Tommy Tiernan en route to Moyvane for inaugural John Moriarty Fesitval
TOMMY Tiernan, Liam Ó Maonlaoí, Martin Shaw, Manchan Magan and a host of other well-known friends are bound for Moyvane over the weekend of June 21 - 23 to honour one of the greatest thinkers this country has ever produced, in the heart of his home village.
The inaugural John Moriarty Festival finally sees the late, great seer receive the kind of public memorial event his work has long warranted.
Sponsored by renewable energy company Solar Harmony Ireland and with the backing of Kerry County Council, the festival could not be coming at a more vital time.
For now, as the world finds itself in the grip of encroaching environmental change, Moriarty’s vision and teachings have never been more important.
It’s a vision and a body of work that’s going to be celebrated brightly over the three days however, with a programme jam-packed with exciting events - starting with the launch of a very special book on the Friday night at The Church of the Assumption in Moyvane edited by his niece Amanda Conway and former Tarbert Comprehensive Principal Mary McGillycuddy – John Moriarty: Grounded in Story.
“He was the greatest thinker to ever have come out of Kerry with aspects of everything to his writings and his talks,” Mary McGillycuddy told The Kerryman on the launch of the event this week.
Mary is one of the great interpreters of Moriarty’s work today, having published the acclaimed John Moriarty: Not the Whole Story back in 2018.
But along with Amanda she has brought the story back to the world that shaped him, all around his home in Leitrim Hill.
“It’s his vision that is the most important thing to us and, as I said in the note for the brochure, this Festival seeks to bring that vision back to the place and the people that inspired it,” Mary added.
As set out in the brochure Mary said they are anxious to bring that vision, of spirituality and love of the natural world, back to the children and locals who are ‘perhaps unaware of the extraordinary significance of his message.”
“John Moriarty takes the stories that we are all familiar with, our Celtic stories, our Christian stories, and reinterprets them in a unique way, finding in them guidance that could enable us to realize ‘our highest human possibilities’. In a time of ecological, spiritual, and political crisis, he challenges us to find a new way of being on the earth and a new way of being towards one another,” Mary writes in the foreword to the exciting programme.
She also offers a clip from a programme in which Tommy Tiernan interviewed his pal John Moriarty at his Killarney home many years ago as a great entry-point for the Moriarty newbie.
And they’re delighted that Tommy Tiernan himself will be on hand to officiate at the launch of Grounded in Story. Also appearing at the festival are so many other famous and well-known figures inspired by the Moriarty canon, including the acclaimed English storyteller Martin Shaw, singer Liam Ó Maonlaoí, folklorist Manchan Magan, Siamsa founder Fr Pat Ahern, and many more.
The Friday night launch is free to attend, with tickets at €100 for full access to the myriad other events taking place over the weekend – including a very special visit to the family home-place on the Saturday