Entertainment

Folk singer Mary Black for Seapoint show

Published

8 years ago

March 27, 2015

He might not be the first thing you’d think when you mention Mary Black, but the renowned Dublin singer recognised David Gray’s talent before he went supernova. Back in 1997, she released her version of his song Shine from his first record.

Shine mightn’t be in her set this Saturday, March 28m, but Mary Black will be celebrating her long singing career when she plays Seapoint in Salthill. This gig was originally scheduled for February, but was postponed as Mary had a chest infection.

For the last quarter-century, Mary Black has been a dominant presence in Irish music, both at home and abroad and she has shared stages, TV shows and recording studios with some of the top names in folk music. The San Francisco Chronicle described her as “one of the best interpretative singers around”.

At a time when many other performers preferred to stick to the well-known Irish ballads and select obvious hits from contemporary writers, Mary pushed the boundaries. She released numerous albums that achieved platinum-sales status and spawned countless hits. One of Mary’s albums – No Frontiers – spent more than a year in the Irish Top 30.

Mary has been mostly touring abroad in recent times and this show will give fans a chance to catch her in Galway. Doors are 8pm, and tickets are €30/€28 from roisindubh.net.

Related Topics:galway city tribune seapoint Mary Black

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Connacht Tribune

Druid’s ambitious take on O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy

Published

8 hours ago

March 23, 2023

Judy Murphy

The trilogy will be directed by Garry Hynes, with Sarah Baxter as Associate Director and Katie O'Halloran as Assistant Director.

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy, The Plough and the Stars, The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock, will be staged by Druid Theatre at this year’s Galway International Arts Festival in what the company describes as “its most ambitious production yet”.

Details of the project were announced at a launch in Druid Theatre on Monday and at the GPO in Dublin on Tuesday.

These dramas cover the turbulent years from 1916 to the Civil War, with Druid planning to weave them “into an epic theatrical event of conflict, national identity and the human toll of war”.

Directed by the company’s Artistic Director, Garry Hynes, the three plays will be performed together in one day, “drawing parallels between an Irish past and an international present”. There will also be a limited number of single-play performances.

What’s being billed as ‘DruidO’Casey’ will begin with The Plough and the Stars. It’s the story of newly married couple, Jack and Nora Clitheroe, living in a Dublin which is on the brink of rebellion in 1916.

In The Shadow of a Gunman, Donal Davoren, Seumas Shields and Minnie Powell find themselves tragically caught up in the Irish War of Independence. Finally, in Juno and the Paycock the Boyle family see their fortunes dashed amid the trauma of the Civil War.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Connacht Tribune

Electricty EP sees Ellard pen some powerful songs

Published

8 hours ago

March 23, 2023

Cian O'Connell

Derek Ellard...new EP out next month.

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

A self-titled EP from Galway-based three-piece Derek Ellard & the Future Business Model is set for release next month, and each of its five tracks are likely to contain the hallmarks of the group’s sound – a jangly, ethereal dissonance that plays out to be at once challenging and poignant in its resolution. The second single from the EP, Electricity, arrives on March 24.

Derek is a songwriter who places huge emphasis on prosody and narrative. With February’s Three Sheets to the Wind, he invoked plenty of nostalgia with stories of his childhood and his relationship with his brother. Electricity presents a love story to his wife, built around images of energy sources and a simile-heavy writing style.

“The story behind this is from whenever the last decent weather was – last summer maybe,” Derek explains.

“My lovely wife came in and she had a big red head on her from running around outside and she said, ‘I think I might be solar powered’. I wrote it down in my notebook and literally that night, me and a friend of mine were trying to write songs with just E major, trying to do the least amount of chords possible. It didn’t end up like that but it’s how it all started.

“The lyrics just kind of ran out of me – every line is a simile to do with electricity and being powered. It was a little writing exercise because I wanted to see if I could knock out a few tunes in just a couple of days to stay limber. It just flew out of me and it’s always nice when those ones happen.

“Electricity was just one of those things where I was messing around with lines and laughing away, and it was all light-hearted. Next thing you know then it was done.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.

CITY TRIBUNE

Artists encouraged to enjoy great outdoors at weekend of plein-air painting in Kinvara

Published

6 days ago

March 17, 2023

Our Reporter

Outdoor urban artist Róisín Curé will be among the tutors for the June Bank Holiday weekend. Here she has captured a Kinvara scene.

A weekend of plein-air painting will take place in Kinvara in early June. The not-for-profit community arts event is being organised by members of the Kinvara Area Visual Artists (KAVA) group and will be led by experienced artists and teachers

Over the Bank Holiday weekend, participants will gather to explore the beauty and culture of the village and surrounding areas, including Thoor Ballylee and the Burren.

The tutors are Steve Browning, Geraldine Walsh, Róisín Curé and Mavis Gormally, who will provide seven full-day workshops in three different locations.

These are suitable for artists who work in oil, acrylic or watercolour. There will also be an exhibition space where participants can show work completed over the weekend. People can also engage in informal paint-outs and enjoy social activities and local attractions.

Steve Browning’s workshops in oils and acrylics will take place in Kinvara Village and the Burren. Steve, who is originally from the UK, initially worked as an art director in London and Dublin. He began painting at weekends, before becoming a fulltime artist. His work has been shown in London, at the Royal Hibernian Academy, and the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts in Belfast. It’s in collections in the UK, USA and Ireland. He has won prizes at the Dublin Plein Air Festival and Wexford’s Art in the Open Festival and has also been a finalist in the prestigious Plein Air Magazine of America’s annual art competition for three years in a row, winning the best acrylic painting award in 2022.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

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