The Western Writers Centre

Poet Colette Nic Aodha, who participated with us in the Arts Council-sponsored Touring Experiment some time back, had a goodly crowd in attendance at Galway’s Aras na nGael today when she launched her new collection, Ainteafan, published by Coiscéim. There was lively Irish trad music as a backdrop in the crowded hall, and, as well as the Western Writers’ Centre snapper there was publisher and poet, Micheál O Conghaile, whose new play, Go dTaga do Ríocht, is due to be performed during Galway Arts festival at An Taibhdhearc, Galway, and poet Rita Ann Higgins, reps from Galway’s Crannóg magazine; poets, scribblers, assorted scribes. The sun came out, which is a sort of miracle in itself these days in the West of Ireland!

-and a hearty welcome to you, too! : Colette Nic Aodha with American poet and lecturer, Quincy R. Lehr, at Aras na nGael, Galway.

Coiscéim may be contacted at www.coisceim.ie

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First produced during the Western Writers’ Centre’s The Forge at Gort literary festival, a slimmed down version of Margaretta D’Arcy and John Arden’s play on the 1831 Vandeleur co-operative venture at Ralahine took to the road yesterday, when players and a group of visiting students to Limerick University went to the site of the co-operative and then on to Cloughjordan to hear a performance of the show. There was music, mirth, lots of rain and even burst of warm sunshine attending the strolling players. The re-telling of Ralahine moves to Inisheer, the smallest of the Aran Islands, for one performance only on July 13th at the Áras Eanna Centre there.

- entrancing at the crossroads: (l-r) Western Writers’ Centre Company Secretary and musician, Sylvia Crawford; Finn Arden; writer Mark Kennedy; playwright Margaretta D’Arcy; (behind her) playwright and novelist John Arden, at the entrance to the site of the original Ralahine project in Co. Clare.

- at a crossroads: (l-r) Donncha O’Faolain, John Arden, Margaretta D’Arcy, and Sinéad O Faolain

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