FINALLY, Limerick gains its own festival for the August bank holiday weekend with Tailteann Nua. It’s a revival of the early 20th century leagues for sport sand art to lure home the Irish diaspora, and this year, is organised as part of The Gathering.
Pic: Don Moloney / Press 2
Celebrating Irish dance, music, literature and sport, the weekend events feature set dancing workshops and céilis, storytelling and book launch, writing workshops, music, arty tours and more.
UL is the central base for activity.
The official opening will take place this Friday 2 at 4.30pm in the Pavilion Club. The Blue Monk Quartet will get the Festival off to a great start with their repertoire of jazz/ blues numbers, movie themes, ragtime, pop, classical music and some stirring original compositions.
Supported by Fáilte Ireland, this festival has attracted bookings and competition entries from overseas visitors, including a Canadian contingent of 70 Irish dancers and a number of competitors from the UK, Korea, USA, France and Spain.
The ‘Limerick Slam’ competition offers a prize of €1,000 for the best Limerick. Shortlisted entrants will be invited to perform their Limerick on Saturday August 3 where the winner will be announced and presented with the prize.
‘The Curious Story of the Limerick’, a book written by Dr Matthew Potter, local historian and writer, will be launched by Mayor Kathleen Leddin at 4pm also.
This will be followed by ‘Readings from The Well’ with Spanish poet Beatriz Villacañas, poet John Liddy and poet, novelist and translator Liam Liddy. This is the first ever translation from Madrid to Limerick of the annual literay event that is The Well.
All events will take place in the Pavilion Club, UL and everyone is welcome.
A series of creative writing workshops will be hosted by Limerick Writers’ Centre and will take place on Saturday 3. These include a creative writing workshop with poet John Liddy, a short story writing workshop with award winning storyteller, poet and playwright Fiona Clark Echlin and a workshop on How to Write a Memoir which is facilitated by Sheila Quealey. All workshops (€10 each) will take place in Plassey House.
On Sunday 4 you can take a tour of the rare books and manuscripts of the Glucksman Library at UL or opt for the Frank McCourt Museum and Angela’s Ashes tour.
Other highlights of the Tailteann Nua Festival will be a special performance by Limerick’s acoustic folk rock band Hermitage Green in The Stables Courtyard on Saturday 3 at 6pm, daily set dancing and sean nós workshops with Pat O’Dea and Mairea Casey, a Family Fun Day with storytelling with Niall de Burca, entertainment, open top tours of the campus, art tours, walking tours and more, also on Sunday.
Your dance moves polished, come along and join in the Céilís every night with the Brian Boru Céilí Band on Friday 2, the Abbey Céilí Band on Saturday 3 and the Céili Mór with the Kilfenora Céilí Band on Sunday 4. Music sessions will take place in the Tailteann Nua Festival Courtyard throughout the weekend.
The weekend festival is organised by Campus Life Services, University of Limerick headed up by Linda Stevens, with support from Fáilte Ireland as a major Gathering initiative. Tel. Festival Office on 061-234178 with enquiries or email [email protected]
