On The Town:The 40th Merriman Summer School is for those who have a love of Co Clare, a longing for a particular ind of past and a desire for intellectual engagement.
The school "is really for Irish people.
In some cases it's a kind of nostalgia for a particular past, for meeting the same people year in and year out, for going to Clare as some people have a soft spot for Co Clare . . . It's an Irish event," said Liam Ó Dochartaigh, the school's chairman.
The announcement of this year's programme was a chance for Merriman regulars to meet in Dublin this week and peruse the upcoming series of talks and events that will take place in Lisdoonvarna next month.
Ó Dochartaigh recalled attending the first school in 1968: "Behind it all was Con Howard. He was the juggler, the first director. He brought it all together."
Since then, he added, "we have branched out into a range of topics". In the 1980s the school looked at the press, at priests, at parliament. Then, in succeeding years, "we had Ireland's relationship with various countries. But the core is the conviviality around the lectures".
Doireann Ní Bhriain, director of this year's school, said the speakers she had lined up would "reflect critically on some of the major changes in Irish life" over the past 40 years. Each school has its own personality, she added. As well as learning, music, song, poetry and dancing, "people return year after year to engage in some intellectual gymnastics by discussing the issue of the day with the learned and not so learned attending the school".
Academic Dr Eoghan Ó hAnluain, who was at the launch, was also at the first school. It all began when Con Howard, who was working at the Department of Foreign Affairs, noticed that the great 18th-century poem by Brian Merriman, Cúirt an Mheán-Oíche( The Midnight Court), was out of print.
Others at the launch in Dublin this week were artist Bob Ryan, archaeologist Peter Harbison, writer Bernard Share, broadcaster Máiréad Uí Dhomhnailland her husband, playwright Aodh Ó Domhnaill, former chief RTÉ librarian Diarmuid Breathnachand Clare women and Merriman committee members Marian O'Callaghanand Mary O'Flahery.
• The 40th Merriman Summer School takes place in Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare, between Sun, Aug 19, and Sat, Aug 25. For details, go to www.merriman.ie or email eolas@merriman.ie