McLellan Arts Festival starts on a high note
The McLellan Arts Festival, which bursts into life this week, will see a cornucopia of events taking place across Arran with music, poetry, literature, storytelling and much more besides on offer to appeal to people of all tastes.
Tonight, Friday August 31, a poetry event in Corrie Hall will kick-start proceedings.
Sinead Morrissey will announce the winners of this year’s McLellan Poetry Competition and read from her own work – all enhanced with music from Arran Dawn. For anyone interested in literature or the music of Arran’s famous harp and whistle duo, this is bound to be an enticing event.
The following evening, Saturday September 1, a slightly less restrained Famous Festival Ceilidh will raise the roof of the Whiting Bay Hall when visitors can enjoy an evening of live music, dancing and great food. Regarded by some as their favourite event of the festival, the ceilidh is suitable for all ages with children and young people at school gaining free entry. (BYOB)
For those who delight in sacred music and worship songs, the talented students of the Royal Northern College will perform at Holy Cross Church in Brodick at 11am and then in Corrie Church at noon.
On Sunday afternoon at 3pm, erstwhile Arran-resident-turned-lecturer-and-writer James McEnaney will appear in Brodick Library to give a fascinating talk. Inspired by Edwin Muir’s famous book Scottish Journey, James recently completed a 10-day, 1,500mile trip around Scotland, gathering a ‘bundle of impressions’ of the country and its people and bringing them all together in his first book, A Scottish Journey.
Complicated and conflicted
From the bustle of Edinburgh, where the journey began and ended outside the Scottish Parliament building, to the isolation of the tiny Orcadian island of Wyre, James encountered a country which is complicated and conflicted, all-too-often unsure of itself in a rapidly changing world, but still filled with energy, talent and limitless potential. Entrance to this talk is free of charge.
Monday September 3 is festival film night and this year on show is Tommy’s Honour, a powerful true story about the life of Tom