Samhain Storytelling Festival (Co. Monaghan)

25th October to 3rd November 2022

DIVE

into a world of storytelling this

Halloween

We have a week filled with terrifically terrifying activities, shows and much more!

Check out whats in store!

IF YOU DARE!

Íontas Theatre & Monaghan County Libraries are delighted to bring you the first cross border Storytelling Festival in County Monaghan, through the Creative Monaghan and Shared Island Initiative. We are delighted to welcome a diverse range of storytellers and performers to the festival, who will be visiting schools, care settings, and libraries on both sides of the border.

We will be launching and hosting the County’s first Fighting Words programme in partnership with Fighting Words NI which will offer all ages opportunities to dabble in the many processes of creative writing. As the famous writer George R.R Martin said “I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That’s like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.” And with this programme we hope to inspire the learning in this craft. As long as we are engaged in storytelling, our culture, history and heritage is moved forward. It is through every format that storytelling can be used, and throughout this festival, we will be using many different storytelling forms, which will provide something new and inspiring for all age groups, visitors and locals alike.

Storytelling has always been a great means to uniting and sharing communities cultures in a respectful and inclusive manner. We hope through this festival that it might make you laugh, think, maybe even shed some tears, while opening up doors to many cultures in our community. We hope to see as many of you at events, and hope that you have a fun journey through joy, inspiration, & imagination from attending!

OCTOBER Steve Lally Monaghan Folk Tales and Ghost Stories

Monday 24th & Tuesday 25th Pre-booked

Night of Halloween and Ghost Stories with Francie McCarron and Steve Lally Armagh Rhymers

Tuesday 25th 8.30pm

Tuesday 25th & Wednesday 26th 1pm

Halloween Film Club for Children

Thursday 27th 10am | 12.30pm

Adult Film Night

Thursday 27th 8pm

Ghost Stories and Halloween Crafts Morning

Saturday 29th 10.30am

Female Gothic

Saturday 29th 8pm

NOVEMBER

Fighting Words Workshop

Tuesday 1st 8pm

Philip Byrne Storytelling

Wednesday 2nd Time Varies

Philip Byrne Storytelling (Care Home Visits)

Thursday 3rd Pre-booked

An Evening of One-Act Plays | Castleblayney Players

Thursday 3rd 8pm

Steve Lally Monaghan Folk Tales and Ghost Stories Monday 24th & Tuesday 25th October Prebooked sessions with care and disability centres

Steve will be visiting care homes and disability settings bringing the magic of folk tales from Monaghan and afar, with some ghost stories thrown in for a good mix. Steve has been working both as an artist and storyteller throughout Ireland for over 15 years, and his belief that storytelling has the power to heal, having worked on many projects that build cross community relationships, working with diverse groups of adults and children from all communities on our island.

He is the author of the Monaghan Folk Tales collection and has recently compiled two wonderful books called The Anthology of Irish Folk Tales and Irish Gothic Folk Tales from the 32 Counties of Ireland.

Night of Halloween & Ghost Stories with Francie McCarron and Steve Lally Íontas Foyer | Tuesday 25th October | 8.30pm to 10.30pm

Join Monaghan Libraries Storyteller in Residence* Francis McCarron and special guest Steve Lally, for an evening of Halloween stories and recitations that are sure to make your flesh creep and your hair to stand on end!

Francis is passionate about getting people to preserve and share their own stories, particularly those from his own native county of Monaghan. That includes the scary stories too.

Steve Lally is an accomplished storyteller and author who numbers Monaghan Folktales and Irish Gothic Fairy Stories among his publications. After listening to Steve, you will definitely be checking over your shoulder and under the bed before you go to sleep!

This is the 6th Drumlin Yarnspinners event of 2022, so be sure to bring a haunting tale or two along yourself. The local community always knows best where the local ghosts hang out. So come along if you dare and join the fun. Admission is free and there’s a cup of tea. There will be a donation box for Crocus Cancer Care in the room as well. *The Storyteller in Residence project aims to develop a county Monaghan Storytelling Group, Drumlin Yarnspinners, to keep alive the ancient art of oral storytelling. If you would like to be involved contact Francis: email fmccarron@hotmail.com / 087 2068601. *

In learning the art of storytelling by animation, I have discovered that language has an anatomy. — Walt Disney

Armagh Rhymers

Tuesday 25th & Wednesday 26th October |Performances are open to the public free of charge at 1pm | Pre-booked sessions with Schools in Íontas Theatre The much renowned Armagh Rhymers keep many storytelling traditions alive, through music, dance, masks, costume, poetry, and many other skills, including the old mumming traditions. The Rhymer’s will spend two mornings with schools from Armagh and Monaghan, where they will have fun learning and exploring these story­telling traditions, and get to tell a story themselves.

On each day at 1pm, The Rhymers, accompanied by their new storytelling student apprentices, will perform a public performance for everyone to come see.

Halloween Film Club for Children CoCo and Coraline

Íontas, Castleblayney | Thursday 27th October To book email david@iontascastleblayney.ie “CoCo” will be shown at 10am | “Coraline” will be shown at 12.30pm Primary Schools are invited to come and watch films in our Íontas Cinema Experience. We’ve chosen “Coco” and “Coraline” to keep the theme of storytelling tradition through our festival. The Candy Girls will be on hand with popcorn and cotton candy for sale.

Adult FIlm Night | Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Íontas, Castleblayney | Thursday 27th October €7 admission 8pm (booking advised) Book tickets at www.iontascastleblayney.ie or call 042 9753400/401 As part of our Íontas Cinema Experience, we will show the classic film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992), which turns 30 years old this month! Come and celebrate Halloween in style, and see this beautiful cult classic on the big screen. Over 18s only.

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.”- Steve Jobs

Ghost Stories and Halloween Crafts Morning Castleblayney Library | Saturday 29th October Booking required through the library 10.30am Crafts Workshop, 11.30am Storytelling

Join us in Castleblayney Library for ghost stories and halloween crafts. Join in some spooktacular model making fun with Clayotic, the first Irish brand of non-messy modelling clay. Follow the facilitators step by step instructions and make the witch from Julia Donaldson’s Room on the Broom, take your model away on the day. Guaranteed treats no tricks at this workshop! Following the workshop, we shall relax and sit back while world renowned storyteller Frances Quinn enthralls us with ghost and other stories, taking us on a scary tip toeing trail of stories from around the world.

Free to attend but places are limited.

Suitable for families with children aged 5+ Booking required by emailing castleblayneylibrary@monaghancoco.ie or 042-9740281 during library opening hours.

Female Gothic

Íontas Theatre, Castleblayney | Saturday 29th October 8pm | Tickets €20/€18 Book Tickets at www.iontascastleblayney.ie or call 042 9753400/401 As part of our Samhain Storytelling Festival, Íontas are proud to present this chilling, engaging and much renowned piece of Theatrical Storytelling.

Dyad Productions Presents: Female Gothic An artist, gripped by the clutching fingers of a dead past; a scientist, defying nature in the dark realm of the senses; an expectant father driven mad by creeping shadows.

Written & Performed by Rebecca Vaughn.

In the darkness between life and death, a lone, haunted woman tells chilling tales of the macabre and uncanny, of love, loss, death and the darkness beyond, illuminating the curious frailties of human nature.

The Victorian fascination with tales of mystery and the supernatural created an enduring legacy of Gothic fiction. Today, Charles Dickens, M R James, and Edgar Allen Poe continue to be celebrated, yet many of the most chilling, strange and terrifying ghost stories created by the incredibly popular female writers of that era – Mary Shelley, George Eliot, M E Braddon, Edith Wharton, Edith Nesbit et al – have gathered dust and been forgotten.

Till now…

Fighting Words Workshop

Íontas, Castleblayney Tuesday 1st November | 8pm Invitation Event Íontas are proud to present Monaghans first ever Fighting Word programme with a workshop in partnership with Monaghan Libraries, Fighting Words NI and Creative Schools programme.

Fighting Words is a creative writing organisation established in 2009 by Roddy Doyle and Seán Love in Dublin. Our aim is to help students of all ages to devel­op their writing skills and to explore their love of writing. All programmes are free of charge and offered in locations all over Ireland. For this workshop, we particularly welcome Fighting Words NI and participants to an enjoyable and engaging workshop.

“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.” – quote from Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal

So Cool!

Philip Byrne Storytelling “Stories That Fly From Thin Air”

Íontas, Castleblayney | Wednesday 2nd November 11-13 Yr olds 10am to 12 | 14-18 Yr olds 1pm-3pm | Adults 4pm-6pm No booking required A series of story making and telling workshops. Your guide for these will be storyteller Philip Byrne. Using a range of age appropriate themes and creative aids, participants will generate stories from their collective imagination. Where will these stories lead us? Who will be the characters? When and where will the story be located? An adventure on a tropical island, a trip into the future, an historical story of dark deeds in days of yore, who knows where our imaginations will lead us…

Philip Byrne has been telling stories and training Irish Tourist Guides in all aspects of our heritage for many years. His stories are an eclectic mix of old and new, traditional and modern.

He has a great love and respect for the folklore of not only his native Co. Wicklow but throughout Ireland. In 2020 he wrote ‘Longford Folk Tales’, published by the History Press Ireland. For ten years up to the pandemic he was Resident Storyteller at ‘An Evening of Food, Folklore and Fairies’ in the Brazen Head, Dublin’s oldest pub.

He also performs and runs storytelling workshops at storytelling festivals and tells stories in both Primary and Secondary schools, also in Libraries and other functions around the country.

He is a qualified Tourist Guide which enables him to use his storytelling to interpret the Irish landscape for his guests. He has also conducted many training courses for Tourist Guides, Driver/Guides and Local Tourist Ambassadors. His is a long-time member of ‘Storytellers of Ireland’ and has full Garda vetting to work in the arts with children, young people and/or vulnerable adults.

Philip Byrne Storytelling Sessions

Thursday 3rd November Pre booked with Care Homes

Storyteller Philip Byrne will visit a number of care and nursing facilities in the area and entertain the residents with a wide range of his own stories.

Philip has been telling stories and training Irish Tour guides in all aspects of our heritage for many years. He has a great love and respect for the folklore of not only his native Co.Wicklow but for all Ireland.

Philip Byrne Storytelling Evening | “C’mere till I tell ya” Íontas Foyer | Wednesday 2nd November 8pm to 10pm

Everybody is a storyteller; everybody has a story. Join host, storyteller Philip Byrne for an evening of fun as we all share the best of the stories that are in us all. Hopefully we will together create the atmosphere of those evenings long ago when people sat around the hearth and enthralled each other with short and tall tales. This event will be for adults.

Castleblayney Players An Evening of One-Act Plays

Íontas Theatre | Thursday 3rd Nov | 8pm | Tickets €12/€10 Book Tickets at www.iontascastleblayney.ie or call 042 9753400/401 The Castleblayney Players are proud to present an evening of 3 one-act dramatic pieces, performed as part of our Samhain Storytelling festival.

Riders To The Sea Caught In The Act The Trial Of James Finnegan

Comhairle Chontae Mhuineachain Monaghan County Council