Fred Johnstonwrites in praise of Gort, Co Galway and its forthcoming festival of literature.
I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea- green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain,
When all is ruin once again.
GORT-Inse-Guaire, the town of Gort, Co Galway takes its name from good King Guaire, a sixth-century chieftain reputed to be the very soul of hospitality. Hammocked between the Sleive Aughty Mountains and the Burren, it became a local rambling spot for the scions of the late-19th-century literary revival, and Sullivan's Royal Hotel, standing on the square on the Galway side of the town, was frequented by W.B. Yeats, AE, and others who came to visit at nearby Coole Park.
The elegant and friendly Lady Gregory Hotel on the road to Ennis reminds us that - even if Ireland West Tourism disgracefully declines to inject the least hint of a living literary component into Thoor Ballylee - this is the region of the West which saw the birth of a literally revolutionary literary culture. And Sullivan's, with its vibrant and welcoming staff, still puts a good dinner on the table.
Gort was traditionally a market town, with an emphasis on cattle, and there is something still of the heady sociability of older days in the climbing main street inching towards Ennis and Limerick to the South. Gort's architecture has more than a touch of foggy grandeur; the arrival of cyber-cafés, fast-food take-aways and at least one decent music café have simply enhanced the sense of vivid life which seems to pervade the little town, like the music of bees in a hive. Naturally, traditional music can be found in most pubs at the weekends.
But jigs and reels are not the only traditional music to be heard in Gort. A growing Brazilian community has blazed into the Gort streets for several years with the traditional Quadrilha festival, with colourful communal dances, Brazilian music and Brazilian food.
So perhaps it was only a matter of time before something of Gort's literary past was revived in some manner. The Western Writers' Centre in Galway ¨- Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín Maude - is the only writers' centre west of the Shannon. Taking a cue from lines in the Yeats poem, To Be Carved on a Stone at Ballylee, which are visible on a plaque on Thoor Ballylee, the centre has organised a modest but varied two-day festival of literature entitled "The Forge at Gort - a Writers' Gathering", to be held on Friday and Saturday, March 28th and 29th. The forge of which Yeats wrote is still in the main street of Gort, proud and cyclopean as the huge buses and lorries snarl by on their way to the rest of the world.
Sponsored by, among others, the Arts Council and Galway County Council, the little festival has all the makings, we hope, of bigger things to come. Posters in Portuguese have been handed out and pinned up around the town calling upon the local Brazilian community to help to organise a reading by a Brazilian poet or writer.
For weeks now, copies of the Western Writers' Centre's brand-new newsletter, The Word Tree, with its breakdown of festival events, have been circulating in the town. Events will open on the Friday with a reading by novelist and poet Geraldine Mills in the Alcasar Pizzeria, followed by a reading from poet Knute Skinner up the hill at the Lady Gregory Hotel, with local musicians Mary O'Sullivan and Clare Sawtell. Dublin poet Nessa O'Mahoney gives a poetry workshop on Saturday morning at Sullivan's Royal Hotel, followed by poets Frank Golden and Mark Whelan in O'Grady's Bar.
Hurling fans can rush over to the Blackthorn restaurant for a reading by hurling goalkeeper and sports writer Christy O'Connor at 2pm. Meanwhile, story-teller Eddie Lenihan will be entertaining young Gortonians and visitors in Gort Library at 3pm.
Jessie Lendennie, of Salmon Poetry, will talk about publishing poetry back in Sullivan's, and playwrights Margaretta D'Arcy and John Arden will present a words-and-music re-examination of the unique and innovative, but sadly ultimately doomed, co-operative experiment at nearby Ralahine in 1831 - "Re-Telling Ralahine, 1831 - A Co-op Dream", with piano music by Sylvia Crawford leading them in.
The co-op sprouted on the estate of John Vandeleur, ostensibly as a means of occupying his tenants more fruitfully than losing them to the notorious Ribbonmen. In November, with the assistance of one Edward Thomas Craig, the co-operative got under way. The first thing the commune did was to ban pleasurable things such as tobacco, snuff, booze and gambling. Tenants were paid in "notes" which they could spend in the communal store. The first mowing machine in Ireland made its appearance at Ralahine.
Perhaps in unconscious keeping with the notion of co-operatives, this event, at 8.30pm in The Kiltartan Rooms at the Lady Gregory Hotel, is free.
Already there is considerable interest in the festival, though, like any such event, it will take time to build. The Western Writers' Centre sees the festival as another component of its remit as the only such centre in the West, serving the community outside Galway. It has had a busy 12 months, working with the Arts Council-funded Touring Experiment, for instance, and organising readings with Irish-language poets as far south as Ballinskelligs and up to Ballyshannon. Inquiries about "The Forge at Gort - a Writers' Gathering", should be made to Marvelle Maguire at 091.533594 or by e-mail to westernwriters@eircom.net.
Fred Johnston is director of the Western Writers' Centre.