Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Bard 2015 Official Opening By Anne chambers

Date: 1-5 July 2015
Exploring the contemporary relevance of The Lovers’ Journey through the ancient Irish stories of Diarumuid and Gráinne, Deirdre and the sons of Uisneach and Midír And Étáin.
Bard 2015 Official Opening By:
Anne Chambers, Authour GRANUAILE Grace O'Malley, Ireland's Pirate Quinn (Gill & Macmillan).
www.bard.ie

Mayo International Choral Festival 2015


Thurs 21st of May at 8pm. Presentation by Anne Chambers on the Life and Times and Music of Mayo-born Soprano Margaret Burk Sheridan Venue Castlebar Library. Including drinks reception. Admisstion is free

Anne Chambers, author of the biography 'La Sheridan - Adorable Diva' presents: 'Margaret Burke Sheridan - The Woman Behind the Voice' with music and memorabilia of the Castlebar-born Prima Donna. Part of the festival's programme to promote Mayo's Heroes and Heroines in Song.



THE MOUNTBATTEN MURDERS – THE GRANUAILE CONNECTION


Much has and will be written about the horrific events off Mulloughmore Harbour in 1979. I vividly recall hearing the news on my car radio on that day and pulling over to the side of the road to try and take in the enormity of what I was hearing. In nineteen-eighties Ireland we had become anaes the tised by the seemingly unending daily dose of bombings, murders, punishment shootings and the mayhem that daily emanated mainly from Northern Ireland . But for me this incident was somewhat different.
In research for my biography of Ireland ’s Pirate Queen, Granuaile – Grace O’Malley, I knew that among the casualties of the bombing of the Shadow V was her 14th great grandson in descent, Nicholas Brabourne. With tragic perversity, in waters she once traversed in the sixteenth century, a descendant of one of our most iconic historical figures, elevated by folklore and poetry as symbolic of Irish nationalism, even of Ireland itself, was in 1979 deemed expendable in the cause of Irish republicanism. For me it turned history on its head.