well-known performer of the 25 stringed Indian instrument called sarode, has studied North Indian Classical music in Kolkata under Sougata Roy Chowdhury for the last twenty years. He has also developed a reputation as a performer of Irish traditional music and electroacoustic improvisation. He has collaborated with Martin Hayes, Steve Cooney, Liam O Maonlai, JIGGY and Lisa Hannigan while also releasing four solo albums of original compositions.
Bodhran player Tommy Hayes has performed and recorded with most of the great names in traditional music and beyond. He has been at the forefront of Irish music for over 30 years. He was a founding member of traditional group, Stockton’s Wing. He is considered one of the greatest bodhran players on the planet.
Friday 31 May
The Man in the Woman’s shoes
A One Man Theatre Show
Written and Directed by Mikel Murfi
Hall, Mountshannon - 8pm
€18/ €15 with wristband
Winner: Stewart Parker/ BBC Northern Ireland Radio Drama Award 2013
Winner: Writers Guild of Ireland (Zebby)
Award 2014: Best Theatre Script
Irish Times Theatre Awards: Best New Play 2013: Shortlisted
Just outside of town, cobbler Pat Farnon lives on his own, contentedly aging in the cottage in which he was reared. Join him as he walks the five miles into his “metropolis,” populated with no-necked water diviners, sporting savants, loudmouths, and preachers.
“Astonishing acting….” New York Times
“A miniature masterpiece” Times of London
Poetry Slam
Anita’s, Mountshannon - 9.30pm
Free with wristband - Booking essential - Book it
Combining performance, writing, competition and audience involvement, slam
poetry is a dynamic and engaging art form. Poet Erin Fornoff will host a showdown between poets, emerging with the inaugural Mountshannon Poetry Slam Champion.
Email fornoff@gmail.com to book your slot as there will be few limited slots available on the night.
Saturday 1 June
No One is coming
written and performed by Sinéad O’Brien
7pm - Hall, Mountshannon
€10/ €8 with wristband
No One Is Coming, embarks on an Irish National Tour this Spring 2024 after a five-star run at Edinburgh Fringe in August 2023.
“A love letter to my mother that I will never send,” No One is Coming is a dark comedy of mythical proportions about a daughter and mother’s turbulent relationship. Sinéad infuses old Irish folklore with modern day mammy issues to process her mother’s mental health struggles and their resulting estrangement.
Sinéad O’Brien’s “STORYTELLING MASTERCLASS” (To-Do List London)
“Absolutely Gripping” (ScotGay Arts)
“Mesmeric to Watch” (Corr Blimey)
“Nourishment for the Soul” (Edinburgh Festival Magazine)
I Draw Slow
Church of Ireland, Mountshannon - 8.15pm
€15/ €13 with wristband
“I Draw Slow are probably Ireland’s best exponents of the fusion of Celtic and American music.” - LONESOME HIGHWAY
I Draw Slow has been consistently redefining acoustic roots music for over ten years. Formed in Dublin Ireland, the award-winning five piece is led by siblings and songwriters Dave and Louise Holden, Adrian Hart on fiddle, Colin Derham on claw hammer banjo, Konrad Liddy on double bass. They have been together for 13 years and in that time they have released five critically acclaimed albums. Their last two albums have been released on Compass records in Nashville, one of the leading independent labels in the U.S. Their fourth, Turn Your face to the Sun went to number one in the Irish charts. They received a gold disc in 2017 from IMRO for this honour. Their music has been licenced for Film,TV and advertising and has been recorded and covered by other artists. The band appeared in a major Kerrygold butter commercial which featured one of their songs, Swans.
They are also known for their high production videos featuring actors such as Aidan Gillan(Game of Thrones) and award-winning directors Hugh O’Conor and Ronan Fox.
As well as a reputation for fine songwriting, their live shows are a unique and captivating experience with dedicated fans travelling far and wide to see them. They tour internationally and have fully established themselves on the North American acoustic music scene, touring the U.S. and Canada over 35 times since 2013 and playing all the major festivals to their loyal followingTheir latest album, I Draw Slow was released on Compass Records in September 2022.
Sunday 2 June
Sofia Andrukhovych
With readings from Sofia, and in conversation with Mountshannon-based writer Greg Dinner
5.30pm - Church of Ireland, Mountshannon
Free with wristband
Sofia Andrukhovych is a writer, translator, and publicist. She has authored seven books of prose, including Milena's Summer (2002), Old People (2003), Wives of their Husbands (2005), Salmon (2007), Felix Austria (2014), Hen Constellation (2017) and Amadoka (2020), and has translated several works by Manuela Gretkowska, Clive Staples Lewis, J.K. Rowling, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ayn Rand and Tony Judt.
Her novel Felix Austria was awarded the BBC Ukrainian Book of the Year Award in 2014 and, in 2017, was awarded the Visegrad Eastern Partnership Literary Award (VEaPLA). In 2015, she received the Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski Literary Award. In 2023, the novel Amadoka was awarded the Sholem Aleichem Prize. Her works have been translated into English, Polish, German, Czech, French, Hungarian, Serbian, and other languages.
Her latest book, Amadoka, already a sensation in Ukraine will be published in English by Simon and Schuster, who have hailed the book as a literary sensation. The work derives its title from the name of the largest lake in Europe, situated on the territory of contemporary Ukraine. The novel is not about the lake but about its disappearance, the disappearance of entire worlds and cultures, and about what remains in its place. Is there a link between World War II and the Holocaust and the destruction of the Ukrainian intelligentsia during the Stalinist repressions? What of the war Russia has raged against Ukraine, a war that began not in the 21st century, but long ago? And what of memory, collective and individual?
The Tolka Hot Club
Hall, Mountshannon - 9pm
€15/ €13 with wristband
The Tolka Hot Club are a hot swing group formed by the banks of the river Tolka on Dublin’s north side, late in 2014. The group bring a body of music from the Roaring 20’s and 30’s, from both sides of the Atlantic right into the twenty-first century, along with this the repertoire is peppered with Balkan , Latin and Turkish tunes with a few modern surprises!
All this is delivered with the lush yet percussive ambiance that only strings and reeds can provide in the hypnotic Gypsy jazz style.
Monday 3 June
The Days of Trees
after the screening there will be a Q and A with producer/subject Tomás Hardiman and writer Greg Dinner
Anita’s, Mountshannon - 5.30pm
Free with wristband - Booking essential
Director: Alan Gilsenan - Duration: 90 mins - 16 Film Cert - Parzival Productions 2023
Best Documentary ITFA award
In this highly original feature documentary, Tomás, a middle-aged film producer, embarks on a journey of discovery with his friend and colleague, film director, Alan. As they progress, we witness first handTomás’s unearthing of fresh and startling childhood happenings which had somehow eluded his memory. What follows is a profound pilgrimage towards uncovering how sporadic crises in adulthood, amidst an otherwise ‘normal’ life, had their roots in sophisticated sexual abuse by Christian Brothers in the late 1960s.
There is considerable beauty in this psychological excavation, the shadowy black and white palette lending intimacy to the unflinchingly honest testimony. This is the story of a man, not seeking vengeance, but seeking to transcend the trauma of his troubled past, ultimately finding redemption.
‘The Days of Trees’ reunites director Alan Gilsenan and producer Tomás Hardiman to complete the third in their loose trilogy with the acclaimed ‘Meetings with Ivor’ and ‘The Meeting’.