Under Brigid’s Cloak
On February 1 Lá Fhéile Bríde / St. Brigid’s Day / Imbolc we will
celebrate the coming of Spring,
the return of life to the earth after the dark stillness of
Winter. In the folklore of Ireland and
Scotland Brigid was associated with new life, creativity, healing
and poetry and she remains
an important figure for our times. Celebrate with fire and rushes
and stories , poems and legends
associated with Brigid and some more besides in the company of
Nuala Hayes, storyteller and
Rita Duffy, visual artist.
Nuala Hayes is an Actor , Storyteller and Broadcaster who loves to
retell the old stories and maybe
to give them a new twist. She believes in the inspiration
and intuition that the figure of Brigid
provokes. In 2014, she devised a Storytelling and Musical
performance to remember the Battle of
Clontarf in 1014. She appeared in a one woman play by Susan Knight
called ‘A Simple Twist of Fate’ and with
Doireann Ní Bhriain she produced a Radio Documentary “ Who was Vere Foster? ”,
about a forgotten hero of Irish Education, which was broadcast on R.T.E
Lyric fm.
In 2015 she hopes to complete a collection of Folktales from Laois
for the History Press. She has
collaborated previously with Rita Duffy on the Shirt Factory
Project and on Everlasting Voices , a
collection of recordings from storytellers from all parts of
Ireland, with visual responses to the stories
from Rita, produced by the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry in 2001.
Nuala Hayes, Storyteller/Actress
Rita Duffy is leading Irish artist and her work is strongly based
in the figurative/narrative tradition.
Her paintings have been described as active poetic spaces where
the energy of contradictory and
destructive forces are transmuted and resolved. Her work has
evolved out of a Belfast context heavily inscribed by the visual components of social, political and
national affiliations where meaning is not neutral. Her work includes socially
engaged projects and recent achievements include The Shirt Factory as part of the Derry / Londonderry City of Culture.
Rita Duffy, Visual Artist
Marilyn Gaffney is a visual artist who has recently completed her
MA from the National College of Art and
Design. Her work is
based on our relationship to landscape and how particular places hold
memories and can embody emotional responses. The notion of
Urban Memory and the loss of certain
things within a place when it has been changed features as
research within her work. She is interested in a combination of representation and abstraction in
painting. Aidan Dunne, The
Irish Times art critic described her work in two and three dimensions as
“very impressive” at Moxie Gallery, Dublin 2. She was selected for ‘Place/Non
Place at the Venice Arts Gallery in California in 2013.
Storytelling with Nuala Hayes
St Brigid’s Cross Making and Brídeóg doll making with Rita Duffy
and Marilyn Gaffney.
Cavan Burren Park, Blacklion
