Boyle Arts Festival Committee says Thank You.

Boyle Arts Festival 2018 was perhaps the most memorable and successful to date and the Boyle Arts Festival Committee would like to extend heartfelt thanks to all who helped make it possible.

Once again, we received tremendous support from the people of Boyle - in terms of sponsorship, attendance of events, provision of venues, premises, voluntary help and of course that wonderful hospitality that welcomed the considerable numbers of visitors to the town. The Arts Festival is a serious undertaking for a voluntary committee of eight - this year’s Festival featured ten separate art exhibitions, seven workshops and 48 performance events, many of them sold-out in advance - spread over ten days! We would like to pay tribute to those who continue to support us in so many ways, year after year and without whom; we would undoubtedly have no Boyle Arts Festival.

In addition to our local sponsors, who we encourage everybody to support, we must also acknowledge the support of the The Arts Council, Forás Éireann, Fáilte Ireland and Roscommon County Council.

Publicity is vital to any Festival and we would like to thank all the local websites, regional and national newspapers and radio stations for the publicity and good will afforded to us, both before and during the Festival.

We are deeply indebted to all of our local volunteers and helpers, who gave so freely of their time by helping at the ‘door’ during events, collecting and hanging artwork, assisting in the ticket office, distributing posters and programmes, assisting at the exhibitions and events, directing traffic, making vacant premises available for exhibition space and indeed helping out in any way. 

We must also extend a special word of thanks to Benny Morgan for volunteering to photograph every one of our events and allowing us to use his photos.

A special thank you also to those in King House, the Church of Ireland, Boyle Abbey, St. Joseph’s Hall, Abbey Community College, Boyle Parochial School, Boyle Family Resource Centre, Daly’s Storehouse, Clarke’s Bar, The Open Table, Mattimoe’s, Dodd’s, Patrick’s Well, Druminilra Farm Kitchen, The Pleasure Grounds, and The Spool Factory for allowing us to use their venues. We must also extend thanks to Perpetua McGee of ‘Marians’ for providing her premises as our Festival office and to Thomas Gallagher and Mick O’Dowd for providing storage facilities. 

Thanks also to Boyle Musical Society for assisting with additional lighting and to Ciaran O’Connor of Trojan IT, for projection facilities. We are also grateful to Bank of Ireland Boyle and Boyle GAA, for making their car parks available to us during events and to An Garda Síochána for their assistance with parking.

We must extend sincere gratitude to all those who travelled from near and far, to attend all of the events, exhibitions and workshops at Boyle Arts Festival 2018. Once again, we have been overwhelmed at the support we received, especially from the people of Boyle who turned out in greater numbers than ever. Almost every event had capacity audiences and several were even sold out in advance! We are truly grateful to the local and wider community, for all their support.

And finally, we would also like to thank all the visual artists, performers and contributors who took part in BAF 2018 and especially all the local artists, who once again made this year’s Festival so special. Without them, Boyle Arts Festival would be incomplete and it is heart-warming to think that there is so much great talent on our doorstep!

Plans are already underway for next year’s Boyle Arts Festival, which will run from July 18th to 27th 2019 and as this will be our 30th Anniversary, we are hoping to make it another fantastic and memorable experience - so why not put those dates in your diary now! 

For more information please go to www.boylearts.com or follow us of Facebook and Twitter.

The Boyle Arts Festival Committee.

Tony Conboy special

Roscommon Intermediate Ladies v Meath in All-Ireland Semi-Final on Sat. the 25th.  

I have been reading and hearing about Roscommon Intermediate ladies thrilling victory over Laois last week-end in Moate. Apparently it was heart-stopping stuff. Team manager Michael Finneran (former Roscommon senior football midfielder) is quoted in the Roscommon People as follows “That was an unbelievable game. I don’t think I have ever been involved in a game like it. My nerves are shot at the moment. It’s hard to describe what happened out there”. Those sentiments have been re-echoed in the local sports pages accounts and by those lucky enough to have been present. I must admit I have not been at many ladies football games down the years though I remember being at an  under-age one in Nenagh, Roscommon v Waterford, perhaps four or five years ago.  One of the many stars of the team is Boyle’s Roisin Wynne daughter of Anne and Gary. The team now faces Meath in the All-Ireland Semi-Final in Hyde Park on Saturday the 25th at 1. So this is a real opportunity to see and support the team and I imagine many more Roscommon supporters will have been alerted by last week-end’s heroics and result and wish to be there on the 25th. So put it in your diary for that week-end.

‘A Skull in Connemara’ Boyle Connection

From heroics on the sporting field I move to a very different stage that being the stage of the Olympia Theatre in Dublin.  Decadent Theatre Company from Galway is presenting Martin McDonagh’s (3 Billboards and all that) middle- of three- play ‘A Skull in Connemara’ is in the Olympia until Saturday September 1st.   The lead actor is Pat Shortt and the Boyle connection is Jarlath Tivnan. • • • •While Pat Shortt may be one of the country’s finest and unsung actors (see The Garage) the tremendously energetic performance of Jarlath has been exciting the attention of the critics. 

While praising Pat Shortt’s restrained performance the theatre critic of The Irish Times,  continues  with; “However, it is Tivnan who steals the show with his explosive energy as Martin, swinging between baffled simplicity and psychopathy as he drives the plot on. Scene Three, in which he and Mick smash the skulls of the recently exhumed, is performed with an irreverent joy that you will, surely, never see anywhere else again”. 

•So if you are from Boyle or its surrounds and live in the capital a visit to this production is worthy of consideration and maybe mention it here and there!

Heritage Week Walking Tour of  Boyle Thursday 23rd at 7. 

During the highly successful Arts Week I enjoyed taking two groups on a walking tour of Boyle. As part of Heritage Week I will be doing a similar ‘tour’ which is being promoted by Una Bhan. It takes place on Thursday the 23rd of the coming week starting at King House at 7. It is very surprising all the material that one can reference doing those trips. One continues to learn in this process so it will take a good while to reach the finished article. 

P.S. One of the locations I visit is the Plunkett Home area. This was where Boyle Workhouse once stood. I am surprised that no frontal photograph of The Workhouse has emerged apart from a picture taken by Mary Fallon of a portion of the building as it was being demolished. If anyone comes up with one a number of people would be very pleased to see it.        

Maureen O’Sullivan Remembered …Film from Videos  of Her 1988 Return to Boyle. 

This month is the 30th Anniversary of the return of Maureen O’Sullivan to her native town of Boyle on August 7th/8th 1988. It was a really great event and still resonates. Her trip was extensively recorded on video by Donal Farrell and Michael Beirne for the visit’s Organising Committee. Brendan McGee is currently editing a film of Maureen’s visit from those videos. The quality is not perfect but pretty good. There will be a showing of this documentary covering the visit on Tuesday evening, August 28th, at 7.30 in the upper auditorium in King House.  It will run for the considerable length of nearly 1 and a half hours. A section of the ‘film’ (I’ll call it for convenience sake) will cover a concert in The Royal Hotel on the Sunday evening of her visit in which many of the best of Boyle entertainers participated. The star of course was Maureen herself but the people of Boyle were outstanding ‘extras’ over that memorable week-end. Many of you will pop up in this ‘film’. 

162 local Post Offices Begin to Close - MacSharry

Government Silence Deafening as 162 local Post Offices Begin to Close!

‘Taoiseach’s Crisis Commentary, and Photo Calls no substitute for real representation and leadership of our Republic’

- Mac Sharry.

Fianna Fail TD Marc Mac Sharry has heavily criticised the ‘deafening silence from Government on the closure of  162 post offices nationwide.   It is 2 weeks since I first put the provisional list in the public domain.  Since then 12 closures have already taken place while the majority will close before the Dail resumes in September’.

‘Silence from the Government is deafening as Taoiseach and Minister Naughton remain silent and idle as closures begin.  With 12 closed so far, 150 more will follow. Most will have closed when the Dail returns’

‘ The timing of this action is despicable.  The closure of these post offices results from what was presented as a necessary retirement package for long serving postmasters but the reality is clear now that Government used An Post and the Irish Post Masters union to shut down 162 local post offices nationwide instead of providing the necessary supports to keep them open ‘

‘ The Taoiseach and his Government must accept that their role is not a ceremonial one.  The people are sovereign in our Republic and they are entitled to the leadership and representation they deserve.  All we see is crisis commentary, photo calls and profile building but when it comes to effective representation of all people The Taoiseach and his colleagues are inept and absent’

‘ Everybody acknowledges that An Post has a commercial mandate and must balance the books.  Equally everyone accepts the Post Masters Unions mandate and entitlement to negotiate a retirement package for long serving members.  They do not have a mandate to negotiate for communities!  The Government must direct a stay on all Post Office Closures until such time as the Oireachtas debate this matter with a view to providing the necessary €8m in subvention to maintain our existing post office network’

Marc Mac Sharry

086 267 4764.