Varied programme of events in this centenary year
EACH year Ballymote Heritage Weekend provides a varied programme of events over the August holiday weekend and this year is no exception.
To mark the centenary year of the Easter rebellion the Ballymote Heritage Group is delighted that the weekend will be opened by Anne Haverty, novelist, poet and Aosdána member, whose biography of Countess Markievicz is about to be re- issued. Anne delivered a very well received lecture at the conference organised by Sligo Field Club on women of the rising at Lissadell earlier in the year; her lecture on this occasion will look at the Countess from another perspective and is entitled ‘ Being Miss GoreBooth. There are two particular Ballymote connections with the countess as the town was once part of the Gore- Booth estate and the late Baby Bohan who lived in the town for most of her life had been on hunger strike with the countess.
Again reflecting the commemoration of events leading up to the founding of the state, the 1959 film Míse Éire will be screened in the beautiful setting of the Art Deco Theatre and Cinema on Friday afternoon. The film attracted an attendance of over 100,000 when it was originally released in cinemas all over Ireland. The film is a cultural artefact in its own right as it reflects as much the time it was made as the time it commemorates. The celebrated score is one of the masterpieces of Irish Composer Seán Ó’Riada who died tragically young and whose equally well known liturgical settings will be performed by Ballymote Parish Choir at Sunday mass during the Heritage weekend at 11.30 am in Ballymote Catholic Church.
2016 is also the centenary of the Battle of the Somme during which as many as 4,000 Irish soldiers died. The story of this tragic event will be recounted in a documentary being screened by the Ballymote Community Library’s popular Documentary Club at 5 pm on Thursday 28th July.
To mark the 400th anniversary of the death of the great playwright and poet William Shakespeare, the Art Deco Theatre and Cinema will screen Kenneth Branagh’s production of Hamlet. This will be of particular interest to students sitting the senior cert in 2017 as Hamlet is the prescribed Shakespeare play. Shakespeare’s plays were popular entertainment in their time and this can be forgotten in the dry and serious setting of the class room. Reading plays of any type is difficult but after a short period adjusting to the language attending a performance of a Shakespeare play is a pleasurable and rewarding experience. We owe to the bard so much of the most popular phrases in English language that we speak every day. Among the familiar phrases borrowed from Hamlet are – [ never] a borrower nor a lender be; [ every] Dog will have his day; It smells to heaven; Though this be madness, yet there is method in it; More honoured in the breach than in the observance; More in sorrow than in anger; Murder most foul; Own flesh and blood; Primrose path; Sick at heart; This mortal coil; To thine own self be true. The Bard’s understanding of human nature and politics is timeless and one cannot sit through one of his plays without reflecting on how modern dramas repeat those of old.
The Saturday outing focusses on a visit to Cong with its ancient abbey ruins and to nearby Ballinrobe to see celebrated stained glass windows by the great Harry Clarke. In the evening UCG archaeologist Dr. Paul Naessens will deliver a lecture on findings of new research which he has published with Kieran O’Conor on the old castle in the grounds of Temple House which has been carried out with the pioneering use of drone cameras which are a new tool available to archaeologists. Temple House takes its name from the fact that the ruins in the grounds by the lake were originally constructed by the medieval crusading Knights Templar and Paul will trace the evolution of the structure from that time until it was abandoned by the Percivals for the present residence further away from the lake. We are fortunate that Paul has agreed to lead a field trip to the castle on Sunday afternoon which will be followed by refreshments in the house courtesy of Roderick and Helena Perceval who now