EVENTS DETAILS 2012
(Click here for Programme with opening times and details …)
2012 Guest Speaker and Launch of Festival – Carmel Winters
Kanturk Arts Festival is honoured to have Carmel Winters as 
Guest Speaker and to launch Kanturk Arts Festival 2012.
Carmel studied Drama and English at Trinity College Dublin where she was awarded several prizes for outstanding academic achievement. Her real training as a dramatist, however, began in her native Kanturk where she grew up as one of a dynamic and challenging cast of twelve children.
Her debut art-house feature film ‘Snap’, received its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in April 2010 and was awarded Best Irish Film and Best Irish Director by the Dublin Film Critics Circle at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2011. It was also selected for the Variety Critic’s Choice Award at Karlovy-Vary International Film Festival and was voted ‘Best Film’ at the Cinemateca International Film Festival in Uruguay.
Her most recent theatre play, ‘B for Baby’, won the Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for Best New Play in 2010. She is currently preparing to direct her next feature film, ‘The Road to Joe’.
Carmel has also lectured in Drama at both Trinity College Dublin and, most recently, in the University of East Anglia where she taught Creative Writing.
Invited Artists 2012
Angela Regan lives in Knockaclarig, near Rockchapel, County Cork. Originally from
Manchester, she grew up surrounded by creativity. Her background provided her with an inspirational and intuitive approach to creating highly individual yet representational paintings.
Before moving to Ireland Angela spent five years in Brittany, where she hosted artist retreats and worked closely with local artists. With specific significance placed on the continuously changing colours, shapes, textures and lighting found in nature, she works with excitement and enthusiasm on themes which reflect the wonder that is nature and the energy within it.
She has exhibited her work in Ireland, England, France and the U.S. Her work, including commissioned pieces, can be found in private collections in England, America, Canada, France and Ireland.
Alina Coverca was born in Romania in 1979 and since 2004 has lived
in several European countries. She moved to Boherbue in 2005 and her latest paintings are inspired by the local landscape around Boherbue, Newmarket and Kanturk, combining abstraction with more naturalistic representation.
Alina studied art at the National Art University, Bucharest, majoring in mural art. She combines the modern Western tradition with techniques such as gilding, impasto and relief textures, which give her works an unusually intense tactile quality. These techniques draw on the practices of decorative art and on the Byzantine icon-painting and frescos that she studied in Orthodox Romania. She has had exhibitions in Romania and Ireland and has sold works in these countries and in the United States, Belgium and Italy. She also completed a major mural work (90 square meters) in fresco in 2011 on the exterior of a public building in Gorj, Romania
(see more at www.alinacoverca.com).
Schools’ Street Exhibition
The work of almost 500 students from Kanturk and district, hosted by 
the businesses of Kanturk.
The Overall Winner and Category Winners displayed in Percival St.
Where do stories come from? How do we remember things?
‘Storyspace’ is an installation which looks at the process of memory and its relationship to storytelling. Commissioned by Kanturk Arts Festival with the help of Cork County Council, it was created in response to a major photographic archive associated with Kanturk, and grew out of a collaboration between artist and writer Rosemary Canavan and two groups of Kanturk residents. The result is an environment where pictures and sound mingle to create relationships across age, time and space.
As part of the preparation for the installation, Transition Year students from Scoil Mhuire met with an older group of residents from Mercy House to record oral narratives – memories and stories – sparked off by the photographs. The result is an environment where pictures and sound mingle to create relationships across age, time and space.
The installation is in ‘Manley’s window’, Strand St., during the festival.
Click here to see Storyspace video.
Rosemary Canavan, creator of Storyspace, is a writer, artist and educator. She was born in 
Scotland, brought up in the North of Ireland, and now lives in Co. Cork. Her second collection of poetry, Trucker’s Moll, was published last year by Salmon Poetry in Galway. Her first collection, The Island, was shortlisted for the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize (University of Melbourne, Australia. Other publications include children’s books, translations of French short stories and anthologies.
In 2001 she was Writer in Residence in Kerry, and from 2006 – 7 she was Poetry Editor for Southword. She has read at a number of festivals including the Cheltenham Literary Festival, Listowel Writers’ Week and Cuirt Literary Festival, Galway.
She has been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship (2007), a bursary in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland (2000) and a residency for a project with asylum seekers for Cork 2005 European City of Culture.
She has given workshops in Creative Writing to adults and children, and also worked as a teacher in varied locations including Belfast, Spike Island and Cork Prisons. Her digital artwork has been exhibited at the Droichead Arts Centre and the Boole Library in University College, Cork.
Further details are available at www.rosemarycanavan.com.
Snapshots Across Time
This exhibition presents selected works from the Danny O’Sullivan Photographic Archive, along with contemporary responses from Kanturk students.
Danny O’Sullivan’s photographs are extraordinary in their immediacy and beauty and he had an exceptional ability to capture the faces and emotions of his native town: A son proudly stands beside his fireman father; mothers admire a girl’s outfit; teenagers wait with excitement for their favourite showband; and the wondering face of a child peers from a decorated wagon.
All are recorded with a sharp and loving eye, as are the Corpus Christi parade and summer carnival, and other events that marked the passage of the year, such as the arrival of the travellers on their way to the Cahirmee Fair, the horse and bicycle races, and the visits of the travelling circus.
In line with the Storyspace theme of creating relationships across age, time and space, students from Scoil Mhuire present their own responses to a selection of the Danny O’Sullivan image.
(See ‘About Danny O’Sullivan’)
Children’s Theatre – The Tallest Smallest Circus in the World!
A clueless Ringmaster with no acts attempts to prove the old 
adage the show must go on! He is going to require a lot of help if a show with jugglers, acrobats, daredevil clowns and performing elephants is to reach its finale. Highly interactive, for all age groups.
Mr. Ringmaster will be on the street for an hour beforehand.
In the Trades Union Hall, Strand St.
Gala Night – ConTempo String Quartet with Kanturk Harp Ensemble
The ConTempo String Quartet was formed at the 
University in Bucharest, Romania, and is now based in Galway. They have toured the world extensively and have won a record of 14 international awards.
All three members of Kanturk Harp Ensemble went to school in Coláiste Treasa in Kanturk where they studied the harp with Damhnait Nic Suibhne.
Christine O’ Riordan is from Kanturk and, after leaving Coláiste Treasa, she continued her music studies in UCC and obtaining a BA Degree. Christine has been a member of a string ensemble Strings ‘N Things and has accompanied various traditional music ensembles. She has a strong interest in harp as a vocal accompaniment.
Cáit Buckley is from Derrinagree and also went on to UCC where she obtained a BA Degree. She is currently in UL pursuing a Graduate Diploma in Teaching. Cáit is an active performer and plays for many functions.
Siobhan Buckley is from Rathcoole and is currently in her first year of a BA Degree in Music and Maths in N.U.I. Maynooth. Siobhan has been a member of the string ensemble ‘Strings ‘N Things’ and is currently a member of the Kylemore Harp Ensemble.
See www.contempo.ie
The Courthouse Theatre – ‘First Love’, by Samuel Beckett
Performed by Conor Lovett, Gare St. Lazare Players.
First Love is a short story by Samuel Beckett. In it a man recounts an episode early in his adult life where, having been expelled from the family home, he meets a young woman on a bench. His attempts to rid himself of his infatuation with her lead him to move in with her. A perfect blend of tragedy and comedy, First Love is almost the perfect short story.
Conor Lovett is regarded as the foremost Beckett interpreter of our times and noted for making his work accessible to all.
The Gare St. Lazare Players are Ireland’s most traveled theater company, having performed in over 23 countries and 70 cities worldwide.
In Kanturk Courthouse [Kanturk Courthouse was built in 1827, to a design by James Pain, during a period of development for the town. The 2012 Kanturk Arts Festival is its first public usage since the District Court closed in 2010. The interior is in near-original condition. Kanturk Community Council would like to acknowledge the co-operation of the Courts Service in making the building available as a venue]
‘A Few Songs and That Kind of Stuff’ – Festival Open Night with Tim Browne and Ciarán Ruby
Tim Browne, a seafarer for many years, is a bouzouki player and singer. 
He has performed all over the world in places as diverse as Australia, South America, The Middle East, North Korea and the USA.
Tim has a deep knowledge of the history, culture and music of Duhallow and Sliabh Luachra, along with a huge repertoire of old songs and ballads. He has made numerous recordings and television appearances, and he plays with a number of groups including Moses Bridge, Skelig, The Blarney Pilgrims and The Monks of the Screw. He also gives regular solo performances.
Tim is founder and Director of Féile Dúthalla, an event which focuses on the musical and historical legacy of Duhallow. Steeped in the history and tradition of his native Kanturk, Tim also provides guided tours of the town and the greater Duhallow Region.
Ciarán Ruby is well known in Irish film and theatre as both an actor and a writer, and he holds a Masters Degree in Drama and Theatre Studies from University College Cork. Tim and Ciarán have over 40 years of performing experience between them and produce a rousing energetic night of old and ‘not-so-old’ folk and trad classics, with a respectful nod to the centuries-old tradition.
See more about Tim Brown at web.me.com/timbrowne
Back to Top …….
Poetry SLAM – with an Adversarial Twist
Advocate for your Favourite Poem or Poet for €100 Kanturk Bookshop Prize. The sitting judge will be Mr. Gabriel Fitzmaurice
Rules of Engagement:
• c. 90 seconds to advocate for your favourite poem or poet
• c. 90 seconds to read one poem or extract in support of your argument
• maximum of 20 Advocacies – names from hat if over-subscribed
Guest Readings by Mr. John Dillon and the winner of the Schools’ Poetry event.
Jury gives Verdict on the Winner
In Kanturk Courthouse
Duhallow Choral Society
The much-anticipated, annual special music
Photo by Patrick Casey
celebration of Mass for St. Patrick’s Weekend
In the Church of the Immaculate Conception
Musical Memories
Musical Memories is a trip down memory lane to the late 1980s at the Edel Quinn Hall where casts of, literally, hundreds of Kanturk adults and children took to the stage under the guiding hand of Fr. Bertie Troy to present ‘Oliver’, ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Aladdin’.
These fantastic community productions were captured on film and Musical Memories brings you the best bits from all three shows – along with the promise of a live reprise or two, from the stars of the show; and a wine reception.
Other Exhibitions
- Open Art Exhibition and Photography Exhibitions
- Open Art Exhibition in Kanturk Library, Main St.
- Open Photography in Kanturk Framing Shop, Strand St.