Entertainment
Tackling Ireland’s woes with satire and songs
Arts Week with Judy Murphy
Satirist, musician and all-round thinking person Paddy Cullivan has a song in his new show that compares the Irish soccer team to the IRA, because they were more active in the 1990s than they are now and because they give 90 minutes’ notice before they plan any attack.
What really annoys him is that the current head of the FAI, John Delaney is getting paid north of €350,000 a year while Ireland’s soccer supporters are being fed a diet of past glory. Not good enough, he says.
Galway-born Paddy, who is known for his work on Callan’s Kicks, Funny Friday with Joe Duffy, the Kilkenomics Festival and Leviathan Political Cabaret, will bring the multi-media show, Solutionism, to Galway next Thursday night, October 8.
In just 90 minutes, using song, chat and images, he will offer 50 solutions to Ireland’s ongoing social, political and economic woes and offer ideas for a more equal society.
“It’s about taking the clichés we are told by the establishment, taking them apart and showing the solutions,” he explains. Many of these are radical.
‘Fire every public servant and re-hire the good ones’ is one, while ‘Re-roof Ireland’ is another. One that many of us might enjoy is the proposal that ‘All politicians should live on the street for a week’. Less popular, in Galway anyway, Paddy reckons, is his proposal that ‘Ireland must take a year off alcohol’.
The show will begin and end with a song – there’ll be six in total – and will have lots of imagery throughout, as well as many references to Paddy’s home city of Galway.
The famous film, Ryan’s Daughter, shot in Kerry in the late 1960s, will be invoked, as Paddy discusses how a village built as a film-set was later demolished – the only building left standing was a schoolhouse. That’s now a popular tourist attraction. But its roof blew off in a storm last January. Locals would like to see it fixed, but the schoolhouse is owned by Tony Ryan’s family, who have no interest in repairing it.
This could serve as a metaphor for Ireland, Paddy feels.
Firstly, if we reroofed all the unfinished estates, we’d have houses for homeless people. And on a larger scale, “we need to stop letting the rain in on Ireland, while money is seeping out and, more importantly, people are seeping out”.
Behind the quick humour– and he promises there’ll be plenty of that in Solutionism – Paddy is angry and upset about the state of Ireland. And he’s concerned that we seem to be sleepwalking our way back to the behaviour that caused the economic collapse of 2008.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell
Aileen Henderson has long been one of Galway’s most talented session vocalists, performing and recording with a huge variety of acts around the country. Her ability as a singer across styles and genres has seen her front an Irish tour featuring collaborators of Vulfpeck and the Bay City Rollers. And at times, the fullness of her performing schedule has made it difficult to focus on her original material – but that has started to change.
Last June, Aileen released her debut single, Lights Out – a refined, hook-heavy country pop effort that spelled the perfect introduction to her sound.
And its successor arrived last month. Just What I Need is anthemic, guitar-driven pop music that showcases the best of Aileen’s vocal style and ability to manipulate melody. She explains that arriving at this form of songwriting was about expanding her range and ultimately returning to the music she knows best.
“It’s very pop driven but also has country elements,” Aileen argues.
“I feel like that [sums up] my style perfectly at the moment. It’s quite straightforward – a love song that tells the story of a chaotic world where the only thing that’s needed is the company of a loved one. You could call it romanticist or however you want to interpret it.
“I’m inspired by a lot of country artists like Dolly Parton and Shania Twain, but I do listen to a very broad range of music. My Spotify is very random from Billie Eilish to Andrea Bocelli. I always played country music up until I was about 16 I’d say, and then I decided this is just not cool at all and I stopped for a while.
“I remember getting really into Katy Perry and trying to fit into that kind of style, and then I went to music college in BIMM. That definitely diverted me from country music for a while.”
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Arts Week with Judy Murphy
A range of arts organisations, including Bealtaine, the Polish Arts Festival, Brú Theatre and the Town Hall Theatre, will join forces from Thursday, April 28, to Saturday, May 6, to present work at the 14th annual Galway Theatre Festival.
The diverse productions will include drama, children’s theatre, comedy and workshops.
At the launch of the 2023 Festival in Druid’s Mick Lally Theatre on Tuesday evening, its Creative Director Aoife Noone said the event “offers something for everyone”, with audience being encouraged to “take a chance on something new and unexpected”.
She called on people to “explore new perspectives, challenge assumptions, and broaden our understanding of the world” via the festival, which, post-Covid, is celebrating “hope, resilience and the arts”.
Productions will include Conversations After Sex by THISISPOPBABY, winner of the Best New Play award at the 2021 Irish Theatre Awards; The Patient Gloria by Pan Pan, winner of the Scotsman Fringe First Award and Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; and The Examination by Brokentalkers, an award-winning production that explores mental health and human rights in the prison system.
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.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
After more than four decades of performing on stage, the Tuam-based Marian Choral Society are embarking on their latest challenge, with plans to stage Evita in the autumn.
While they have announced details of the new production, they have yet to ringfence a cast for the epic. Auditions will take place over the coming weeks.
Chairperson Stuart Barrows told The Tribune that it was an exciting challenge for the group and expressed his delight that so many new members had joined the society.
The Marian Choral Society welcome back Ronan Lardner as Director for Evita, as well as Shane Farrell as Musical Director. And Jay Molyneux is on board for the first time as Choreographer for this production.
The musical will run from Tuesday, October 31, to Saturday, November 4, and will be staged in St Jarlath’s College Hall, Tuam.
The Marian Choral Society had never missed an annual production since their formation back in 1977 – until Covid struck. The pandemic meant that they had to abandon their plans for a couple of years – similar to other artistic groups.
Covid brought to an end a proud record of 43 consecutive productions, during which time they never missed a year. In fact, in 2013, they embarked on two shows to mark Tuam’s 400 celebrations.
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.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. 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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