The Galway Music Residency presents Soprano Deirdre Moynihan & Guitarist Alec O'Leary in Concert at Galway City Library

The Galway Music Residency will kick-off its new Guest Residency Programme with Deirdre Moynihan, soprano and Alec O’Leary, guitar in June at its popular concert series – Lunchtime @ The Library.
Deirdre and Alec will perform a programme featuring Early Music pieces and Spanish Songs by John Dowland, Philip Rosseter, Antonio Ruiz-Pipó and Frederico Garcia Lorca. The performance takes place on Tuesday, June 1st at 1:10 p.m. at The Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street. The concert is free and all are welcome!

Deirdre Moynihan last performed in Galway in April at the launch of The Galway Music Residency with its ensemble-in-residence – ConTempo Quartet. As a soprano soloist she has performed with many orchestral, choral, operatic and chamber music groups both on the international stage and throughout Ireland. Deirdre has also recently performed as a soloist with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, The Irish Chamber Orchestra, The Crash Ensemble and The National Chamber Choir of Ireland.

Widely regarded as one of the foremost guitarists of his generation, Alec O’Leary studied guitar with Irish virtuoso John Feeley at the Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama. Alec is founder and director of Europe's most prestigious guitar festival, the Waltons Guitar Festival of Ireland and plays regularly both as a soloist and in ensemble.
As part of this guest residency, several vocalists from Galway will have the opportunity to participate in exclusive individual classes with Deirdre on Wednesday, June 2, 2010 in the Aula Maxima at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
The Galway Music Residency (formerly the Galway Ensemble in Residence) was established in 2002 to develop a comprehensive music development programme forGalway. The Galway Ensemble in Residence – ConTempo Quartet are at the heart of the residency and will be joined in performance this year by other guest artists including percussionist Chen Zimbalista from Israel at the Galway Arts Festival in July and the Calefax Reed Quintet from The Netherlands in October.

Photographic Exhibition “Through a Swedish Lens" Carraroe Library

Teideal: Trí lionsa Sualannach – íomhánna de shaol na hÉireann ag tús an fichiú céad/
Title: Through a Swedish lens – images of early twentieth-century Irish life
Carraroe Library hosted the prestigious photographic exhibition ‘Through a Swedish Lens’ during May 2010. This beautiful photographic exhibition was presented by the National Folklore Collection, UCD and is currently touring Ireland. It illustrates the work of 4 Swedish ethnologists who visited Ireland 1920-1950.
Photographs from Galway-Connamara and Aran- were included in the exhibition and there was also an excellent brochure. There were no names to the people in the pictures.
One picture taken in 1935 in Carraroe included Michael Nee and his sister who were identified by people viewing the photographs. Michael Nee (aged 91) passed away during the time of the exhibition in Carraroe Library. His sister passed away a few years ago.
The Library will host the exhibition again in the Autumn/Winter 2010.

Cur síos: Déanann an taispeántas grianghrafadóireachta seo ceiliúradh ar an méid a chuir ceathrar scoláirí agus scríbhneoirí Sualannacha le cultúr na hÉireann sa chéad leath den fhichiú céad. Ina measc bhí an béaloideasóir cáiliúl Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an bheirt scoláire eitneolaíochta, Albert Eskeröd agus Åke Campbell, agus an scríbhneoir Harriet Hjorth Wetterström. Bhí ról suntasach ag gach duine acu maidir le staidéar ar bhéaloideas agus eitneolaíocht na hÉireann a chur chun cinn agus le teagmháil idir an tSualainn agus Éirinn a chothú. Ba ghrianghrafadóirí cumasacha iad an triúr fear agus ban, agus caomhnaítear an-chuid de na grianghraif agus comhfhreagras anois le comhghleacaithe Éireannacha i gCnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann, an Coláiste Ollscoile, Baile Átha Cliath.

Description: This photographic exhibition celebrates the contribution of four Swedish scholars and writers to Irish culture in the first half of the twentieth century. They include the celebrated folklorist Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, the ethnologists Albert Eskeröd and Åke Campbell, and the writer Harriet Hjorth Wetterström. Each of them went on to play a significant role in advancing the study of Irish folklore and ethnology and in cultivating Swedish-Irish relations. All four men and women were also capable photographers, and many of the photographs and correspondence with Irish colleagues are now preserved in the National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin.

Breton poet Patrick Agenté reads at the last (before summer) Over the Edge in Galway City Library

Over The Edge in association with the Galway-Lorient Twinning Committee presents the May Over The Edge: Open Reading which takes place in Galway City Library, St.Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, May 27th, 6.30-8pm.
The Featured Readers are Patrick Argenté, David Mohan & Michael Maye.
Patrick Argenté was born in Dinan (Brittany) in 1945. He studied literature and became a teacher, then a social worker and a further education counsellor. Today he is retired in Lorient and he dedicates part of his time to writing. He has published four collections of poems: Voisinage du vent (La Part Commune 2005), Les jours lâchent leurs porcelaines (La Part Commune 2006), Oeil effaré plume et les dents (Manoirante 2009) & Ernestine ou Julie (Manoirante 2010).
There will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Europe Day celebrations in Ballinasloe Library

The 9th of May Europe Day is an annual celebration of peace and unity in Europe and os designed to foster unity among Europeans.


In Galway, it was celebrated in the Europe Direct Centre in Ballinasloe Library with Stories, music and crafts with a European flavour. Here are some of the images from the celebrations.

Siobhán Parkinson conferred as first Laureate na nÓg

President Mary McAleese announced Siobhán Parkinson as Laureate na nÓg, Ireland’s first laureate for children’s literature, presenting her with the Laureate na nÓg medal. Laureate na nÓg is a new initiative of the Arts Council with the support of the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Children’s Books Ireland and Poetry Ireland.
The honour has been established to engage young people with high quality children’s literature and to underline the importance of children’s literature in our cultural and imaginative life.
See what she has to say about her new job here

Fleadh Cheoil na Gaillimhe in Dunmore library

Fleadh Cheoil na Gallimhe 2010 takes place in Dunmore from May 13-16th. To start off the week-end, on Thursday 13th May @ 8.30pm a talk will be held in Dunmore Library by Hubert Birmingham, on 'The Life and Times of Piper John Reilly'

Europe Day event at Inishbofin Library on Saturday,8thMay

To celebrate Europe Day and as part of the Inishbofin Arts Festival, John Liddy, an Irish poet who has lived in Madrid for many years, will read from the work of Spanish poet, Miguel Hernandez in Inishbofin Library at 5.00pm on Saturday 8^th May.

Liddy writes poems of recollection, spirituality, politics and nature. He writes of the earth in all its literal and poetic conceptions – childhood, the house, the land, tradition and family. His work has that inexorable sense of time, time which changes and destroys and creates.
It is appropriate that John’s reading in Inishbofin will mark the centenary of the birth of the Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez. The poet Edward Hirsch has described Hernandez as “one of the most open-hearted and heart-breaking Spanish-language poets in the 20th century. His emotionally charged poetry is filled with human difficulties, so full of the earth and the spirit of freedom."
As a poet who has lived in Madrid since 1982, where he works as a librarian and teacher at the British Institute, a poet now as profoundly Irish as he is Spanish, a man who draws from the deep sources of tradition and history, a poet who should be read as an importer of new directions, it is fitting that at his Inishbofin reading that he will honour the memory of the great Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.
Miguel Hernández, a goatherd born in 1910 in a village in eastern Spain, received limited formal education. He spent the last three years of his tragic life in Franco's prisons, where he died on March 28, 1942, before he was 32 years old.

Europe Day events at Galway Public Libraries

On the 9th of May 1950, Robert Schuman presented his proposal on the creation of an organised Europe, indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the "Schuman declaration", is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
The 9th of May has become a European symbol (Europe Day) which, along with the flag, the anthem, the motto and the single currency, identifies the political entity of the European Union. Europe Day is the occasion for activities and festivities that bring Europe closer to its citizens and peoples of the Union closer to one another.The following are events taking place in Galway Libraries

Thursday,6^th May @6pm
To Celebrate Bealtaine and Europe Day, Kilconnell Art Group will launch an exhibition of their work at ED Ballinasloe with traditional music by Fainne an Chladaigh and a singalong by Ballinasloe Active Retirement Association.
Friday,7^th May @10am-1pm
A Teddy Bears Picnic with a European twist will take place at ED Ballinasloe with Hayley Aldhous. Stories, music and crafts with a European flavour and,of course, a picnic!

Friday,7^th May
In association with ED Ballinasloe, Eyrecourt Library will be having a Quiz on Europe and the European Union for 5^th/6^th Class pupils from Eyrecourt National School.

ED Carraroe are celebrating Europe Day in conjunction with Scoil Chuimsitheach Chiaráin, the local second level school. Transition year students are doing projects on different European countries. ED Carraroe will have an information stand at the school and the event will be open to the public.