Entertainment
Westport exerts magic despite weaker line-up
Spectacular sunshine and an extremely friendly atmosphere combined to ensure that the third annual Westport Festival of Music and Food proved to be a huge success last weekend.
Although this year’s festival failed to match the magic of the phenomenal line-up featured in its inaugural year, there was enough variety on offer to ensure it was a hugely enjoyable experience for the 15,000 punters – 3,000 up on last year – who flocked to the Co Mayo town.
With greater planning in the layout of the six stages around Westport House, and an increasing emphasis on family-friendly events, the balmy weather proved to be the icing on the cake for those who came along to enjoy the mixture of music, cookery demonstrations, comedy and food.
The pristine grounds of Westport House proved to be a big hit throughout the three years of the festival, even if the line-ups have been visibly weaker in 2013 and 2014.
Not that fans of Bryan Adams or Kool and The Gang were complaining when the 1980s American rock star and disco kings brought the festival to a close on Sunday night.
Earlier, an emotional Sinéad O’Connor provided one of the genuine highlights of the festival when she won over the main stage with a 75 minute set in the sunshine. Playing a mixture of old and new tracks, Sinead underlined why she is considered one of the best Irish songwriters of the past 25 years.
Other highlights on Sunday came from African act Tinariwen, on the main stage, and a superb set by 1980s ska band The Selecter who rocked the Marquee Stage. Later, Kíla, Mundy, and festival veterans Bell X1 provided some top class home grown entertainment on the same stage.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune
Actor Aedín Moloney will bring her one-woman performance, Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom, to the city’s Town Hall Theatre next Tuesday, May 30.
Aedín adapted this piece from the Penelope chapter in James Joyce’s Ulysses in collaboration with Irish author, Colum McCann who, like her is based in New York. The music for the show, in which she journeys into the mind and heart of Molly, was especially recorded by Aedín’s father, Paddy Moloney. The founder and leader of The Chieftains, he died in 2021.
In the early hours of June 17, 1904, Molly Bloom’s husband – the philandering Leopold ‘Poldy’ – has just come home and fallen asleep.
With an empty nest, an unfulfilling affair and a marriage long past its prime, Molly embarks on a stream of consciousness journey as she contemplates the love that she and Bloom once shared.
She seeks to reanimate that love and ends up discovering herself as a woman seeking purpose and a desire to be relevant, even after their love is over and her children are gone.
Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom was named winner of the Outer Critics Circle Award for best solo performance when it premiered in New York.
The project has been more than 20 years in the making.
“I’ve been fascinated by Ulysses since my youth, and after 30 years of exploring the character’s depths, it was Colum McCann who inspired me to turn those musings into reality,” Aedín explains.
She began working on the adaptation in 2003 and recorded the full monologue with music by her father in 2017. Colum McCann partnered with her to complete the adaptation in 2019.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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Some of the greatest hard rock and blues ever recorded will be heard at the Róisín Dubh this Saturday, May 27, when No Stairway, Ireland’s leading Led Zeppelin tribute band, play two shows at the city’s Dominick Street venue.
There’s an ‘All Ages’ show at 4pm and an evening show at 8pm.
Based in Galway and made up of four of the city’s finest musicians, No Stairway have a passion for this music and recreate Zeppelin’s live presence and studio albums as faithfully as possible.
Vocalist Steven Sharpe is a devotee of Robert Plant, describing the singer as his “spirit animal”. His vocal range can pay homage to Plant’s high notes, passion, sensitivity and swagger.
Guitarist Ronan O’Malley who takes on Jimmy Page’s role, is versatile and gifted and capable of delivering monumental riffs. Shane O’Malley (bass/keys) in the multitasking role of John Paul Jones, is at the heart of the group, keeping things tight and grounded.
Drummer John Tierney, who will be performing in John Bonham percussive style, is the founder of the Rhythm Drum School and has worked as a drummer for 30 years.
The band was founded in 2013 and has been winning fans countrywide since.
This Saturday’s ‘All Ages’ show is from 4-5pm (doors 3.30pm) and the evening show is at 8pm.
A family ticket is €30 while under-18s can use the code UNDER18 for €6 tickets. Single tickets are available at roisindubh.net.
The kindness that Gerry Mulholland (Jarír Al-Majar) had shown to so many people during his seven decades on this earth was repaid to him by strangers when he collapsed on Mary Street in Galway City on Friday, April 28.
Two young medics who were on the street went to his help and performed CPR until an ambulance arrived. Their act kept him alive and meant his family had 12 extra days with him until his death in UHG on Wednesday, May 10.
At his reposal in O’Flaherty’s Funeral Parlour on Saturday, May 13, Gerry’s twin sister Breda thanked those medics, in a moving and occasionally humorous eulogy. She spoke of the lifelong bond between Gerry and herself and of rescuing him on occasions when his principles got him into trouble.
She spoke of the beautiful, fun boy he had been, growing up in Salthill, and the unbreakable connection they’d had since childhood.
And she spoke of his central role in the life of his family – first of his siblings, then his nephews and nieces, and more recently the next generation again.
Gerry and Breda had discussed the type of funeral he wanted, and it was to be a celebration with no black worn and with music from the many friends who had been touched by his own musical talent through the years.
Among them was bouzouki player and Clare FM presenter Eoin O’Neill who had observed on social media that when Gerry played the piano in Tigh Neachtain (which he did with great regularity), “he had an energy that took over the room”.
For more, read this week’s Galway City 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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