Review of the Year Top Clare Arts Events 2011

Top Clare Arts Events 2011 A personal selection

Although I have travelled far in pursuit of excellent arts events, some of the best events were right on my doorstep in Clare. Here is my personal selection of the highlights of 2011. Click on the highlighted text for my review.

Music 

Best Opera   Dublin Youth Opera Co. Jukebox Opera
A company of teenage opera singers at  Ennis Friary (including Ennis native Ruth Kelly) were stunning in their Jukebox opera , Thicker than Water       

Thom Moore

 Best Songwriter Thom Moore at Island Music Club. This is tricky, on one hand  Declan O Rourke, writer of my favourite 21st century song ever brought his Mag Pai Zai tour to Glór but after some deliberation my prize goes to Thom Moore after his charming gig at Minogues, Tulla as a guest of the Island Music Club when we were reminded of how many hit songs he wrote for other performers.


Best Blues   Johnny Fean House Shakers Blues. 
Well ok.  I didn't hear very much blues and I am not  particularly a  fan but I enjoyed this gig at Shannon . In fact I heard Fean twice in 2011, the second gig with bass player Stephen Travers. If anyone could make a case for the Blues, Johnny Fean could. Catch him at his Limerick gigs

Johnny Fean

Best Trad Gig Zoe Conway John McIntyre at SMB Folk Club
A pleasure to hear unamplified music of any genre but Zoe and John McIntyre were charming at the Courthouse as guests of the Sixmilebridge Folk Club. Superb violin technique and charming songs and a mix of genres with sympathetic guitar accompaniment. An accoustic delight.

Zoe Conway, John Mc

                                                                        .







Best Ensemble: Cornets by candlelight  Ennis Brass Band
Vladimir Jablokov brought his quintet to Glor as part of the Classical Twist tour and was my favourite small ensemble of the year
There is something thrilling about the sound of brass instruments en masse and the Ennis Brass Band are a super enesemble.  Even if they were only half as good they would still be my pick. I admire very much their sense of civic duty and they remain an honest to goodness marching band getting out in all weathers to cheer  Ennis folk. Listen back to the post concert interview with PRO Darragh McAllister in my report. I was very proud to be a guest performer at their 40 th celebration concert. Long may they prosper.

Best solo artist Peggy Seeger  
Peegy Seeger , a living legend was simply extraordinary at the Courthouse as a guest of Sixmilebridge Folk Club. Witty, charming and playing a fascinating collection of instruments.

Remembering Clare's War Victims



 Armistice Day at Ennis Cathedral

                                                   

Killaloe March                                                  Ennis Brass Band  
Green Fields Of France Eric Bogle                 Sung by Bernie McNelis
Lament on uilleann pipes                                 Frank Whelan
Reading Micah 4
All People That on Earth Do Dwell               Organ  Cormac McGuinness
My Youngest Son Came Home Today             Billy Bragg  sung by                                                 
                                                                                Paula McNamara
Last Post                                                              Clodagh Power                                                     
Amazing Grace


Cure of Troy    Seamus Heaney                        read by Eleanor Feely

Wearing of the Geen                                        Ennis Brass Band     



Limerick Legion member

   Of all the stages of life, it is in leaving it that we most need the comfort of  rituals. Following on from  All Soul's Day when the  deceased of the parish were remembered*, there was a special Armistice Day service at Ennis Cathedral  remembering Clare's War Victims on 11 the November 2011.  There is no  tradition of formally commemorating  this occasion in the dioceses and this is only the 4th year of this service at Ennis Cathedral.
In our relatively peaceful age, war and it's effects  are far outside the range of experience of my generation. MC Dr. Joe Power  deputising for (Peadar McNamara) spoke about the effect of the war on family members and gave a  sense of perspective of  the impact of the war on the county.  While giving the number of war victims as circa 4000, Joe also made the chilling point that for every dead soldier, there were four who returned transformed by their injuries.  The rolling register of the war dead was displayed on a screen to uilleann pipe accompaniment and included an Arthur Considine from Clarecastle and Nurse Delia Davoreen  from Clare. 
 

Distinguished author and broadcaster, John Quinn evoked very vivid images of  a homesick poet and war victim, Francis Ledwidge both as an ordinary young boy and man but also an extraordinary one. Extraordinary indeed to think of the young poet receiving  a package containing his first published book of poetry amid the chaos of the war front. John quoted from the poet's work and letters home and also Seamus Heaney' Elegy to Ledwidge. He  drew a parallel with another broadcaster the late Cathal O Shannon who went to join the RAF at a young age .
Quinn’s acclaimed documentary on Francis Ledwidge, ‘The Helpless Child of Circumstance’, was broadcast in 1987 to mark the centenary of the poet’s birth.

The service was presided  over by Fr.Tom Hogan of Ennis  Cathedral and Rev. Bob Hanna of St Columba's Anglican Church with members of the Limerick branch of the British Legion present wearing their medals.  Clodagh Power's playing of the Last Post on cornet  perhaps best evoked the zeitgeist  of the day.
I caught up with John following the service and you can hear one of the most distinctive voices in  Irish  broadcasting in this recording.
The service was a fitting memorial for the thousands of Clare volunteers who perished or who were damaged  on European battlefields.

Broadcaster and author John Quinn comments on  Remembrance Day

HE shall not hear the bittern cry

In the wild sky, where he is lain,                                                                    

Nor voices of the sweeter birds,                                                                        

Above the wailing of the rain. 

            ************************************************************

    

 * I joined tenor Tony Murray and Nell Hanley in the organ loft on All Souls Day November 2nd.

Hymns included Abide With Me , Be not Afraid, Christ Be Beside Me. My selection on solo viola to accompany the litany of the dead was Airdi Cuain, Taimse im Chodladh, Be Still My Soul, Ag Chriost an Siol and Sliabh na mban. Always a privilige to add something to such an occasion

Carole Rumen's  Guardian article on Ledwidge   with reference to Heaney.

More photos of the event on www.ennisparish.com/gallery