On The Town: The thrill of being included in an art exhibition at the National Gallery was a dream come true for many of the artists included in Drawing Studies: A Celebration, which opened on Thursday night in Dublin.
Angela Moriarty from Ballyheigue in Co Kerry, on taking early retirement from nursing, joined a Drawing Studies course at the National Gallery last year. This week, her work was exhibited there along with 25 drawings by fellow students and an additional eight by their artists/tutors, including Donald Teskey RHA, Felicity Clear, James Hanley RHA and John Keating. Angela's sisters Mary Moriarty and Joan Coghlan were both at the opening to congratulate her.
"I absolutely love it," said Mary Murphy, from Castleknock in Dublin, who took up painting after retiring from teaching at Our Lady of Mercy Convent in Drimnagh, Dublin. "It just lights you up," she said, and her friend and fellow student artist, Ethna Monks, agreed.
"As many artists and writers have shown in the past, there is nothing at all unusual about the later periods of their lives being ones of abundant creativity," said poet and managing editor with this paper, Gerard Smyth, when he opened the show, which aims to celebrate and mark creativity in later life. Among the writers who drew, he listed Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Lewis Carroll, Henry James, Sean O'Casey and Edgar Allen Poe. "There are many instances of later flowering in what we might call 'injury time'," he said. "There is no retirement age or no sell-by date for the creative spirit," he added.
Artist and tutor Mick O'Dea RHA said it is never too late to take up drawing. "It's a language," he explained. "People decide to learn different languages at different times in their lives and if anyone has a desire to draw, then we teach them the vocabularly."
Drawing Studies: A Celebration continues at the National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square West, Dublin 2, until spring 2008.
The new rainbow alliance
Champions of the left gathered to celebrate the publication of 40 Shades of Green by Des Geraghty in Dublin's Liberty Hall. Michael D Higgins TD, president of the Labour Party, who launched the book, said he hopes it will "encourage a critical engagement with our new realities". Geraghty, in collaboration with photographer Liam Blake, looks at what it currently means to be Irish and introduces the reader to many of the new Irish now living here.
"It will make an important contribution to what I hope will be a comprehensive reflection on what it means to be Irish in the early decades of the 21st century," said Higgins. "It makes the valuable point that Irish society has always been culturally diverse . . . both in terms of the origins of its people, their belief systems and their dispersal." Identity, he added, "far from being defined in any atrophied sense, is the outcome of a process - one that is continually open to change."
Geraghty, the former president of Siptu, said he had been "overwhelmed" in recent times by the new Irish and their commitment "to this little country".
Conor Lenihan TD, the Minister of State with responsibility for the Government's Integration Policy, who also spoke at the launch, said he took "great sustenance and heart from the optimism" expressed by Geraghty.
Others who attended the launch included Eamon Gilmore TD, leader of the Labour Party; Pat Rabbitte TD, the party's former leader; Liz McManus TD, Joan Burton TD and Labour party Cllr Eric Byrne. Artist Amelia Stein, Joseph Woods of Poetry Ireland and poet Gabriel Rosenstock and his wife Eithne were there, as was the former trade unionist Rev Chris Hudson, Denis Rowan, a director of Fás, and Grace Boateng, formerly of Ghana, who is one of the many individuals photographed by Blake for 40 Shades of Green.
40 Shades of Green by Des Geraghty is published by Real Ireland
Shooting the sopranos and tenors
Stylish gowns and colourful dickie bows were in evidence at the National Concert Hall in Dublin this week as guests arrived for a gala concert dedicated to all those who have supported the venue since its opening season in 1981.
Guests were also treated to a selection of images taken from the archives of the National Concert Hall as photographed by Rosita Wolfe, the in-house head of marketing and communications, as well as the work of Irish Times photographers, in an exhibition entitled Through the Lens.
"It's so important to capture the musical moments through photography," said Judith Woodworth, director of the NCH, looking around at the selection of photographs, which feature solo artists such as cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli and pianist Alfred Brendel.
"For our friends wandering around, it will bring back lovely memories for them. We'll get them framed and put them up permanently," she said. "In our redevelopment, we'll have a lot more space."
The current seating for 1,200 will treble in size in this redevelopment, and Iveagh Gardens will be incorporated into the new design, she explained.
Mary Cronin from Ballyfermot chatted with her friend Ann Murray before the concert, both sipping champagne before they went in.
Broadcaster and rugby pundit George Hook, who welcomed the audience to the Friends Favourites Duets Gala Concert, admitted he could not pretend to be a music buff. "I grew up with Buddy Holly and the Crickets," he said, before introducing the concert's artists, including soprano Cara O'Sullivan, conductor David Brophy, mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught and tenor Karl Scully.
The Through the Lens Photography Exhibition 07 continues until February at the National Concert Hall, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2
Taking Behan to Beckett
An energetic treatment of Brendan Behan's rarely staged play, The Hostage, opened at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Trinity College, Dublin this week.
The Hostage "is entertaining on all levels", said its director Sarah Jane Scaife. "It's got everything - politics, love, sex, violence. Behan ridicules everything . . . It's set in a brothel in 1960s Ireland. There are all sorts of issues - race issues, sexual issues, religious issues. It brings up all sort of problems that are very relevant today."
"I love it because of the characters - the old Irish, which is a bit lost nowadays - and the way they can tell their stories. There's a lot of fun about them," said Máiréad Cumiskey, of Ballina, Co Mayo, one of the cast, which is made up of Trinity College second and final year drama students.
"It's still very pertinent today in terms of the political climate," said Paul Johnson, director of Dance Ireland.
Scaife has "done a really interesting job, she brings out the subversiveness in it", he said. "Behan presents this diverse range of characters and he's not making a judgement on them. They are all people. I can't think of the last time there was a production of his in Dublin."
Among those in the audience on opening night was Bernadette O'Mahony, of Tullamore, Co Offaly, whose daughter, Christine O'Mahony, was the play's musical director, composer and arranger.
Also, Gerard Kelly, who played the hero Pat, was supported by his grandmother, Ellen Bingham from Rathfarnham, his parents James and Mary Kelly, his aunt Alison Bingham and family friend Barbara O'Brien.
"We've been able to have a lot of fun with it . . . We've gone as radical as we can," said cast member Nyree Yergainharsian.
The Hostage by Brendan Behan continues tonight only at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College, Dublin at 7.30 p.m.