A Passage to Inis Mor is the story of a 38 year old man, John Carlyle, (nee Sean O'Rourke.) Born in Ireland but taken by his mother to Australia at the age of eight after the accidental death of his father..
As the story opens Sean is experiencing a crisis in his personal life. His wife has left him, taking their seven year old son with her. The advertising agency he owns is in severe financial difficulties, his creditors are threatening to bankrupt him and he's hearing poetic voices in his mind urging him to return to Inis Mor. At first he resists these mysterious promptings but when he receives a letter from his grandmother saying that she's dying and wishes to speak with him, he books a ticket to Ireland. On his return he learns that his grandmother has already died, leaving him a cottage and a dilapidated old sailing boat built by his grandfather.
On his first day back on the island he meets a strange old seafaring man who offers to help him rebuild the boat. As the old man teaches Sean the art of boatbuilding he recounts stories of the seafaring men of Inis Mor, of the Selchies that the island is famous for, and of Sean's own father, Con Rua O'Rourke, whom Sean had thought to be a fisherman but who was, it turns out, a well known Seanachie (Irish storyteller)
The old man teaches in the traditional way, through storytelling, song, and poetry, and it is in working with this mysterious old man that Sean is led to a realisation of his own gifts and his talents and ultimately, back to his heart, his soul and the possible meaning and purpose of his life. (Available now as download or hard copy from www.lulu.com )

Erica Jeal, The Guardian

Completed in 1932, when Vaughan Williams was already working on his Fourth Symphony, Riders to the Sea is based on JM Synge's play about a mother from the Aran Islands who gains release when her last surviving son dies by drowning, like his five brothers before him. It lasts for only 40 minutes, which is one reason it is so seldom heard: what on earth to put alongside it?

ENO's solution is inspired.

More after the jump here

Over a decade after its original London premiere, Martin McDonagh's dark comedy stage play The Cripple of Inishmaan comes to the U.S. after a recent tour in Britain and Dublin.

 


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The Atlantic Theater Company revival keeps its full Irish cast when it hits the Linda Gross Theater on Dec. 9 through Feb. 1. The story takes audiences to the Inishmaan - the middle Aran Island off the coast of Ireland - of 1934.

 The play's "Cripple" character, Billy Claven, sets his sights on being featured by Hollywood documentarians hoping to capture life on the Aran Islands.

 The play's narrative connects to the real life filming of the 1934's "Man of Aran," the Robert J. Flaherty production that portrayed native life - staged and unstaged.

 Claven is portrayed by Aaron Monaghan (pictured), with support from Kerry Condon as Slippy Helen.

 

Other cast members include Andrew Connolly, Dearbhla Molloy, Marie Mullen and Patricia O'Connell.

 The production is directed by Garry Hynes. Hynes is a co-founder of Druid Theater Company, which is co-producing this production.

 
McDonagh, whose recent film endeavors offered 2006 Academy Award-winning short "Six Shooter" and the Sundance Film Festival-premiered "In Bruges," penned two other stories following "Inishmaan" to complete what became the Aran Islands trilogy.

 

 Though the Irish playwright's third installment of the trilogy never saw the stage, the second - "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" - was given life, and it garnered a Tony Award for "Best Play" in 2006.
There's more from Andy Smith at The Irish World here

SYNOPSIS Set in 1934 on an island off the west coast of Ireland, Hollywood filmmaker Robert Flaherty arrives on the neighboring island of Inishmore to film his movie 'The Man of Aran' and excitement ripples through the sleepy community of Inishmaan. For orphaned Billy Craven, who has been relentlessly scorned by the island's inhabitants, the film represents an escape from the poverty of his existence. He vies for a part in the film, and to everyone's surprise, it is the cripple who gets his chance. Atlantic is thrilled to co-produce 'The Cripple of Inishmaan' with Druid, Galway, with whom we collaborated on 1998's Tony Award® winning production of 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane.' by MARTIN McDONAGH directed by GARRY HYNES A co-production with Druid, Galway with Kerry Condon, Andrew Connolly, Laurence Kinlan, Dearbhla Molloy, Aaron Monaghan, Marie Mullen, Patricia O'Connell, David Pearse, John C. Vennema Designed by Francis O'Connor Lighting Design by Davy Cunningham Sound Design by John Leonard Composer Colin Towns

To Buy Tickets in Person Ticket Central Box Office 416 W 42nd Street New York, NY 10036 Open Daily 12-8pm

In the West of Ireland (1927-8), by Paul Henry has been borrowed from the National Gallery collection for the Taoiseach Brian Cowen's office. Like all senior Cabinet members he has the opportunity to choose pieces from the oldest and most eclectic collection of Irish art in the world. Sadly the Taoiseach has little interest in art and the Paul Henry was chosen for him by a government curator.
The Irish Times tells us that  the multi-million-euro Office of Public Works (OPW) State art collection now stands at almost 10,500 pieces. It includes one poem and three pieces of music. And it brings art into many corners of public life. The collection, which dates from the 1830s when the British administration starting commissioning portraits of the powerful.

The Taoiseach Brian Cowen has been a bit busy propping up the shattered irish economy sinc etaking office so its understandable that he has not made any requests for paintings from the State collection.  The Art Management Office borrowed a Paul Henry landscape of the west of Ireland from the National Gallery for the new Taoiseach's office. This has removed the need to paint over any unsightly square left by the unorthordox removal of a Pádraig Pearse drawing by the previous Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.
Micheál Martin the Minister for Foreign Affairs is Ireland's face to the world. So what does it say about this towering intellect that  he has no paintings whatsoever in his office. A spokeswoman helpfully explained to the Irish Times that the fabric panels and wooden mouldings on the walls of the Iveagh House room, dating from 1866, are not suitable for picture hooks or rail. So no art then minister. No sculpture, no mobiles....just busy diplomats and emisaries and lts of cups of tea.
Mary Harney's office at t Health, has a collection of photograph by Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art graduate Róisín Morris, called What Waited Inside Herself . She describes it an "endeavour to give name to the sadness, the inner turmoil, which plagues many people in today's society".
The former Progressive Democrats' leader's art also has a Co Donegal landscape by the late English painter, Derek Hill, and an abstract painting by Wexford artist Tonia Kehoe called 900 Years of Disquiet .
The Government's art adviser, Patrick Murphy, is involved in some decisions about what to buy, but OPW architects also advise the State on what art to choose for public building projects.

The emphasis is on buying small pieces by emerging Irish artists, some of whom may be recent arts school graduates. "The maximum we can spend on any one particular project is €64,000," the OPW spokesman says.

Paintings are often moved around between offices, either at the request of their occupants, for restoration or to update a building. Some 200 pieces are in storage, some of them awaiting re-framing, conservation or repair. All the pieces are catalogued by the OPW.

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An eager audience gathered in the McEvoy Auditorium to hear Irish born (British educated, American appreciated)  artist Sean Scully, an event that marked the opening of The Prints of Sean Scully. The exhibition features a selection from his complete set of master prints, which the artist donated to the museum's permanent collection. Throughout his lecture, Scully combined his sharp wit and an obvious reverence for the creative process while he discussed the larger themes prevalent in his works, including some examples from the print collection on view in the exhibition. The artist also shared insight into the differences between painting and printmaking, the impact each technique has on his artistic approach and the inspirational effect poetry and literature have on his artwork.
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A hit at the Dublin Theatre Festival last month, Robert Massey's comedy-thriller about down-at-heel cabbies and a ruthless casino kingpin turns out to be a surprisingly pedestrian affair. Directed by Jim Culleton for the Irish new writing company Fishamble, it's wryly amusing. But the tension painstakingly accumulated in the first act dribbles away in the second, until the action stutters to a lame and predictable conclusion. And though there is a discreet anecdotal critique of modern mores among the humour and the threats of violence, it's too gentle to make much impact.

Carl (Alan King), a widowed former teacher-turned-taxi driver and gambling addict, owes local gangster Jack (Bryan Murray, pictured standing, with King) big money. Jack's patience is running out - and, aided by his meathead son Fred and a baseball bat, he makes it emphatically clear to the hapless and impecunious Carl that the debt must be repaid, in full, by midnight. In panic and desperation, Carl turns to his fellow cabbies - his father-in-law George, a one-time associate of Jack, and the priapic lothario Two in the Bush, so-called because he always has a bird in the hand. Together, through a blend of bluff, brinkmanship and dumb luck, they contrive to extricate Carl from a situation in danger of turning horribly sticky - and maybe even to turn his predicament to advantage.

In this boys' world, women are noticeably absent - either ill, like Jack's wife, playing away, like Fred's, or dead. Without them, the men are rudderless and infantile, ruled by their appetites for gaming or womanising and prone to preening displays of self-regard. The doltish Fred bonds with Bush over their mutual vanity, little suspecting that Bush has plucked Fred's own bird; the flailing, paunchy Carl is an object of pity and ridicule, while Jack and George nurse decades-old grudges and confront each other like playground bullies.

In highlighting the debt-ridden downside of the Celtic Tiger economy, Massey also touches on the topical. But despite fine performances all round, the play's ride is a meandering one that winds up at an unexciting location. It's good for a few laughs, but it never gets out of first gear.

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