We continue our celebrations today with :

Songs by Maura O’ Connell (Helpless Heart) &  SÍOMHA (July Red Sky)

A Poetry reading by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (Studying The Language).

A Painting by Lilian Lucy Davidson (1879-1954) : Wicklow Goats.

A Paul Brady song sung by Maura O’Connell – it really doesn’t get any better.

Maura inhabits a song, finds its essence and then using all the considerable craft at her command sets it free to bloom in our imaginations.

There is a repertoire of traditional songs and modern folk classics that generations of Irish Women singers have returned to over and over again seeking to release and reveal the wisdom and mystery these masterworks contain.

Time after time I find it is to the Maura O’Connell versions I turn to first and last because these songs shine brightest and settle deeper in the heart when she sings them.

There is reverie and rapture here.

Reverie and rapture.

And, the video clip is enormously nostalgic!

 

 

Our painting today comes from Lilian Davidson who was born in Bray, County Wicklow.

Her work shows she was aware of movements in European Art and had secure painterly skills.

I am struck by the vivacity of the light and colour in her paintings which seem to gleam before the viewer.

In addition to her paintings she also wrote plays, poems and short stories under the name Ulick Burke.

The National Gallery of Ireland keeps her portrait of W B Yeats.

Our Poetry reading today comes from Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.

For almost half a century now she has been adding magical poems to the cairn of Irish poetry and the global word hoard.

In her poems language is thrillingly allusive and alive.

It is in the testing of thought and belief through charged engagement with language that Poetry is made.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin has said that her Poems emerge out of her desire, need, to question – Is this true? Do I really believe this? Do I really feel this?

If the Poem lives the question is answered.

Often in ways that could not have been anticipated.

True Poetry is always surprising both to the Poet and the reader.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin has written many true poems.

 

 

SÍOMHA (Brock) is, in her music, wholly Irish and wholly international.

She draws deeply on the traditions of traditional music, folk music, chanson and gypsy jazz to create an alluring synthesis.

On stage she has an energy, expertise and magnetism in her singing and guitar playing which wins and holds audiences.

We are all going to hear a lot more from SÍOMHA!

 

This post in memory of Mary O’Sullivan and Nora McElligott.

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Next Post on Thursday 14th March – don’t miss it!