Bernard O’Donoghue, Poet

A winner of the Whitbread Prize for Poetry, Bernard was born in Cullen, Co. Cork. He later moving to Manchester and studied Medieval English at Oxford University. He is currently a teacher and Fellow in English at Oxford.

Even though he has lived in the UK since the age of 16, Bernard is a frequent visitor home and he writes constantly about the North Cork landscape and the characters of his youth. Thus, he has brought North Cork to an international audience through his poetry. The editors of his Selected Poems (2008) wrote about this local rootedness as follows:

‘O’Donoghue is at his most mesmeric when recalling the rural Cork of his upbringing as seen against the exile of his adulthood, ever alive to the desire but impossibility of return.’

His works include Poaching Rights (1987); The Weakness(1991); Gunpowder (1995), Seamus Heaney and the Language of Poetry (1995), Here Nor There (1999),Outliving (2003), a verse translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2006), and Selected Poems (2008).

Bernard is a a generous supporter of local cultural eventsduring his frequent visits to North Cork.

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Marie Foley, Sculptor

Marie Foley was born and reared in Kanturk. Creative expression came naturally to her at an early age and this was affirmed at home and school.

She began formal study at the Crawford College of Art in Cork and went on to earn a high reputation as a sculptor. Inspired by a profound interest in nature, and with a strong spiritual dimension, her work is mainly composed of natural materials such as yew, bog oak, ash, sycamore.

Marie was the first Irish Artist to have a solo Exhibition in the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Her work has been exhibited world-wide and she has received numerous awards and scholarships. Recipients of commissions include former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, Dermot Desmond, founder of NCB Stockbrokers, and various ambassadors to Ireland. Her preference is for her work to be exhibited in places accessible to the public and she is a strong believer in the capacity of art to contribute to the lives of ordinary people.

Marie’s father, John Foley, was a drainage contractor and reclaimed many fields in various townlands around Kanturk and beyond. She grew up with a fascination for his old maps which documented field patterns and the wonderful sounding and meaning of the place-names. When he died in 1988, Marie kept her father’s worn land drainage maps knowing she would eventually draw them into her work.

For the Kanturk Arts festival Marie will exhibit some of her field map drawings along with some of her sculpture.

Marie now lives in Thomastown in Co. Kilkenny.

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Vincent Crotty, Painter 

Vincent Crotty was born and raised in Kanturk. He began painting at the age of seven, inspired by his mother’s interest in art and his fascination with the play of light on his natural surroundings.

On leaving school in the depressed economic conditions of the 1980s, Vincent spent five years working in a factory before determining “to make my living — one way or another — with paint.” He left his factory job and studied sign painting and interior decorating at Fás, and studied informally with the well-known West Cork sign painter Tomás Tuipéir: “My background in trade school has given me a hands-on approach rather than a cerebral one.  Being self-employed has forced me to follow my here-and-now instincts as an artist.  I take a fearless approach and slap on paint liberally. I harness happy accidents.”

Vincent then immigrated to Boston in 1990 to seek out further art training and studied with John Kilroy and Paul Rahilly.  He has attended the Scottsdale Artists School in Arizona and traveled widely to study plein air painting.

Now regarded for his landscape and figurative paintings, Vincent explores the places and faces of both Atlantic coasts as his primary subject matter.  Working with oils, he paints with rugged textures and vigorous brushstrokes, balanced by sensitive color.

He exhibits widely on both sides of the Atlantic and he also teaches. He continues to be a regular visitor home and Kanturk scenes feature prominently in his shows.

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James Clancy, Photographer 

James Clancy began photography and film-making in 1998. Self-taught, he began exhibiting his works in 2000 at Cork Arts Trail. Prior to that he worked in music, released records independently and toured extensively in the UK, Ireland and Europe. He lives in Derrygallon, Kanturk.

James says of his work: “Photography, like so much in life, works in mysterious ways – for me, anyway. And for me the only grand plan is that there is no grand plan.

There are, of course, lots of little plans, most of which lead straight into the sand. It’s all a matter of going on, taking the best photographs I know how and waiting patiently for explanations to emerge.

Sometimes, in frustration, I impose mumbo-jumbo rationale on them, but that just makes matters worse. Allowing the photographs to assert their meaning requires a very long patience.

This series of photographs began several years ago. At the time I didn’t know I was beginning anything at all, least of all something that I’ve come to recognize will not be ‘finished’ in my lifetime.”

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Jackie Daly, Musician

His button accordion playing has been hugely influential in bringing that genre to a wider national and international audience. Indeed, Jackie has been described in the New York Times as “probably the best accordionist in Ireland.” From the 1970s, Jackie formed many successful partnerships with musicians such as Seamus Cregh, Kevin Burke, Andy Irvine and Arty McGlynn.

Jackie played with De Dannan and performed on four of their albums between 1980 and 1985. He also performed withButtons & Bows, Arcady, Reel Union, Kinvara, and Patrick Street. In 2005 Jackie was named Ceoltóir na Bliana(Musician of the Year) in the Gradam Ceoil awards of the Irish-language television station TG4.

He now lives in Milltown Malbay in Co. Clare and regurlary performs and tours.

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