Latest news with #Bealtaine
Irish Independent
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Wexford choir to pay homage to late members with concert in Enniscorthy church
Taking place on Thursday, May 29, inside St Mary's Church Enniscorthy, the choir will be joined by special guest performers Emer Barry and Eve Donohoe. Emer, a talented soprano who has travelled the world, has frequently joined the RTÉ Orchestra for a number of performances as well as having spent time in the United States touring in a show put together by Columbia Arts Management. Despite only being 19 years of age, violinist Eve Donohoe has multiple national awards under her belt and is currently studying Medicine in Trinity College Dublin as she is passionate about the intersection between music and medicine in a clinical setting. Making sure everything does smoothly is experienced director Eithne Corrigan, a graduate of Trinity College who studied piano and violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in her native Dublin. Member Rosemary Walshe said that they are confident in their performance with Eithne at the helm. 'She is just fantastic and so patient – we don't know how she doesn't throttle us most of the time. She insists that we learn the lyrics without the music which is a bit of a struggle, but that means our heads won't be in our books on the night. It is good for the brain as well,' she said. The choir must be doing something right as many of the members are in their seventies and eighties, with their oldest member Liam being 91 years of age. "We have some amazing people here and it is reflected in the Bealtaine festival saying 'creativity as we age.'' However, over the years since the choir was established, a number of members have sadly passed away and they plan to dedicate a section of their performance in their memory. "Most of our repertoire will be well-known and fan-favourites, but we will have one section for the members who have left us. There is one song in particular that will be very poignant,' she explained. ADVERTISEMENT This year, their concert will also be donating any money raised to the Hope Cancer Support Centre and Relay For Life Wexford, for personal reasons. "We tend to always choose a cancer charity as there are some members who are battling cancer and the centre is a badly needed service. Someone also wanted to choose Relay For Life so we just decided to split what is raised between the two.' They hope to raise as much money as possible with tickets still available, for a cost of €15. There will be tickets for sale on the door and donation buckets, so members of the audience are encouraged to bring cash as there will be no card reader available.
Irish Examiner
22-05-2025
- Irish Examiner
Bloom time for spurge, the plant once used to catch fish
Among the nectar-rich, summer blossoms one tree stands out in May sunshine… whitethorn. I've lost count of the number of people remarking about its profusion and the way it dominates the countryside this year, seemingly more than ever. In places like the Beara and Dingle peninsulas, it overshadows many other plants. But, fuchsia, always associated with these magnificently scenic areas, should now be about to reassert itself. In Celtic mythology, the whitethorn was hugely valued. It was deemed to have properties that could cleanse the heart of negativity and also stimulate love and forgiveness. Travelling around the Cork-Kerry border countryside by the Blackwater the other day, the road between the neighbouring villages of Rathmore and Knocknagree felt like an avenue of whitethorn. This tree, we're told, does well in warm sunshine and when it stands alone in otherwise unsheltered areas. Its white leaves, sometimes blushed with delicate pink, should decorate the countryside well into June. Practically, the prickly thorns make for good fencing and hedging. Whitethorn also provides food for many insects and caterpillars; nectar and pollen for bees and flies, and nesting sites for birds. It features prominently in folklore and was used to decorate the Maypole in ancient Bealtaine celebrations. Whitethorn branch — this native tree is looking glorious at this time of year It was regarded as bad luck to bring whitethorn into a home as it might result in illness, or death, in a family. Lone whitethorn trees are sometimes seen in fields, or ring forts, and there's a custom among farmers not to interfere with them in any way. They were thought to signify places where fairies assembled after dark, playing sweet music from the 'otherworld'. The National Schools Folklore Collection from the late 1930s gathered some of the stories about these trees which were widely believed in many parts of Ireland. One concerned an old bush in the village of Roundfield, in County Galway, where the belief was that if anyone dared cut it down they would die, according to one pupil, Julia Coffey, who got the story from a local man, John Killeen. Grimly, Julia went on: 'One day, a man went out to cut it and a he heard a lot of little men dancing under the tree and he cut it and fell dead." Irish Spurge (Euphorbia hyberna) is in full bloom in the woods at the moment. This plant is one of the so-called Luisitanian species which are found almost exclusively in SW Ireland and northern Iberia. #wildflowerhour — Glengarriff Woods NR (@GlengarriffWood) April 14, 2019 Another plant readers have been telling us about is Irish spurge, seen in many parts of the south-west on roadsides and shady woodland. Its Irish name, 'bainne caoin', most likely comes from the milky sap which oozes out when the stem is broken. The sap is said to be poisonous and there's a tradition of placing the yellow and green-flowered plant in river water, thereby making fish float to the surface and easy to catch. The Glengarriff Woods Nature Reserve, in West Cork, reports Irish splurge to be prominent in the woodland floor this summer.
Irish Independent
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Bealtaine Festival's film tour brings Italian classic to Wicklow
For over 20 years the resource organisation Access Cinema – whose mission is to provide all audiences throughout Ireland with access to the best of Irish, world and independent cinema, via a national network of non-profit and voluntary organisations – has partnered with the Irish Film Institute to organise a May film tour. The screenings happen in May to coincide with the Bealtaine Festival, where audiences over the age of 55 are actively encouraged to get involved with the Arts in their local areas. Film is one of the most accessible art forms and each year titles are chosen that it is hoped will appeal to the target audience. The film tour has struggled a little in the post-Covid landscape so this year the approach was changed a little, and organisers asked some of the cinema-loving audiences to help programme this year's tour. A call-out was arranged for volunteers to meet (in person and remotely) over a few months to work together to choose at least one of the titles. The group – comprising of volunteers from Droichead Art Centre, Dunamaise Art Centre and Mermaid Art Centre, along with the IFI's Wild Strawberry film club counterparts – attended meetings and programming workshops to work towards a title selection. Brigid O'Brien was Mermaid's representative. Part of what informed the selection was this year being Bealtaine's 30th Birthday and its continued theme of 'Lust for Life', based on Iggy Pop's iconic punk-era song celebrating life's dreams and ambitions. After much debate and discussion the title chosen for the tour was the classic Cinema Paradiso, Giuseppe Tornatore's loving homage to the cinema. A winner of awards across the world, the film tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director, returning home for the funeral of Alfredo, his old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood. Soon, memories of his first love affair with the beautiful Elena and all the highs and lows that shaped his life come flooding back, as Salvatore reconnects with the community he left 30 years earlier. The Wicklow screening for Bealtaine's film selection of Cinema Paradiso takes place in Mermaid Arts Centre, on Monday, May 26, at 5.30pm. Tickets €3 includes tea/coffee.
Irish Independent
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Library events to take place across Meath this month as part of Bealtaine arts festival
This year, Bealtaine is celebrating 30 years of the festival running in Ireland, celebrating age and creativity. Bealtaine is one of Ireland's largest cooperative festivals and the world's first national celebration of creativity in older age. Highlights of this year's events include the 'Big Bealtaine Book Quiz' open to all Meath book clubs on Thursday, May, 15 where winners will go home with some book tokens There will be Healthy Ireland events throughout the month with Pilates, chair yoga, chair exercise, and line dancing events. There will also be creative events such as pressed flower crafts, paint by numbers sessions, mono print art, and art workshops with artist John Carpenter. Oldcastle Library will welcome celebrated author Seamus O'Rourke on Thursday, May, 22 to discuss his latest book with former Meath writer-in-residence Nicola Cassidy. There is also a reminiscence workshop on poems and songs learned at school while Trim Library is holding a Poetry Exhibition throughout the month. A film festival will run once a week throughout the month. And for those who wish to improve their Irish, they can take part in an Irish conversation workshop for beginners in Trim Library on Monday, May, 12. The partnership festival Bealtaine works on two parallel and interdependent strands, including a strategic programme, curated by age and opportunity's arts team, aimed at addressing key strategic priorities for the festival. It also has a locally devised and curated national programme made up of hundreds of events organised in each community by a wide variety of groups.
RTÉ News
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Na Féilte Tine: Michael Harding & 'Bealtaine'
RTE's four-part series Na Féilte Tine (The Fire Festivals) explores the four indigenous Irish festivals of Samhain, Imbolg, Bealtaine and Lúnasa. Bank Holiday Monday's programme explores the festival of 'Bealtaine' and the theme of Nature. Michael Harding features & joins us now from our Cork studio
