RnaG Christmas bill to cover Kerry ‘37 relocations
Sliabh Luachra group enjoy festive get-together
LISTENERS from Kerry, and in particular west Kerry, can look forward to a number of interesting inclusions on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta’s festive schedule, including a look back at the hugely successful Oireachtas na Samhna festival which brought thousands of people to Killarney last month.
Killarney has been a regular host to the national festival over the last decade, and its 2017 staging in the Kerry town can be relived on Christmas Day from 3pm with the airing of ‘RnaG ag an Oireachtas’.
St Stephen’s Day, perhaps as RETIRED, but not retiring, members of the Sliabh Luachra Active Retirement Group enjoyed a warm and wonderful evening in each other’s company with a Christmas party at The River Island Hotel last week.
Bringing in members of the group from nearly all corners of the large Sliabh Luachra region and its greater area – from Tureencahill to Scart, Lyre and Knocknagoshel – they poured well-known in west Kerry as The Wren’s Day, is steeped in the identity of the Corca Dhuibhne peninsula, and the west Kerry Gaeltacht and indeed Kerry as a whole will be at the forefront of the station’s airings on December 26.
From midday, Helen Ní Shé will bring listeners the story of the 20 Kerry families who moved to Baile Ghib in County Meath in 1937 as part of a government resettlement scheme, and that will be followed at 1.30pm by “Lá an Dreoilín, Mar a Bhí,” in which Sláine Ní Chathalláin joins the west Kerry community to discuss the Wren’s Day traditions.
Sinéad Ní Uallacháin will also offer a series of classic hits into the River Island to catch up on the year’s activities and events and enjoy the festive spread laid on for all.
It was a night that amply demonstrated the wisdom of the vision behind the group - set up in 2006 to give many older people a social focus, particularly on Sundays, a day in which many living alone can find very long and lonely indeed. The value of togetherness was never clearer than at their big party. throughout Christmas from 1.30pm with “Clasaicigh Ceoil”, while special editions of the Munster magazine show An Saol ó Dheas will take place after midday on December 27, 28, and 29.
Our neighbours just beyond the county bounds in Múscraí have not been forgotten by the state broadcaster by any means either, and at just after midday on New Years Day, the late musician and broadcater Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin, who also had strong links with Kerry, will be remembered in a recap of the Éigse Dhiarmuidín Festival that took place in West Cork in early December.