Left to Right:  Marie Louise Blaney, Stacey Herbert, Ronnie Hughes, Helen O'Hara, Tommie Gorman and Rita McNulty

Launched by special guest Tommie Gorman, RTE, NI Correspondent and Mayor Councillor Jim McGarry in November 2009, The Yeatsian Legacy project explores the work of the Yeats brothers and the legacy of the past through a series of workshops, talks, readings, and events including a major Jack B. Yeats Exhibition and a closing symposium with partners Sligo County Council Arts Service, The Model, Institute of Technology Sligo and Omagh District Council.

The Yeatsian Legacy Talks Series 2010 at IT Sligo

Talks Series at IT Sligo Left to Right:  Ronnie Hughes, Curator; Terri Scott, President of IT Sligo and Prof. Declan McGonagle

Curated by Ronnie Hughes, this series of seven talks uses the arts as a means to promote an understanding of cultural difference and to share experiences and expressions of divergent cultures, beliefs and ways of living.  Speakers include Professor Declan McGonagle, Dr Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith, Katerina Gregos, Joseph Wolin, Phil Collins, Dr Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes and Annie Fletcher and the talks continue until the end of April 2010.

Literary Workshop Programme

Curated by Stacey Herbert, this programme encourages participants to actively explore the drama and poetry of William Butler Yeats in engaging, accessible ways by looking at his work and reputation in the context of local history and contemporary Irish writing from the Republic and Northern Ireland.  Workshop facilitators are Bryony Flanagan, Ray Yeates, John Harding and Margot Jones. 

Visual Workshop Programme at The Model

Inside Out/Outside: is a series of culturally diverse summer workshops for families which will be delivered by The Model and a team of artists/performers including Belfast Community Circus.  The issues will be addressed via a travelling Suitcase for Human Rights, which will travel from workshop to workshop, unpacking the ideas through Irish dance, music, visual art and performance, with a particular focus on the shared histories and cultural heritage of both protestant and catholic traditions.

For full workshop listing please click to download The Model July Event - 1,265 kbs

Readings and Events Programme

An Evening of Poetry with Paul Muldoon on Friday 29 October 2010 at 8pm in The Model, Sligo.

Paul will read from him latest publication, Maggot.

In his eleventh full-length collection, Paul Muldoon reminds us that he is a traditional poet who is steadfastly at odds with tradition. If the poetic sequence is the main mode of Maggot, it certainly isn’t your father’s poetic sequence. Taking as a starting point W.B. Yeats’ remark that the only fit topics for a serious mood are ‘sex and the dead’, Muldoon finds unexpected ways of thinking and feeling about what it means to come to terms with the early twenty-first century.

Barry McGovern reads Yeats and Beckett, Strule Arts Centre, 3 February 2010

‘WB Yeats in Context and Interpretation’ will be a series of public performances, readings and events where performers and speakers will take works by WB Yeats and place it in the context of another Irish writer’s work, and/or relate it to their own artistic practice. The programme will run from February to October at various venues in Sligo and at Strule Arts Centre, Omagh.

Exhibition: ‘Jack B Yeats - The Living Ginger’ at The Model

Jack B. Yeats’ artistic output reveals a fascination with characters that lived on the margins of society – those who in his own words had “something of the living ginger of life in them.” Over a career spanning seven decades, Yeats repeatedly painted the tramps, travellers, circus performers, drunks, sailors and gypsies that populated his youth in Sligo. This exhibition is an exploration of Yeats beginnings as an artist in the watercolour medium and it examines themes and techniques which developed throughout his career. The same themes will be examined in greater depth in a major exhibition entitled Jack B Yeats; The Outsider guest curated by Brian O’Doherty which will open on 5 February 2011.

Symposium: The Politics of Identity in 21st Century Ireland

The symposium in The Model on Saturday 11 September, 2010 will examine the politics of identity in 21st century Ireland. Commencing with the cultural zeitgeist of Jack B. Yeats’ lifetime, it will examine the habit of many societies of drawing distinctions between those who belong and those who don’t. Keynote address to be presented by Brian O’Doherty and he will draw upon issues of politics and identity within his own artistic practice as well as that of Jack B Yeats. Guest speakers include Duncan Campbell and Gareth Peirce (TBC).

The Yeatsian Legacy Project is delivered by Sligo Arts Service and partners The Model, IT Sligo and Omagh District Council.  The project is supported by the PEACE III Programme, managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by Sligo County Council on behalf of Sligo Peace and Reconciliation Partnership Committee. 

 

“…for peace comes dropping slow”.  The Lake Isle of Innisfree, W.B. Yeats  by artist Lisa Vandegrift Davala
 

The film ‘For Peace comes dropping slow…’ by artist Lisa Vandegrift Davala had it's first sneak preview at the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh at the Benedict Kiely Literary Weekend on Saturday 11th September. The film was well-received by all and elicited comments of "beautiful", "spiritual" and "moving." Several of the participants from Omagh were in attendance.  There will be an official premiere screening of the film in Sligo on a date to be announced and Lisa will also preview the film during Culture Night Friday 24th September at The Glasshouse Hotel,Sligo.

This film was made with the support of the Yeatsian Legacy Project, delivered by Sligo Arts Service and partners, and supported by the PEACE III Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by Sligo County Council on behalf of Sligo Peace and Reconciliation Partnership Committee and the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government Per Cent For Art Scheme.

 
Left to right is Marie McGrath (Chairman of Omagh Arts Committee), Margaret Geelan, Lisa Vandegrift Davala (Director), Jean Brennan (Arts Manager, Omagh District Council), Bernie Kirrane (Assistant Arts Manager)