Oireachtas na Gaeilge is only one of many events on the calendar for the coming bank holiday weekend. Bealtaine, the month-long festival celebrating creativity in later life, will kick off in Mayo and west Cork on Saturday with contemporary dance; in Donegal with classic Hollywood films, and in Leitrim with an exhibition of salt-dough plaques.
More than 300 events in 26 counties have been planned by a team of arts officers, older people's groups, libraries, national arts venues and others. More information is in the local press and from the national co-ordinating agency, Age and Opportunity, chaired by Mamo McDonald at (01) 837 0570.
In Galway, CHIASM is the title of a unique presentation on Saturday and Sunday by artist Dorothy Cross. Billed as a combination of handball alleys, film and opera, CHIASM aims to explore the Greek myth of Ariadne and Theseus. You may remember the plot - having promised to marry her, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Dia, and her lonely laments filled the air between there and her home in Crete.
Using two handball alleys overlooking Galway Bay as her set, the Cork-born artist has borrowed images of Poll na bPeist, the "worm's hole" on the Aran island of Inishmore.
The film images of the spectacular tidal pool will be projected from 90-ft towers to create an ocean effect. The tenor Eugene Ginty, whose father was a handball champion, and soprano Carol Smith, will perform in separate alleys, walking and singing within the projected turbulent "sea".
The event is a Project Arts Centre commission, and it is supported by Galway Arts Centre. The performance will comprise repeated cycles at 9 p.m., 9.45 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Book for a cycle (at £3 and £5) or for the whole evening (£6 and £10). The call/save reservation number is 1 850 260027, and early booking is advised.
Six lumber truckers from Mayo and Galway intend to make history in the small village of Clonbur in north Connemara next Sunday when they attempt to reverse their rigid vehicles and turntable trailers across seven miles of winding road.
Like "pushing rope" is how the truckers describe their effort, which has been planned to raise funds for two area hospices in Galway and in Mayo/Roscommon. No mean feat indeed, given that the overall length of each truck and trailer is 60 ft.
To support the event, lines are being sold at £5 each and companies can also sponsor a truck. The Truckin' for Hospice office at Clonburis at (092) 46401, and more details are also available from the Galway Hospice Foundation at (091) 770868 and the Mayo-Roscommon Hospice at (094) 88666.
The Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Fund replica, The Wall That Heals, which is on tour in Ireland, will be on display at NUI Galway from this Wednesday to Friday. Five of the 14 Irish-born soldiers who died in Vietnam were from Connacht. To mark the event, Pulitzer prize-winning author and journalist Neil Sheehan will give a lecture about his book, A Bright Shining Lie, on Wednesday in NUI Galway. The lecture, hosted by the NUI Galway Political Discussion Society, will be chaired by Prof Nicholas Canny of the university's history department in the Aula Maxima at 8 p.m.
On Thursday, Gary Markovits of WinStar for Education, a major US telecommunications firm, will discuss the wall's digital legacy programme in the Aula Maxima at 2 p.m. and at 8 p.m., Maj Gen Vincent Savino, the general secretary of the Irish UN Veterans' Association, will address a session on Irish UN peacekeeping.
Representatives from the UN training school at the Curragh and NUI Galway will also participate.