July 2016
CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND
CAI LIMERICK While our Summer Conference sub-committee held frequent meetings, and the Latin and Greek classes continued under the tutelage of Patrick Ryan, we devised a programme of four lectures for Branch members. These took place in the Limerick Education Centre, Marshall House, Dooradoyle, courtesy of the Director and management, to whom we owe a deep debt of gratitude. Ms Paula Keane gave two of these, under the title ‘The Hollandiae Comitum Historia et Icones of Adrianus Barlandus, 1585’ (Barlandus’s History of the Counts of Holland). Dr Frank Flanagan, ex-Dept of Education, M.I.C., spoke on ‘Socrates, Confucius, and the Majesty of the Law’, while Dr Shane Wallace’s subject was ‘Afterlives: Alexander the Great in the Hellenistic and Roman Empires’. We really
appreciated Shane’s dash to Limerick, by bus, straight from delivering his afternoon lectures in TCD! Our annual Branch Dinner was held on May 5, in the Unicorn Restaurant, Dooradoyle, and turned out to be an enjoyable social occasion. The term’s activities ended with a soirée hosted by our chairman, Patrick Ryan, in the very elegant surroundings of his home in Newport. A feature of the pleasant, rain-free afternoon was a play-reading of Aristophanes’ The Knights by members of the Orchard Yard Dramatic Group, the character Cleon being played/read by the host himself! Finally, Limerick Branch will host the Summer Conference in Mary Immaculate College, August 19-21, and we look forward to welcoming an enthusiastic gathering of members from all the other CAI branches there. Tom Seaver (Branch Hon. Secretary)
Aristophanes’ Hippeis (The Knights) at the Orchard Yard On June 11 the Greek flag was hoisted to the mast for the eighth production of the Orchard Yard Players while the company implored the Olympians to hold off their threats of rain, at least until after 6pm. Zeus obliged, no doubt in deference to the appearance of our guest of honour Meg The Goat, mascot of the Milk Wood Theatre, and the smiling faces of political candidates around the set. The wizardry of Orla Coffey’s sounds illustrated the proceedings; the Knights of Attica came in to the strains of Der Koniggratzer Marsch,
and from there on Aristophanes’ story of political shenanigans in 424 BC was accompanied by sounds as diverse as Status Quo, Fr Jack Hackett, the Soggy Bottom Boys, and Dylan Thomas. We saw Cleon reduced from overweening potentate to selling sausages outside the city gates, while Demos was boiled in a pot and rejuvenated before our eyes. Proceedings adjourned for tea, and slán mar a ninstear é, just after 6 o’clock, down came the rain! Patrick J. Ryan
(Photos by Jennifer O’Donoghue and Waltraud Goslowsky)
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