For two weeks each summer the streets of West Ireland’s capital city, Galway, come alive with music and performances. From July 17-31, over 400 writers, artists, performers and musicians from Australia, Europe and North America, as well as Ireland, invade the city for the Galway Arts Festival. The 28-year-old festival – Ireland’s largest and most prestigious arts festival – is a vital showcase for Irish and as well as international arts. Regarded as one of Europe’s key cultural events, the festival has an attendance of over 100,000 people each year, and provides a significant contribution to the economic, social and cultural life of the west of Ireland. Reflecting the Festival’s commitment to staging ambitious and innovative projects, the 2006 repertoire will include many works by Irish performers and playwrights. Among the most notable is the world premiere of a new play by young up and coming playwright Stuart Carolan, which will be directed by the Tony Award winning ar
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What does it take for people to forget the past and live in the moment? According to the members of the Cross-Border Orchestra of Ireland, putting the past behind them requires no more than getting a bunch of enthusiastic kids from both sides of the border together and teaching them to play music they enjoy.
While it may seem idealistic to believe that centuries of conflict can be laid to rest in a moving rendition of “Danny Boy,” attending a performance by the Cross-Border Orchestra of Ireland is enough to convert any skeptic. Conceived in 1995, the orchestra was formed by schoolteacher Sharon Tracey-Dunne. Inspired by the new era of peace in Ireland, Dunne sought to undertake an artistic venture that would further good relations between the North and South.
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Professor Declan Kiberd, UCD School of English and Drama, speaking about Edna O’Brien. UCD awarded O’Brien the Ulysses Medal in 2006.
To start the New Year off right, we bring you our “Arts Special” issue, featuring a plethora of interviews (and feathers in the case of hatter Philip Treacy), books, movies, and music. For what better way to while away the winter hours than by listening to some good music, reading a book or watching a great film or two?
Join NetFlicks or visit your local video store and rent any movie that features Brendan Gleeson (see Lauren Byrne’s interview page 58) and you will not be disappointed. For other movie favorites with Irish themes, and recipes to enjoy them with, read Edythe Preet’s Sláinte column (page 70).
By Bridget English, Contributor
In his latest novel,
Zoli, Dublin-born Colum McCann proves that part of his talent as a writer lies in his ability to imagine and capture the lives of the forgotten and oppressed.
Colum McCann doesn’t write about what he knows. That, he insists, would involve sitting in the study of his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, surrounded by books and family photos, staring at the painting that hangs above his desk and writing about middle-class life. Instead the Dublin-born author does just the opposite: he focuses on what he wants to know more about. McCann’s pursuit of knowledge has led him to some unusual and decidedly non-middle-class places, notably into the subway tunnels of New York for his novel