Enchanted Way Tour of County Clare, June 2010

"This part of the Tour included The Cliffs of Moher, The Aran Island Inis Oirr, The Burren, and Traditional Music in the Pubs of Doolin." 'Enchanted Way' Tour of County Clare, June 2010, vocals by Tom Pigott and Friends - 'Along the Enchanted Way'. Posted on Youtube on the 4th of July 2010 by jocatgo123.

Clare singer and songwriter Lucy Foley releases 'Copenhagen'

Clare singer and songwriter Lucy Foley has often felt like somebody’s imaginary friend,showing up in unlikely places. But it was her move to Denmark in 2004 that sparked a liberating creative journey over three years spent as a street performer and photographer that is conjured throughout the seven songs on her richly imaginative debut, Copenhagen, released on 1st October 2010 and available from her website http://music.lucyfoley.com/ and iTunes and Amazon MP3.

Pike making in Mountshannon, Ireland with blacksmith Mark Wilson

Pike making in the historic forge of Mountshannon, County Clare. Posted on Youtube on the 2nd of November 2009 by aveire.

Lisdoonvarna included in Penguin Anthology

Christy Moore, Declan Sinnott & Donal Lunny perform Lisdoonvarna. Posted on Youtube on 11th of December, 2009, by pddybrry.

The words of Christy Moore’s song, Lisdoonvarna, are to be included in a new anthology of Irish poetry. The Penguin Book of Irish Verse, running at over 1,000 pages, has just been published at a cost of €50. It will include all the greats of Irish poetry - Yeats, Beckett, Heaney, Swift, Wilde, Joyce, Kavanagh and others. Christy’s ballad describes arriving and performing at the Lisdoonvarna Folk Festival and has become his best-loved song.

(First verse and chorus:)
How's it goin' there everybody,
From Cork, New York, Dundalk, Gortahork and Glenamaddy.
Here we are in the County Clare
It's a long, long way from here to there.
There's the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher,
And the Tulla and the Kilfenora,
Miko Russell, Doctor Bill,
Willy Clancy and Noel Hill.
Flutes and fiddles everywhere.
If it's music you want,
You should go to Clare.

CHORUS
Oh, Lisdoonvarna
Lisdoon, Lisdoon, Lisdoon, Lisdoonvarna

Hanif Kureishi scoops PEN Pinter prize

A panel of judges including Harold Pinter's widow, Lady Antonia Fraser, Lisa Appignanesi and Mariella Frostrup chose Hanif Kureishi as winner of this year’s PEN Pinter prize. The award, which goes to a writer who – in the words of Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize speech – casts an "unflinching, unswerving" gaze upon the world, was established last year by English PEN in memory of the Novel-winning dramatist, its former vice-president. The prize aims to honour a writer of "outstanding literary merit" who exemplifies Pinter's own "fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies". Fraser said her husband "would have been proud" of the selection of Kureishi, author of the Whitbread award-winning novel The Buddha of Suburbia and the Oscar-nominated screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette. Last year, poet and playwright Tony Harrison won the inaugural PEN Pinter prize, worth £1,000. More info…

Frank O'Connor award goes to Ron Rash

The Frank O'Connor award has been presented to American author Ron Rash for his 'bleak' collection of short stories set in Appalachia, Burning Bright. This award is considered the world's richest prize for the short story form. Rash’s collection contains stories that range in time from the American Civil War to the present day and that tell of characters such as a pawnshop owner who intervenes when his nephew throws his parents out of their house to fund his meth addiction, to the portrait of the wife of a Lincoln sympathiser in Confederate territory. Rash said he hoped that "even though the stories are very regional in one sense", they also have a universal flavour. Rash was named winner in Cork on Sunday 19th September and beat experienced writers such as TC Boyle and Charlotte Grimshaw as well as debut writers such as Wells Tower and Simon Van Booy to claim the €35,000 (£29,000) award which honours world-famous short story writer Frank O’Connor. Rash is currently based in Western Carolina University where he holds the John Parris Chair in Appalachian Studies. No stranger to awards, Rash has won the O Curry Henry prize twice and was shortlisted twice for the PEN/Faulkner award. Previous winners of the Frank O’Connor prize include Haruki Murakami, Yiyun Li and Jhumpa Lahiri. More info…

Loop Head earns water tourism award

Loop Head in County Clare is among twenty five tourist destinations which were awarded the "2010 European Destination of Excellence" (EDEN) title on 27 September. The EU scheme promotes all-round sustainable tourism development models outside mainstream locations where unique (and economically viable) experiences are provided by a combination of cultural relevance, local involvement, environmental sensitivity. This year EDEN focused on aquatic tourism assets with the West Clare peninsula being praised for its exceptional scuba diving, diverse sea and bird life and dramatic cliffs. Previous Irish winners have been Clonakilty (2007, emerging rural destination), Carlingford and the Cooley peninsula (2008, local intangible heritage), and the Sheep’s Head peninsula, Co. Cork (2009, protected areas). More info…
Loop Head web links
http://www.loopheadclare.com/
http://www.loophead.ie/

Public libraries seek new role for digital era

More than 200 participants from 27 countries met to think about the future of public libraries in Europe. They regard the librarian as a guide in the internet world and no longer as a book collector. The European Congress on e-inclusion (ECEI10) - “Delivering digital Europe in public libraries" - organised by the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU, took place in Brussels on 20-21 September. The conference was organised within the framework of the European Year of Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion and with specific reference to the new ‘Digital Agenda for Europe’ policy which sets out to respond to the challenges and opportunities brought about by an increasingly digital age including the social, cultural and economic benefits they bring. The event looked at a range of areas including the opportunities public libraries have to bridge the digital divide, the role they can play to increase accessibility of services and information as well as their role in supporting digital literacy programmes. Among the conclusions reached were that the core added value of the public library and librarian in the future will be in a role as a guide who makes users familiar with the internet and with the access to new skills it offers. Delegates also argued in favour of libraries entering into external knowledge and skills partnerships.
More info…

Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize

Cheshire-born poet Sian Hughes has been announced as the inaugural winner of the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. Speaking about her collection of poetry, The Missing, published by Salt, Hughes says “It's hard to believe that writing down these very small texts and trying to make them as clear and honest as I can could somehow turn me into a real poet”. The judges Ciaran Carson, Michael Longley and Sinead Morrissey “singled out her work for particular praise from a competitive shortlist of new British and Irish poets”. Rosemary Kelly, chairman of the Arts Council, commented: “Sian Hughes is a worthy first winner of the prize and we are looking forward to seeing more from her in the future”. Hughes was announced as the winner at a reception, hosted by the Arts Council, to mark the opening of the British and Irish Contemporary Poetry Conference, which will take place at Queen’s University from September 15-17. The conference, now in its second session, is being hosted by the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast for the first time, drawing together poets and academics from across the UK and Ireland. It will feature poetry readings from renowned poets such as Christopher Ricks, Michael Schmidt, Christopher Reid, Peter McDonald, Carol Rumens and Gerald Dawe. Anyone who is interested can contact Gerry Hellawell at Queen’s University on 028 9097 1070 or email g.hellawell@qub.ac.uk. More info…

Annabel Lyon's top 10 books on the Ancient World

Award winning Canadian writer Annabel Lyon has chosen her top 10 books concerning the ancient world that she says “subvert, surprise, challenge and please”. The books that make her list are An Imaginary Life by David Malouf (1978), Dragonflies by Grant Buday (2008), Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault (1969), I, Claudius by Robert Graves (1934), The Moon in the Cloud by Rosemary Harris (1968), Plato’s Symposium (385-380BC), Aeschylus’s Oresteia, translated by Ted Hughes (1998), If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, translated by Anne Carson (2002), The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone (2009) and The Centaur by John Updike (1963). More info…