Art for Life auction at Gallery Frida
38 South Main Street, Youghal.
Saturday 18th Feb 2012 at 4pm.

 

Starting soon for 2 weekends in February, Brideview Drama’s latest show is a lovely heart-warmner, suitable for all the family. Full of laughter, drama, tears and fun, Same Old Moon by Geraldine Aron is directed by Jack Aherne and stars Rachel O’Connell, John Baldwin and 6 others playing a total of 20 parts over 19 scenes.

Set in Galway and London, it’s the tale of young Brenda Barnes and the life of an Irish family between the 1940s-1980s, who are forced to emigrate to London to survive. Built around a sequence of recollections from the life of Brenda, an aspiring writer, the show follows her from age nine to her mid-forties, taking us from her early days in Galway through to her return to her adopted home in London.
Her life story, as seen through her eyes, portrays her eccentric and sometimes fiery Irish family. With many very funny vignettes, the main characters include her wilful and self-destructive father, Desmond, her put-upon, sometimes hot-tempered mother, Bridie, her whinging aunt, Peace, and her puritanical maternal Granny Cleary from Galway.

Brideview Drama is pleased to welcome newcomers Denise O’Brien and Edel Murphy to the stage, alongside regulars Vanessa Hyde, Helen Aherne, Tomás Roche and Damian Pollard.

Same Old Moon is on at Tallow Community Centre on Friday and Saturday nights, February 10 and 11, then again the same nights, February 24 and 25, with doors opening at 7.30 for a start at 8.15pm. As always, there are free refreshments and Same Old Moon is suitable for all the family.

‘Yew Wood Venues’- Youghals Premier Venues – The Mall Arts Centre & St. Mary’s Collegiate Church

‘Yew Wood Venues’ – the new name behind Youghal’s Premier Venues – The Mall Arts & St. Mary’s Collegiate Church contributed in excess of €280,000 to the local economy of Youghal in two years according to surveys undertaken in accordance with Failte Ireland’s Festivals and Cultural Events Research Template.  The venues are run by The Youghal Socio-Economic Development Group who currently lease the buildings from Youghal Town Council.
In building upon the success of the venues to date, the two venues are to be re-branded and will now fall under the title of ‘Yew Wood Venues’.  Yew Wood – the english translation of Eochaill – encapulates both unique venues of Youghal.  A new base and booking office will operate from ‘The Coach House’ of ‘Enterprise Youghal’ in Emmet Place.

The expansion plan of ‘Yew Wood Venues’ focuses on Youghal’s commercial and contemporary arts potential. Joyce Hosford, Events Manager of Yew Wood Venues commented “We are encouraging local artists to exhibit their works in the Mall Arts Centre and we are focusing on attracting and developing local and emerging talent. We are seeking to utilise the Mall Arts Centre to its full potential as well as seeking to explore contemporary arts events. In order to do so, we envisage a ‘bottom up’ approach to our developmental plan – that is, there is a hugely strong community arts base in Youghal and we aim to support and nurture such talent.  The vision is to ensure Youghal is a recognised centre of Arts excellence, built upon the strengths of the community”.

To date, the venues have delivered a range of productions across the arts spectrum, from visual to music, dance to drama.  This has made huge impact on the local economy – events which have been running in the Yew Wood Venues have contributed €280,000 over 2 years to the local economy.

Reffering to the economic spin-off to the local community, Manager of The Youghal Socio-Economic Development Group, Aileen Murray said: “The future plans of Yew Wood Venues also focuses on developing the local economy and boosting local businesses through ‘spin off’ revenue generated from events taking place. These venues share a common goal with many businesses and organisations within the Youghal community – to help increase the number of people visiting and investing in Youghal.  Failte Ireland identified that the average visitor attending an event in Youghal will spend on average between €30 and €55”, said Aileen.

The continued development of attendances at the venues will be crucial to the venues ongoing success. In order to achieve this, there will be several initiatives undertaken through marketing, education and outreach functions. For example, the well supported Sacred Roots events, which took place in St Marys Collegiate Church will recommence shortly. These events helped to promote the arts to the youths of Youghal as well as generating much support and recognition from the community and a far. Other such developmental programmes will encourage local artists to take residence in the Mall Arts Centre and exhibit their art on a monthly basis. Yew Wood Venues will also continue to support St. Raphaels and their future projects.

In aiming to develop new captive audiences within the community, Yew Wood Venues will commence a monthly film club hugely significant considering Youghal’s strong history of interest in film. This will be a low cost means of art and cultural activity and a means for those who wish to develop their interest in cinematic art.

David McSavage, the comedian of the infamous RTE production ‘Savage Eye’, will take to the stage of the Mall Arts Centre on Saturday 25th February at 8pm. Tickets are now available. 2012 will also see hilarity from the legendary Brendan Grace, a Shakesperean play, a Moby Dick production, the family favourite Lambert Puppet Theatre and the welcomed return of the Chamber Philharmonia Cologne to name a few.  Plans are also underway to host a number of large-scale contemporary cultural and arts events which at time of press are still under negotiation.

“It is imperative in such a close community with numerous venues, we target to our specific audience and market the event accordingly” states Joyce Hosford. “We are hugely enthusiastic about the year ahead. It is great to have a permanent base, an office where people can come and meet me, discuss future plans, propose ideas, highlight queries or book tickets” she added.

In the current climate, it is imperative that local resources are utlised to their maximum potential. Yew Wood Venues is starting 2012 with much enthuasism and positivity for the year ahead. With this rebranding, also brings a very strong and forward thinking developmental plan for the Mall Arts Centre and St Marys Collegiate Church to accompany this new title.

Yew Wood Venues office is in the Coach House of the Entreprise Centre, Emmet Place – just next to St. Marys Collegiate Church. The office will be open 5 days a week and contact number is 083-3606507 or 024-81823. Official office hours will be added shortly to the website www.themallartscentre.com

New exhibition at Gallery FRIDA. A solo exhibition of paintings entitled “Belly of the Whale” by artist Barbara O’Meara will feature at Gallery Frida, South Main Street,Youghal. Opening Tuesday 17th January 2012. Further information and openings hours contact: Lars Moeslund, Manager, Gallery Frida, 38 South Main Street, Youghal, Co. Cork.

Gallery FRIDA
38 South Main Street
Youghal
phone: 085-8866424 or 085-2389452
website: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gallery-Frida/290109044352787?sk=wall

ABLETON LIVE COURSE Friday 17th & Saturday 18th of FEB 2012

Claycastle Studios are happy to announce that we will be running an Ableton Live advanced course alongside our now well-established beginners course.

The students can be split between Barry Dempseys main course and a secondary room with a separate Ableton tutor for those that wish to advance in a specific areas. Students can move freely between rooms as we now understand that some may be advanced in one area and not in another and visa versa. This opens up the opportunity to learn new skills as well as touch up on what you already know.

The next course is on Friday 17th & Saturday 18th of Feb 2012

Total Cost of the course is €250 (with 10% discount available to repeat students)

€100 deposit required no less than 1 week in advance of the course

To apply please email ableton@claycastlerecording.ie or call 0871622964 (John Burke Course Coordinator) or 024/90885

Course will cover some of the following areas;

System Configuration:
Setting up mac/PC for use with Live and audiocard settings for MIDI &
audio applications .
MIDI Programming:
Creating drumloops, Baselines, Hooks and synth-leads in Live.
Audio Editing/Programming:
Warping, cut’n paste, top’n tailing & sequencing audio loops.
FX / Processing:
Using Ableton plug-in FX to bring colour and life to tracks.
Tips & Tricks: For more effective mixing results.
Audio Mixdowns & Rendering:
2 – track mix creation for playing out.

DJing in Live:
Warping / MIDI Controllers / Audiocards / Live Looping / Live performance.
Sound Creation:
Creating your very own patches using Ableton Live; including leads,
percussion and the all-important ‘hook’.

Rendered 2-track mixes get the final works before burning to CD!

__________________________________________________________
Date: 17th &18th Feb 2012

Time: 10am to 6pm ( lunch hour from 1pm to 2pm each day).

Total cost €250

to book a place call 024/90885 or email ableton@claycastlrecording.ie
Barry Dempsey Ableton Live certified trainer  http://www.ableton.com/education/certified-training/ireland/barry-dempsey-dublin

A range of Ableton Live merchandise is also available to students who take part in the course at Claycastle Studios with Barry

To enroll on the next course just get in touch via our website http://www.claycastlerecording.ie/

Christmas Eve – By Christy Parker

Bated breath, eyes open wide, anticipation wells inside

On the night that culminates past the ‘father of all waits’

Visions of a laden sleigh crossing moonbeams on its way

Induce each hour to tease and test young brittle minds that cannot rest

And who, propelled on shoeless feet, hasten toothpaste across teeth

Lest that wise man knowing why, should see them sleepless and pass by

So scrambled sheets secure and tell the all-seeing eye that all is well

Where palms pressed hard by little fingers authenticate the wait that lingers

Like a song whose chorus when, it finishes starts up again

Is that a noise upon the roof? Could it be a reindeer’s hoof?…

If you’re awake he’ll turn and go, so shut those eyes that he won’t know

But angels gliding by your bed wrap you in sleep and dreams instead

Of morning time that will shed light on the magic of that night

In coloured packages of paper that cannot wait a second later

For young hands that tear in fear that they might somehow disappear

Before the joys so wound and bound inside the packages are found

Meeting friends from far away, home for Christmas, not to stay

Noisy bar in beer-gut scrudge, with precious little scope to budge

Brain engaged in one last push to somehow win that counter rush

Then laden with the liquid force, squeeze back to rejoin the discourse

Now sprouting through intoxication wings of wild imagination

And answering the clarion call of bonhomie and alcohol

Soars you past the stifling clouds of mediocrity and crowds

To the rightful place where you belong: upon the throne of chat and song

An erstwhile Queen amongst your peers in the War of Lending Ears

Your voice is resonant in glory through every charge of joke and story

But the battles not being lost, impose on you that loathsome cost

Of wilting balance, muscles weary, vessels swollen, red eyes bleary

Yet, one more round -make it a double- in this rosy Christmas bubble

Not quite ready to be burst while there remains this ego thirst

Until you cross the beer-strewn floor towards the night and your front door,

Remembering in lurching pause, tonight Mum, you are Santa Claus.

 

“Christmas Eve” taken from  ‘Don’t Step In The Poems’ by Christy Parker available at Alan Prim’s Bookshop, 6 South Main St, Youghal. Co. Cork. Phone: +353 (024)92781

Gallery Frida are running a raffle for one of artist Lora Murphy’s painting entitled ‘Setanta’. You may purchase a ticket to be in the draw for this wonderful painting at Gallery Frida, South Main Street, Youghal. 5 numbers for 5 euro and all money goes to the orphanage project in Uganda. The draw will take place at the Gallery on Christmas Eve.

 

Frida Gallery is named in honour of Frida Kahlo, an iconic early to mid-19th century Mexican artist renowned particularly for her surrealist self-portraits, depicting “pain and passion”, through intense, vibrant colours. Her work is highly celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. “She was and remains a hugely inspiring figure.

Gallery Frida thank you -A message of thanks from Lars and Lora.

” I just wanted to thank you so very much for all the trouble and time you took to help us with the launch of Gallery Frida! We are delighted with the coverage you have given us.There was such a great turn out despite the rain .  Thanks to all the brave souls who came to support this new venture, your presence was greatly appreciated and we very much hope that you enjoyed your evening as much as we did  and of course, a thousand thanks to all the wonderful talented artists who are exhibiting with us , we are very grateful for your trust and wish you all every success! We also are very grateful to Barbara o Meara and John Rushe for their invaluable help over the last few weeks, and of course Eithne and Anthony Watson. Thank you both. Nor will we forget Sir Michael Beecher, who did great work for us too !! Thanks Mick!!

Thanks to Sergyv who has been there from the beginning and did excellent work !and finally , a thousand thanks to the town and people of Youghal ! What a wonderful community to be a part of , we are proud to be here! “We would also like to thank the Mayor Eoin Coyne very much for taking time to come and open our Gallery officially. We appreciate this support very much.”
Lora and Lars”

Moby Dick on the horizon as Youghal plans new literary festival  -  By Christy Parker

YOUGHAL is set to pursue Moby Dick once again as the town’s Concerned Citizen’s group is poised to harpoon a literary festival to Herman Melville’s tale of the great white whale. The one-day festival will be launched on March 16th and is intended to target to American market in particular, with the bait of St. Patrick’s Day 24 hours later an added, cleverly laid lure for attention.

While generally recognised in this part of the world, Melville is extremely acclaimed in the US and anything pertaining to celebrate his name and fame is certain to attract American attention.

The festival hopes to include live webcast debates between American colleges and locals who played parts or extras in the opening scenes. Other ideas being developed include “readings, a photography exhibition and re-enactments,” according to PRO for the YCC, Ruth Vance. “But we are inviting other proposals from the public as well,” she adds.

The initiative comes fifty eight years after director John Huston and his entourage temporarily transformed the east Cork town into a the whaling centre of New Bedford on America’s eastern seaboard. Huston and stars such as Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn and Ireland’s Noel Purcell dazzled locals while considerably boosting the local economy over three glorious months of glamour as they shot  the opening scenes of the much acclaimed film.  Youghal has long prided itself on its associations with Moby Dick but the link has remained undeveloped from a tourist perspective until now.

Olly Casey

Recently retired town councillor and mayor, Olly Casey, visited New Bedford, as guest of ex-pat association Sons of Saint Patrick.

As a 12 year-old, Mr. Casey witnessed the 1954 filming and his reminiscences regaled large gatherings over three days in which Paris-based Irish theatre company Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland, performed  a one-man adaption of the story. “I was struck by the people’s fascination for everything about Moby Dick,” says Olly. “They all wanted to come to Youghal and that interest indicates a major potential for our town’s tourism.”

Youghal Concerned Citizens, which was founded last February, adds the Moby Dick Literary Festival to its growing list of annual events, including Mackerel & Regatta and Halloween festivals and a Teddy Bears’ picnic. A Dickens-themed Christmas commences next week.

Inquiries etc., to Ruth Vance on 086-3252278 or Adrian Hyde (024) 91355; e mail: youghalcc@gmail.com.

Summer arrives in December to re-enchant as new art gallery opens. – By Christy Parker

YOUGHAL has acquired a new art centre with the opening of Frida Gallery at 38 South Main Street last Wednesday (November 30th). Youghal Mayor Eoin Coyne cut the tape on the new business, which is owned by Offaly-born Lora Murphy, now in her fourth year of residency in the town.

The three-storey building, owned by Lora, formerly housed a tattoo parlour on its first two floors with a painting studio in the upper reaches. The two lower floors will now accommodate exhibition spaces, where artists from throughout Ireland are expected to display their work. “I hope in the long term to provide a focal point where young and emerging artists can be encouraged and can display their work,” says Lora.

A graduate from UCC, free-spiriting Lora arrived in Youghal having resided for over 20 years in Montana and Alaska. She was poised to settle in Abbeyside, Dungarvan –indeed had paid a deposit on a house- when a day trip to Youghal turned her head. “I couldn’t believe how beautiful the town was and immediately opted to live here instead!,” she recalls. She purchased a home in the strand the work base in South Main Street.

Inspiring

Frida Gallery is named in honour of Frida Kahlo, an iconic early to mid-19th century Mexican artist renowned particularly for her surrealist self-portraits, depicting “pain and passion”, through intense, vibrant colours. Her work is highly celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. “She was and remains a hugely inspiring figure,” says the inspiring Lora, simply.

Last week two new exhibitions were launched at ‘the Frida.’ On Floor 2, Re-enchantment currently features abstract paintings by Greystones painter Barbara O’Meara. The inaugural ground floor exhibition carries the wishful title of Summer in December’ a theme carried by over 20 established artists, local and national, in ‘Plein Air’ mode as the easel world terms it -that is to say, the paintings are outdoor creations. They traverse oils to acrylic to watercolours and all points in between, with representations varying from Killarney’s luscious landscapes to a Kerry rave scene by way of a County Cork rail station!

Orphanage support

The gallery will donate 25% of its income to an orphanage project in Uganda called Toro Babies Home. Championed by Lora’s partner Lars Moeslund and run by Norwegian volunteers, the orphanage houses over 50 children, whose parents have died or are dying of AIDS.  “It provides a ‘substitute  mother and family’ and enables them to have some normality through attending school etc,” says Lars. “The plan is to make the orphanage as self-sufficient with its own food production over the coming years.” The gallery will continue to support the orphanage project into the future.

Summer in December and Re-enchantment run until Christmas Eve from noon to 6 pm. Enquiries: 085-8866424; e-mail: mornag@usa.net; fb: look up Gallery Frida

Please click on image to see more photos of the opening night of Gallery Frida – Pics by YOL

ST. RAPHAEL’S DRAMA GROUP will present their award winning play ‘An Angel Fell from the Sky’ in St. Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal, on Thursday Dec 8th 2011 at 7.15pm. Show duration – 15mins.
Dress warm and enjoy a glass of warm punch. You’ll be moved to tears and leave in great Christmas spirits. The drama group put in a cracking performance! Admission – Free.

As St. Raphael’s said to be the angel of ‘happy meetings’ the play ‘An Angel Fell from the Sky’ tells the story of an angel who one day falls from the sky. The angel goes on a journey of happy meetings that lead to his own journey home.

Overall winners of the Irish Performing Arts Festival 2011

St. Raphael’s Drama Group won the 2011 Irish Performing Arts Festival Drama section. Their play entitled ‘ An Angel Fell from the Sky’  was a ‘clear winner’ said judge Catherine Mahon Buckley who admitted she had been moved to tears by the incredible performances, visual beauty and simplicity of the piece.The competition which took place over two days in the Firkin Crane Theatre, Cork involved seventeen groups from around the country.The play involved both live performance and shadow puppets brilliantly provided by St. Raphael’s Windy Lane Puppet Group.
The multi talented group’s short film When They Least Expect It was screened in the Mall Arts Centre Youghal and Camden Palace Cork.

 

St. Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal

St. Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal, is proving to be a popular location for such events as seen recently with the successful screening of the silent movie Phantom of the Opera – pictured below.