Charleville Festival of History set to be the talk of the town
CHARLEVILLE Heritage Society’s annual Festival of History takes place over the last weekend of September, from Thursday 27th to Sunday the 30th September, and an attractive programme of talks and events has been arranged by the organising committee.
The theme of the festival this year is ‘ The Legacy of Roger Boyle’, the founder of Charleville in 1661, and there will be two talks on the Boyle family,
The first talk is on the father of the Boyle family, Richard, which will be given by the authors of a new book launched last March on Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork. David Edwards and Colin Rynne from the history department at UCC will give a talk entitled ‘Richard Boyle, Model Planter and Colonial Oppressor’ to open the weekend on Thursday evening, 27th September, after the official opening by Cork County Council Heritage Officer Conor Nelligan.
On Friday evening there will be a talk on ‘Roger Boyle, the Founder of Charleville’ by Liam Irwin of the history department at the University College Limerick.
Both events will take place at the Charleville Park Hotel.
On Saturday morning at 10.30am, one of Ireland’s leading poets, Gabriel Fitzmaurice, will give a reading and workshop for aspiring poets at the Provincial Heritage Centre, Main Street, and in the afternoon local author Michael Sheehan will give a talk for budding writers on the Structure of a Story at Charleville Library starting at 2.30pm.
On Saturday night there is an evening of traditional Irish music, song and dance with Seán Ó Sé, All Ireland winning Scór sean nós singer Maggie Moynihan from Cullen but with Charleville connections, the musicians of Craobh An Rath CCE, sean nós dancer Cian Broderick, Harpist Rachel O’Connor, and a host of other musicians and entertainers, all happening at the Charleville Park Hotel.
On Sunday there will be a walk around the historic Turretts area of the town to round off the weekend.