STORYTELLING NIGHT WITH TOMMY TIERNAN

Shakespeare once wrote “All the world’s a stage and all its men and women are merely players.” Tonight the Town Hall in Skibbereen will be the stage for a storytelling night with the peerless Tommy Tiernan. The multi award winning comic will be telling slightly more laid back stories than usual, folktales, parables and myth mixed in with his own flights of fancy, all pondering, in a roundabout way, the big question, why are we here? Having recently broken the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous solo show by a comedian (36 hours 15 mins) and sell out World Tours of every other county he’s hit on his current World Tours jaunt around the country (including Galway, Limerick, Cork, Mayo, Donegal, Tipperary and many more), Tiernan is currently in irresistible form.

More info on www.tommytiernan.com

PRESENT

MOBY DICK by Herman Melville.

Adapted by Conor Lovett & Judy Hegarty Lovett
Directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett
Performed by Conor Lovett
With original music composed and performed by Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh.

Skibbereen Arts Festival moves down river to the Baltimore Community Hall for this stunning stage adaptation of Herman Melville’s great American novel, Moby Dick. This is a vital one-man performance by Conor Lovett, accompanied by original music by Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh on fiddle, viola and uileann pipes. Catching both the mischievous humor and the wisdom of Ishmael’s commentary, Lovett holds audiences spellbound during this classic tale of a mythic sea monster, the vengeful Captain Ahab, and their epic ocean journey aboard The Pequod.

Nominated for Best Actor in this year’s Irish Times Theatre Awards, Lovett is best known for his solo performances of Beckett’s prose works. He and Judy Hegarty Lovett have toured with their work to over 60 cities around the world.

“This is an intensely deliberate, focused piece of work, out of which Melville’s writing emerges as the ultimate star of what is a constrained and lovely show.” ‘Sunday Business Post’

“Lovett’s capacity to hold an audience is remarkable. His voice control and subtle shifts of expression and movement seem effortless.” ‘The Guardian’

“Superb. I loved it. It was mesmerizing.” Eamon McCann (‘The View’ RTÉ TV)

This event is a fundraiser for the COPE foundation.

Written by Belfast playwright Marie Jones, ‘A Night In November’ stars award-winning actor William Lyons as Kenneth McAlister, a working-class Protestant, during a fateful night in November, 1993 in Belfast when the Republic of Ireland soccer team plays against Northern Ireland in a World Cup qualifier. As the game progresses, Kenneth finds himself watching the crowd more than the football — and exposing his Anti-Catholic bigotry.

Thought provoking and hilarious, this play has wowed audiences all around the world and is one of the best pieces of theatre written in Ireland in the past 30 years.

In 2009 William Lyons won the best actor award at the All-Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone and prior to the final had won 7 best actor awards on the festival circuit

Tom French is one of the most interesting poets to emerge in Ireland in the last few years. He was born in Kilkenny in 1966 and raised across the border in Tipperary. He received a bursary in literature from An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council, Ireland in 1999, and his fi rst collection ‘Touching the Bones’ (Gallery Press, 2001) was awarded the Forward Prize for First Collection 2002. His second collection ‘The Fire Step’ was published in October 2009. Tom will read from both collections tonight – the general theme is ‘The Things That Leave Us Breathless and Horizontal’.

LEANNE O’SULLIVAN

Leanne O’Sullivan was born in 1983, and comes from the Beara peninsula in West Cork. She received an MA in English from University College, Cork in 2006. The winner of several of Ireland’s poetry competitions, including the Seacat, Davoren Hanna and RTE Rattlebag Poetry Slam, she has published two collections, both from Bloodaxe, ‘Waiting for My Clothes’ (2004) and ‘Cailleach: The Hag of Beara’ (2009). She is the recipient of the 2009 Ireland Chair of Poetry bursary.

“What is remarkable about Leanne O’Sullivan is not that she is so young but that she dares to write about exactly what it is to be young. A teenaged Virgil, she guides us down some of the more hellish corridors of adolescence with a voice that is strong and true. For that alone, she deserves our full attention.” American Poet, Billy Collins

SKIBBEREEN IN THE 1950s

Father McCarthy, who was based in Skibbereen parish in the late 1950s and early 1960s, recorded this footage over a 3-4 year period. This is a great snapshot of life in Skibbereen and its environs at the time. This footage only recently came to light and this is an opportunity for the people of Skibbereen to view this wonderful film.

ST FACHTNA’S SILVER BAND

This is a 30min programme about St. Fachtna’s Silver Band, filmed over 2 days in Skibbereen by RTÉ circa 1980. This programme was part of a series made about Brass Bands in Ireland at the time.

LAST TRAINS

In the years 1958, 1959 & 1961 Brian Baker had the foresight to crank up his camera and capture the last days of the West Cork Railways. This has been editied down to a 13 minute short fi lm by Alan Tobin. Local band LOWmountain
have composed an original musical score for the film. Additional material can be viewed on a dvd which was produced in 2008 called ‘West Cork Railways which was edited and narrated by Brian Baker. The dvd can be purchased from Signcraft, e-mail signcraftbretby@aol.com

SÉAMUS GOODMAN …CAOMHNÓIR CEOIL

Protestant Minister, piper, Gaelic scholar and Trinity College professor; James Goodman, straddled two very different cultures in 19th century Ireland but it is the vast collection of tunes he transcribed from piper, Thomas Kennedy which James Goodman will be remembered for. Over120 years since his death, the extensive collection of traditional tunes he collected are still being consulted, read and studied by musicians and scholars today.

Produced by Dingle production company Sibeal Teo, this is the defi nitive fi lm on Canon Goodman and is an excellent introduction to his life and work. Filmed in and around Skibbereen, West Kerry and Dublin it contains insightful interviews and superb performances by Laoise Kelly, Steve Cooney, Mick O Brien, and Peter Browne among others.
This film is presented by Skibbereen Historical Society and will be introduced by local historian Jim Byrne. Jim now resides in the rectory in which Canon Goodman lived.

Wexford artist Michael Fortune presents three collections of folklore which he recorded in Mayo, Tipperary, Offaly and Wexford over the past five years. Never before have these collections been presented side by side in Ireland and this is a wonderful opportunity to immerse yourself in a world of contemporary and ancient superstition and belief.
Writing about Fortune’s solo show in Triskel Arts Centre in 2007, Sarah Tuck, Director of Create said ‘For Fortune folklore is both memory and occasion, fiction and interpretation. Fortune’s work traces and makes evident how folklore repertoire is constantly added to and how the rules of artifi ce adapt to the occasion of performance’.

Further information at www.michaelfortune.ie
Following the Whitethorn (2009)
The Fall of the Leaf (2010)
Half for You, Half for Me (2008)
MICHAEL FORTUNE
FOLKLORE
COLLECTIONS
Running time: 22 mins each.