Clifden Arts Festival is inviting audiences to embark on The Journey from September 17 to 28, celebrating how art and experience shape society.

This year’s festival will explore themes around memory, heritage, migration, transformation and the imagination.

Highlights will include performances by Cork’s White Horse Guitar Club, who offer a blend of Americana and Irish folk, delivering harmony and heart.

The Hothouse Flowers return with their legendary energy, while All Folk’d Up offer a lively take on traditional Irish sounds.

Leitrim’s Seamus O’Rourke will present his entertaining show, Indigestion, and “an evening of myth and magic” is promised with Tommy Tiernan and Martin Shaw, while economist David McWilliams and historian Diarmaid Ferriter will offer insights into Ireland, past and present.

Novelist Donal Ryan will be among the literary guests, while there will also be a reading with playwright Marina Carr and poet Mary O’Malley.

The Irish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Richard Egarr, will perform Water Music, featuring Deirdre McKay’s poignant Meltwater and Handel’s timeless suites.

This year’s visual arts programme is a varied one. It includes Eoin O’Malley’s stormy seascapes, painted by mouth; Kari Cahill’s fire-imbued pigment works; and Synaptic Space’s powerful outdoor performance on ageing. Japanese land artist Mayumi Nakabayashi will transform St Mary’s Chapel and Graveyard into a sanctuary of natural mandalas, inviting visitors to witness and take part in the creative process.

The schools’ programme also returns, fostering creativity in younger people in the Connemara area.

The festival continues to honour Clifden as a place where past and future meet through creativity, according to its Director Desmond Lally.

“This year, we reflect on what it means to move – through time, across place and within ourselves. The Journey is personal, collective and deeply human, and we are honoured to welcome artists whose work speaks to that shared experience.”

To keep up to date with festival developments, go to www.clifdenartsfestival.ie.

Pictured: Lainey Ash, Emily Snow and Mary Foyle, pictured at the old railway station in Maam Cross for the launch of Clifden Arts Festival highlights. PHOTO: ANDREW DOWNES, XPOSURE.