OCTOBER 12–14, 2018 LOS GATOS, CA
irishartsfestival.com
Paul Muldoon
Fintan O’Toole
Irish Eyes on Trump Melatu Uche Okorie
Shana Morrison & Caledonia
Christine Kinealy & Nathan Richardson Frederick Douglass in Ireland
Stuart Bailie
Gerald Dawe
Art: Rosie McGurran
GBS Exhibit
Síobhra Quinlan, Soprano
Jessica Traynor
New Irish Writing
Wendy Erksine
Great Hunger Film
Emer Martin
21st CENTURY
IRISH Join us for a celebration of the best in contemporary IRISH ARTS & LITERATURE
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FRIDAY OCTOBER 12
HISTORIC VILLA GALA RECEPTION 5:00pm – 6.45pm, Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, $125/$150 includes Festival Pass
Join Irish Culture Bay Area and the Irish Consulate as we launch another exciting festival of cultural riches. Enjoy a special George Bernard Shaw exhibit, listen in on a classical music recital or poetry session, and greet our guests while enjoying hosted food and wine.
OPENING NIGHT EVENT 7.00pm – 10.00pm Carriage House Theater, $30 Paul Muldoon, Fintan O’Toole Music by Síobhra Quinlan & Guests
MULDOON “...the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War.” - The Times Literary Supplement 2 2018 IRISH ARTS & WRITERS FESTIVAL
Hailed by Seamus Heaney as “unusually gifted” and “one of the era’s true originals, Paul Muldoon is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet from Northern Ireland who has written 12 major poetry collections since 1973, as well as published several smaller works spanning different genres. Paul served as Poetry Editor at The New Yorker for a decade, until 2017, the year he was awarded The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Muldoon is joined by Robert Tracy, UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus, and Dean Rader, English Professor, USF.
O’TOOLE 5.00pm – 6.45pm: Special George Bernard Shaw exhibit and Judging Shaw book signing at Opening Reception. 8.30pm: Fintan O’Toole in conversation with Conor Howard, Anna Livia Books.
SHAW
“Shaw has much more has more in common with Dylan and David Bowie than he has with William Gladstone or Anthony Trollope. Like Dylan or Bowie, he was one of the great masters of self-invention, a nobody who captured the zeitgeist.” - Fintan O’Toole
JUDGING SHAW IN THE 21ST CENTURY Judging Shaw looks at the legacy of George Bernard Shaw, the first person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award. Shaw left a vast legacy of theatrical, fictional, polemical, critical and philosophical writing bridging the Victorian era and the contemporary culture of celebrity.
“George Bernard Shaw was one of history’s great high-wire acts, and it was performed solo and without a safety net,” Fintan O’Toole is a Dublin-born op-ed columnist for the Irish Times, as well as an author, literary critic, historical writer, and political commentator.
“Ever since I was a boy I have been in search of a satisfactory performance of Don Giovanni; and I have at last come to see that Mozart’s turn will hardly be in my time.” - George Bernard Shaw
SÍOBHRA QUINLAN, VOCALIST & COMPOSER
QUINLAN
Síobhra Quinlan is an Irish vocalist, composer and producer. She recently performed at the “Judging Shaw” exhibit at the Little Museum of Dublin, Síobhra joins us this evening to shed light on Shaw’s musical tastes.
2018 IRISH ARTS & WRITERS FESTIVAL 3
SATURDAY OCTOBER 13 IRISH IN “LOST GATOS” WALKING TOUR
Saturday, Oct. 13, 9.30am – 11.00am, Town Plaza Park to Forbes Mill Historic Site, $10 donation
HISTORIC LOS GATOS
Back by popular demand! Alan Feinberg and the creators of the “Discover LOST Gatos” smart phone app lead a special Los Gatos history walking tour. Learn about some of the remarkable Irish and Scottish settlers who helped to shape the town over the past two centuries: Charles Henry McKiernan, John Weldon Lyndon and Mary Barry Coggeshall.
PAWS FOR THOUGHT: NEW LEADS ON GENEALOGY Genealogy is the study of the history of the past and present members of a family or families. You and your family, through your ancestors, have your own particular stake in history. This presentation will focus on the range of free and subscription based resources that, when fused together, have the ability to harvest our ancestral heritage. Traditional
sources including census and parish registers will be looked at in tandem with dog license registers, court and prison registers, to help us gain a greater understanding of who we are. Kieran Cronin is a native of County Cork, and has almost 15 years experience of working in academic and special libraries. He has been working at Waterford Institute of Technology Libraries since 2007. Saturday, Oct. 13 10.15am – 11.30am Chamber of Commerce $15/$20
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Wendy Erskine is a startling new voice from Belfast. Her work has been published in Stinging Fly Stories and Female Lines: New Writing by Women from Northern Ireland, and is forthcoming in Being Various: New Irish Short Stories, Winter Papers and on BBC Radio 4. “…a debut collection that lingers long in the memory” - Irish Times ‘With skill and style, Erskine unpicks the underlying complexity of ordinary lives, the unexpected intricacy of ordinary situations. These are stories about ramification as opposed to redemption; dark, bittersweet and perfectly formed.’ - Sara Baume
ERSKINE Saturday, Oct. 13 10.00am – 10.50am Friends of the Library $10 Donation
Dubliner Emer Martin’s seventh book, The Cruelty Men is a sweeping multi-generational view of an Irish-speaking family who moved from Kerry to the Meath Gaeltacht and the disasters that befall their children in Irish institutions.
MARTIN Saturday, Oct. 13 11.00am – 11.45am Friends of the Library $10 donation
“...savagely compelling … There’s an incandescent rage at the heart of The Cruelty Men that burns so brightly, it will sear itself into the consciousness of all who read this powerful and moving novel.’ - Sunday Business Post
“The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A bible of f–cked up Irishness.” - Irvine Welsh 2018 IRISH ARTS & WRITERS FESTIVAL 5
IRISH ART ROSIE MCGURRAN: ART Rosie’s McGurran’s art is on display all weekend at Whitney Modern Gallery, Los Gatos
Born in Belfast, Rosie McGurran now lives and works in Roundstone, Co. Galway, Ireland. She MCGURRAN studied painting at the University of Ulster, Belfast and was awarded the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Fellowship to the British School at Rome in 1997/98. She has exhibited her work throughout Ireland and internationally and has completed artist’s residencies in Australia, Iceland, Ireland and the United States. Her current work is informed by her travels and her life in the west of Ireland.
“A short boat-ride from the harbour of Roundstone lies Inishlacken where the ghost of Gerard Dillon presides and where on the rocky shore at low tide you can draw water from a well. This is Rosie McGurran’s soul-landscape. Her art refreshes like a spring of drinking water hidden among seaweed and rock pools.” - Michael Longley
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SATURDAY OCTOBER 13 “I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country, I seem to have undergone a transformation. I live a new life.” - Frederick Douglass, 1845
DOUGLASS FREDERICK DOUGLASS IN IRELAND: WHO KNEW? Learn about abolitionist leader and activist Frederick Douglass’s trip to Ireland in the 1840s. Douglass referred to himself as the black Daniel O’Connell, the Irish leader who was fighting for Ireland’s emancipation from Britain at that time. “There was an empathy Douglass felt between the poor oppressed Irish people and poor oppressed slave,” says historian Christine Kinealy “but he made the distinction that the Irish were oppressed and poor, but they were not slaves” Christine Kinealy is an author, historian, and director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University, CT. She has published extensively on the impact of the Great Irish Hunger. Kinealy was named one of the most influential Irish Americans in Irish America magazine, and in 2014
was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame. Nathan Richardson is a performance poet and author who has published two collections and has contributed to several poetry anthologies. Nathan’s Douglass Tour has earned him wide national coverage and much acclaim. Saturday, Oct. 13, 12.00pm – 1.15pm Los Gatos Library, Free Monday, Oct. 15, 6.00pm, ProArts, Oakland
KINEALY RICHARDSON 2018 IRISH ARTS & WRITERS FESTIVAL 7
BULLETS, BELLS & BLUES BULLETS INTO BELLS Saturday, Oct. 13, 1.45pm – 2.30pm Los Gatos Library
Focused intensively on the crisis of TAYLOR gun violence in America, this volume brings together poems by dozens of best-known poets, including Billy Collins, Brenda Hillman, Robert Hass, Juan Felipe Herrera, Mark Doty, Rita Dove, and Yusef Komunyakaa. Each poem is followed by a response from a political figure, gun violence survivor, or concerned individual. Contributor Tess Taylor conducts readings and discussions on Bullets Into Bells with visiting poets from Ireland, including Paul Muldoon.
TROUBLE SONGS
BAILIE
Irish journalist and broadcaster Stuart Bailie’s book, Trouble Songs, details the history of the music that was popular during the conflict in Northern Ireland. Stuart describes it as “an account of how music has been a persuader, agitator and peacemaker.” The story of music and conflict since 1968 is told through the words of Bono, Christy Moore, The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, and The Miami Showband survivors. It tells how musicians from punk, folk, rave and rock have responded to violence. The Irish Times described Trouble Songs as ‘a social history as much as a musical one’. Saturday, Oct. 13 2.40pm – 3.20pm Los Gatos Library
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SATURDAY OCTOBER 13
DAWE SHANA MORRISON & CALEDONIA 4.00pm – 6.00pm, Free
MORRISON
Shana Morrison & Caledonia play blues and rock with a side of R&B, country, rock and jazz. Shana throws in a few choice cover tunes by such greats as John Lee Hooker, Bill Withers, and of course papa, Van Morrison.
IN ANOTHER WORLD: VAN MORRISON’S BELFAST Saturday, Oct. 13, 3.30pm – 4.15pm, Los Gatos Library
Gerald Dawe is an award-winning poet and writer from Belfast, and a retired Professor of English and Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. In Another World: Van Morrison & Belfast is Dawe’s personal response to the musician and the city, giving a unique perspective on the ‘50s and ‘60s Belfast music scene. Struck by the extraordinary brand of rhythm and blues that was Morrison’s brainchild, Dawe’s book is a celebration of the inspirations that underlie Morrison’s music. Silhouetted in the work is Belfast, moody and vibrant, and the formative influence of the pre-Troubles northern capital on Morrison’s musical direction. MUSIC AT CIVIC CENTER STAGE
Saturday, Oct. 13, 1.30pm – 3.30pm, Kennelly Irish Dancers, The Toast Inspectors & Friends, Free
Using mandolin, uilleann pipes, banjo, guitar and bodhráns, Vince Keehan, Kenny Somerville, Cormac Gannon & Guests play a unique blend of Irish, American and folk music.
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SUNDAY OCTOBER 14
KINEALY
CREELY
A LIFETIME OF HISTORY Sunday, Oct. 14, 11.30am – 12.20pm Whitney Modern Gallery, Free
The Emmy Award-winning documentary, narrated by actor Gabriel Byrne, includes insights from famine scholars and descendants of famine survivors as well as the stories of emigrants to and the “Earl Grey” orphan women who emigrated to Australia. Christine Kinealy is an author, historian and director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University, CT. She has published extensively on the impact of the Irish Hunger and has lectured on the relationship between poverty and famine worldwide.
Sunday, Oct. 14, 10.00am – 11.00am Los Gatos Theater, $20/$10
Christine was named “one of the most influential Irish Americans” by Irish America Magazine and was inducted into the Irish American Hall of Fame. Christine will be in conversation with local historian, Elizabeth Creely.
WIN A TRIP The 2018 Irish Arts & Writers Festival is proud to partner with Ireland’s national airline, Aer Lingus, to offer you a chance to win two round-trip tickets to Ireland. You are automatically entered in the drawing when you either purchase a Festival Pass, or when you make a donation of $25 or more. Winners announced Monday, October 15th. Entrants do not need to be present to win. Restrictions apply.
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SUNDAY OCTOBER 14
CONNOLLY
MOSER
TRAYNOR
O’SULLIVAN
BRACKEN
O’CALLAGHAN
EVERYDAY PLEASURES: POETRY An afternoon of poetry with readings by leading Irish poets, Jessica Traynor, Leanne O’Sullivan, Gerald Dawe, Conor O’Callaghan, Elaine Feeney, Caroline Bracken, Manuela Moser, and Los Gatos poet, Sally Ashton.
For the last five years Belfast-based poets Manuela Moser and Stephen Connolly have been organizing poetry readings in bars and cafés across their city. Their aim is simple: to offer an equal platform to poets who are yet to publish, and those who have already built a reputation. Culture Northern Ireland has praised their informal approach, saying that ‘the usual format for poetry readings involves a hushed room and rows of chairs (of varying degrees of comfort)....set apart like a precious ornament that no-one must touch. There’s something convivial about listening to poetry in the context of good food and drink. Expect a relaxed atmosphere, a well-stocked bar, and plenty of great poems.
FEENEY
ASHTON Sunday, Oct. 14 1.00pm – 3.30pm Charley’s LG Free, donations encouraged
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SUNDAY OCTOBER 14
PERRY IRISH EYES ON TRUMP Sunday, Oct. 14, 1.00pm – 2.00pm Whitney Modern Gallery, $10
Caitríona Perry is an Irish author, journalist, news correspondent, and presenter with Raidio Teilifís Éireann (RTE), Ireland’s national radio and television service. In America: Tales from Trump Country was shortlisted for Best Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year, 2017. It is an examination of Americans who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, looking particularly at what motivated them to vote and how their backgrounds and personal histories influenced that motivation. It has been described as “a clear-eyed portrait of Americans’ bitterness, hope and fear.” (Kirkus) WHISKEY ON A SUNDAY
Sunday, Oct. 14, 12.45pm – 4.15pm Whitney Modern Gallery
Join us for a special festival whiskey tasting featuring Teeling whiskies. Teeling Distillery was established in Dublin in 2015 and was the first new distillery to open in 125 years in what once was the world whiskey distilling capital. Find out more about Teeling’s award winning Small Batch, Single Grain, Single Malt, and Single Pot Still whiskies.
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SUNDAY OCTOBER 14 STINGING FLY: 20 YEARS OF INDEPENDENT IRISH PUBLISHING Sunday, Oct. 14, 2.15pm – 3.45pm Whitney Modern Gallery, $10
Stinging Fly Stories is a collection of 40 short stories first published in the Stinging Fly magazine, by publisher Declan Meade. It is a celebration of The Stinging Fly’s first 20 years as a home for new writers and new writing. Writer, dramaturg, and teacher Jessica Traynor’s second poetry collection, The Quick, has just been released by Dedalus Press. She has been described as “a poet to keep reading and listening to, with a bright future” by the Cordite Review, who said that “her language is fresh, erudite and engaging.” Wendy Erskine lives in Belfast. Her work has been published in The Stinging Fly, and Female Lines: New Writing by Women from Northern Ireland, and is forthcoming in Being Various: New Irish Short Stories, Winter Papers and on BBC Radio 4. Her first collection, Sweet Home has just been published to great acclaim.
ERSKINE
Maria Behan’s work has garnered international recognition, including Ireland’s prestigious Francis MacManus Award. Her fiction has featured in Stinging Fly Stories and These Are Our Lives; her non-fiction has appeared in HuffPost and the Irish Times. She authors a column about the U.S. political scene that appears in Berlin-based The Wild Word.
TRAYNOR
MEADE
BEHAN 2018 IRISH ARTS & WRITERS FESTIVAL 13
SUNDAY OCTOBER 14 PHOTO CREDIT: LEO BYRNE PHOTOGRAPHY
“Melatu shines a light into issues that for too long have been swept under the carpet” - Liam Thornton, School of Law, UCD.
WHO BELONGS? Immigrants, Asylum Seekers, Refugees in the 21st Century WATTERSON
DIAZ
An influx of immigrants is changing the face of Ireland, a country that has long been defined by its emigration experience. And the America that once embraced the “tired, poor, huddled masses” of immigrant groups, has turned another corner into a land of borders and broken communities. What factors determine national identity today? Join panelists Melatu Uche Okorie, Yvonne Watterson, Eanlai Cronin, Cesar Diaz, Valerie Lapin, for a timely and thought-provoking event with readings, film clips and conversations about how Ireland and America treat new arrivals, and existing immigrant communities.
CRONIN
LAPIN 14 2018 IRISH ARTS & WRITERS FESTIVAL
Sunday, Oct. 14 4.00pm – 5.30pm Charley’s LG $15
SUNDAY OCTOBER 14
AT SWIM WITHOUT HANNEGAN’S Closing Night at Charley’s LG, 7.00pm – 9.30pm, Free
Join us to close the festival with an evening of words and music. Starting with an homage a neglected Irish literary lion, Flann O’Brien, the novelist, playwright and columnist who flourished in a repressed mid-century Ireland. Conor Howard and The Anna Livia Flanneurs romp through excerpts from “At Swim Two-Birds”, “An Beal Bocht ”, “The Third Policeman,” and more. Prepare to be regaled! The evening continues with words, music and a special tribute to John Hannegan and Chris Benson of C.B. Hannegan’s, the beloved local establishment that closed its doors last December after 38 years. “Simply put, without John Hannegan’s support, this festival would never have got on its feet. Hannegan’s served not only as a festival headquarters, but as a board meeting room, staging area, networking venue and a familiar, friendly spot for our visiting writers and artists. Sadly missed! - Catherine Barry, Festival Founder & Director
THANKS FOR COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Joseph George Fine Wines, United Irish Cultural Center, Irish Network Bay Area, Irish Immigration Pastoral Center Irish Arts & Writers Festival is a project of Irish Culture Bay Area, a 501 (C) non-profi t. Tax ID 81-0900831 VISUAL DESIGNS BY: Michael Kienzle: e: interiorcrafts@gmail.com 2018 IRISH ARTS & WRITERS FESTIVAL 15
1. Los Gatos Lodge
50 Los Gatos-Saratoga Rd
2. Adult Rec. Center 208 E Main St
3. Los Gatos Library 100 Villa Ave
4. Friends of the Library 100 Villa Ave
5. Civic Center Stage 100 Villa Ave
6. Chamber of Commerce 10 Station Way
7. Whitney Modern Gallery 24 Santa Cruz Ave
8. Charley’s LG
15 N. Santa Cruz Ave
9. Town Plaza Park
N. Santa Cruz/E. Main
DATE
TIME
EVENT
LOCATION
Thursday, Oct. 11
6.00pm 6.30pm
Paul Muldoon at UC Berkeley Fintan O’Toole at World Affairs Council
UC Berkeley San Francisco
Friday, Oct. 12 21st CENTURY IRISH OPENING RECEPTION
4.45pm – 9.45pm
Opening Night Gala Reception, Shaw Exhibit, Recitals & Performances. 4.45pm – 6.45pm Opening Night Event: Paul Muldoon, Fintan O’Toole, Musical Guests. 7.00pm – 10.00pm, p. 2 & 3
Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga
All Weekend Saturday, Oct. 13
Rosie McGurran Art Exhibit, p. 6
Whitney Modern Gallery
9.30am – 11.00am
Irish in “Lost Gatos” Morning Walking Tour, p. 4
Town Park Plaza
10.15am – 11.30am
Paws for Thought: New Leads on Genealogy, p. 4
Chamber of Commerce
10.00am – 10.50am
Wendy Erskine, Sweet Home, p. 5
Friends of Los Gatos Library
11.00am – 11.45am
Emer Martin, The Cruelty Men, p. 5
Friends of Los Gatos Library
DOUGLASS IN IRELAND
12.00pm – 1.15pm
Christine Kinealy & Nathan Richardson on Frederick Douglass in Ireland: Who Knew? p. 7
Los Gatos Library
Saturday, Oct. 13
1.30pm – 3.30pm
Kennelly Irish Dancers, The Toast Inspectors & Friends, p. 9
Civic Center Stage
BULLETS, BELLS & BLUES
1.45pm – 2.30pm
Bullets Into Bells, p. 8
Los Gatos Library
2.40pm – 3.20pm
Trouble Songs, p. 8
Los Gatos Library
3.30pm – 4.15pm
In Another World: Van Morrison’s Belfast, p. 9
Los Gatos Library
4.00pm – 6.00pm
Shana Morrison & Caledonia Band, p. 9
Civic Center Stage
10.00am – 11.30am
Film: The Great Hunger & The Irish Diapsora, p. 10
Los Gatos Theater
11.30am – 12.20pm
A Lifetime of History with Kinealy + Creely, p. 10
Whitney Modern Gallery
12.45pm – 4.15pm
Whiskey on a Sunday, p. 12
Whitney Modern Gallery
1.00pm – 3.30pm
Everyday Pleasures: Poetry, p. 11
Charley’s LG
1.00pm – 2.00pm
Irish Eyes on Trump Country, p. 12
Whitney Modern Gallery
STINGING FLY
2.15pm – 3.45pm
Stinging Fly: 20 Years of Independent Irish Publishing, p. 13
Whitney Modern Gallery
Sunday, Oct. 14 WHO BELONGS?
4.00pm – 5.30pm
Immigrants, Asylum Seekers, Refugees in the 21st Century, p. 14
Charley’s LG
7.00pm – 9.30pm
Closing Night: At Swim Without Hannegan’s, p. 15
Charley’s LG
6.00pm
Frederick Douglass in Ireland
ProArts, Oakland
Sunday, Oct. 14 GREAT HUNGER
Monday, Oct. 15