The sixteenth Carlow Culture Night brought together a diverse and talented array of local artists, performers, groups and creatives last Friday, as the county came together in person to celebrate the annual national event, which this year, more than ever, was eagerly anticipated and keenly welcomed.
Audiences were able to properly enjoy a range of local live events at various Carlow locations for the first time since 2019, with a programme rich in layers of the arts and culture with everything from live drama and music, literature, history and arts and crafts workshops for all ages on offer.
Carlow County Museum and Carlow County Library jointly hosted an evening of drama and music beginning with Carlow Little Theatre Society and members of Carlow Regional Youth Services (Tullow Youth Project) performing ‘Shakespeare in Pieces’ that included extracts from ‘Macbeth’, ‘Julius Caesar’, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘King Lear’, ‘As You Like It’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. This was the society’s first production in almost two years and its final and fifth performance after a short run at the Delta Sensory Garden’s during the previous few weeks.
As dusk fell, the Carlow Storytellers took to the stage with a set of fifteen finely nuanced Irish pieces that included ballads, poems, comedy, recitals and recollections such as ‘An Puc ar Buile’, Seamus Heaney’s ‘Digging’, ‘A Cairde Gael’, and finishing with the great standard, ‘The Parting Glass’. Maria O’Rourke guested to recite her short recollection piece ‘Mary Kelly’s shop’ about her memories of a much-loved Carlow shop, which was recently featured on RTE radio’ Sunday Miscellany programme.
Speaking about the event Carlow County Museum’s Curator Dermot Mulligan, commented “both Carlow County Museum and Carlow County Library were delighted to facilitate and host this outdoor event as part of Carlow Culture Night”, adding that “the evening was a tremendous success, heralding a very palpable sense that normality was returning after a very challenging pandemic lockdown and appropriately flagged by Carlow Arts Office’s hashtag #ComeTogetherAgain”.
To learn more about Carlow Culture Night 2021 and its full programme this year, please visit Carlow Arts Office’s Facebook page here
Culture Night / Oíche Chultúir is an Arts Council initiative and is defined as a national moment, celebrating all that makes up the richness and diversity of culture in Ireland today, connecting people to cultural activities locally and nationally and aims to open up pathways to ongoing engagement. For further information about Culture Night, please visit https://culturenight.ie/
Unless otherwise stated, all images are © copyright of Carlow County Museum
