This Derry four-piece describe their song-writing as “Primal architecture with Pop sensibility. Put simply ‘Werewolf pop'”.
Unorthodox, edgy and political, Strength NIA’s music carries strong, lyrical messages, but with attitude enough to make you leap! This is the debut event of their new album tour, so a ‘don’t miss’ for new music buffs. strengthnia.com
This is a partnership event between the Liverpool Irish Centre and the Liverpool Irish Festival.
Following its festival success in 2014, Stephen Smith’s Committed is back in full force with Falling Doors Theatre.
Set in 1993 in a Catholic ghetto in Belfast, Dan McCrory (Republican ex-prisoner) has been sent to organise the people against a plague of petty crime. Where the police are not welcome, the “Concerned Resident’s Committee” become be judge and jury. However, as Dan finds – to his cost – justice must wield a double-edged sword. Playwright Stephen Smith is a published poet and was a political activist and teacher around the time of the troubles in Ireland.
Committed was written in Liverpool, following Smith’s experiences as a concerned Belfast resident, during the aftermath of the ceasefire. Directed by Sarah Van Parys, a LJMU and Young Everyman Playhouse Director’s Course graduate, this is a compelling and intense play, fraught with the difficulties of the Troubles @fallingdoorstheatre
How can we use our creativity to influence others and affect change? Blackwell’s Liverpool will host a workshop looking at zines and posters as activism. Through the medium of collage, attendees will make handmade booklets and posters to photocopy and distribute amongst friends, whilst discussing what UK citizens can do to help people seeking abortions in Ireland. Everybody is welcome. Some materials will be provided, but please bring along anything you would like to use.
Run by Liverpool Blackwell’s, in partnership with the Liverpool Irish Festival.
“Better than Coronoation Street” – review from audience member for Mon 23 Oct 2017 performance!
Body and Blood is a new play exploring a buried cultural history – arranged marriages in Ireland. Inspired by writer Lorraine Mullaney’s grandmother who had an arranged marriage, Body and Blood is a dark comedy that tackles a tough subject with humour and live music.
It’s 1956, and young Aileen comes to London looking for her sister, who fled Ireland to escape an arranged marriage to an elderly farmer “with a face like the Turin shroud”. Instead of finding her sister, Aileen finds a new life of freedom and possibilities. Will Aileen choose this new life or return to Ireland and make the sacrifices required to stay true to her roots? And will she discover why her Uncle Colm refuses to return home? Body and Blood explores the conflicts and culture clashes resulting from migration and the pull of traditional Irish values, highlighting how far Ireland has come since the 1950s.
Sat 21 and 28: Liverpool, Ireland and the luck of the Irish Beatles! – Walks from Hope St to the City Centre
Also running: Sun 22 and 29: Liverpool, Ireland in our Bones – The Georgian Quarter
Liverpool Music Tours are offering two cultural walking tours. The first Liverpool, Ireland and the luck of the Irish Beatles starts in The Casa (Hope St) and takes you into the city centre. The second Liverpool, Ireland in our Bones starts in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms (pub on Hope St) and takes you through the glorious bohemian Georgian Quarter. These are tours with a difference. The theme is drawn around music, performed live at each destination. Each includes visits to three pubs of important historical significance to the city. Your ticket covers you for the walk, the history knowledge of your guides and their performances along the way. You buy a refreshment of your choice in each pub – should you wish to -to enjoy as Alan Burke and Debbi Stanistreet take you on a magical musical history tour. Roll up!
Saturday tours start in The Casa (Hope Street) and Sunday tours begin in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms (pub) on the corner of Hope Street and Hardman Street.
Sun 22 and 29: Liverpool, Ireland in our Bones – Walks of the Georgian Quarter
Also running: Sat 21 and 28: Liverpool, Ireland and the luck of the Irish Beatles! – Walks from Hope St to the City Centre
Liverpool Music Tours are offering two cultural walking tours. The first Liverpool, Ireland and the luck of the Irish Beatles starts in The Casa (Hope St) and takes you into the city centre. The second Liverpool, Ireland in our Bones starts in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms (pub on Hope St) and takes you through the glorious bohemian Georgian Quarter. These are tours with a difference. The theme is drawn around music, performed live at each destination. Each includes visits to three pubs of important historical significance to the city. Your ticket covers you for the walk, the history knowledge of your guides and their performances along the way. You buy a refreshment of your choice in each pub – should you wish to -to enjoy as Alan Burke and Debbi Stanistreet take you on a magical musical history tour. Roll up!
Saturday tours start in The Casa (Hope Street) and Sunday tours begin in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms (pub) on the corner of Hope Street and Hardman Street.
Finns Hotel Ceilidh Band will play – for one night only – fundraising for Irish Community Care. Finns Hotel is a long established, but recently dormant, ceilidh band which started during the miner’s strike in the 1980s.
Irish Community Care works across the Liverpool City Region; in Cheshire and Wigan and Greater Manchester, too. Irish Community Care supports Irish and Irish Traveller people through times of uncertainty, trouble, hardship or isolation. We make sure people have a decent place to live and are safe and well. We ensure that they settle well in the community, whether as new arrivals in the country/area or from prison release, maximising their income through training, employment and welfare benefit entitlement and helping them to feel part of and connected to local communities.
All money raised will contribute to this much needed work.
Unveiling a number of discrete, yet important case histories of Liverpool, Liverpool Irish and/or Irish women, In:Visible Women’s morning sessions set the scene for exploring the issues women still face today, particularly in certain Irish communities.
By recognising their influence and impact we aim to redress their abilities and attributes. Discussions move to more difficult issues in the afternoon and could include discussion around shamed pregnancies, arranged marriages, faith crises, institutional abuse, secret adoptions and illegal abortions; many of which retain influence and impact on families and communities today and are highlighted elsewhere in the festival programme. Whilst the laws in the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and mainland Great Britain still allow 11 women per day to travel to England to have their ‘shame dealt with’ these issues are not just a matter for women, but for society, legislature and reconciliation and so the late afternoon sessions will consider this.
In:Visible Women builds relationships with artists, academics and organisations to deliver illuminating talks, films, performances, artworks and written features to start making ‘invisible’ women’s issues, visible. Piloting this year is our In:Visible Women day at Central Library. Artists and academics will highlight individual, historic case studies, bringing to light diminished or overlooked histories and stories. After an enlightening day of discussion, imagery, installations and film, we have an evening of Liverpool, Liverpool Irish and Irish female singer songwriters at the Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room, showcasing a raft of contemporary talent.
This is the tip of the iceberg. As In:Visible Women has developed, more striking stories, histories and opportunities have presented themselves and we expect to expand the programme in future years. Our inaugural year already has much to offer. Having received interest from press, artists, academics and activists, we advise getting your tickets early and engaging now. A full day schedule will follow online, but artists Casey Orr and Alison Little are already involved. #invisiblewomen
We also recommend booking for the Visible Women: New and powerful women in music.
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Whilst the Liverpool Irish Festival does provide free events, this is an all-day event that will require refreshments. The ticket price is to cover visitor beverages for the day, but lunch will not be provided. Although we will not provide a lunch, we do recommend the cafe at the library and people are welcome to bring a packed lunch which can be eaten outside. In order to provide barrierless access, we have with-held a small allocation of tickets for those who do not feel they are able to pay the ticket price. To apply for one of these tickets, please send your request to info@liverpoolirishfestival.com with the subject header “IW Bursary”.
This event is now completely sold out. We are sorry for any inconvenience and hope you will join us for other festival events.
Orla Guerin (Dublin) became the BBC’s Egypt Correspondent in 2013. Since then she has reported Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Tunisia, and Libya.
She has reported on the first democratic transition of power in Cairo, suicide bombings, sectarian violence, the Taliban shooting of Malala Yousufzai and the battle for female education. In total, Orla has reported from over 60 countries, and her work has been recognised with awards and nominations in the UK, USA, and her native Ireland. In this talk, Orla discusses her work and life.
Organised by the Institute of Irish Studies, in partnership with the Liverpool Irish Festival, this event also contributes to the festival’s new strand of work In:Visible Women, an important body of work considering women, particularly those with Irish connections, today.
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Free entry, booking required. Spaces are limited. Please RSVP to Dorothy Lynch (Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool) using dorothy@liv.ac.uk or +44(0) 151 794 3837. Remaining seats will allocated on a first-come first served basis. The event takes place in the Eleanor Rathbone Theatre in the Eleanor Rathbone Building.
The Breath is Stuart McCallum (ex-guitarist of The Cinematic Orchestra), Irish singer Rioghnach Connolly, fellow Cinematic alumnus pianist John Ellis and drummer Elliot Bennett.
Mixing Irish folk influences with mesmerizing guitar riffs, anthemic themes and powerful hooks, Connolly’s soulful vocals are interwoven into the electronic fabric of McCallum’s distinctive sound-world. In turns hypnotic, lush, powerfully raw and raucously punchy, their songs enter, uplift and break your heart as The Breath conjure a kaleidoscope of sound that perfectly frames Connolly’s raw songs and soul-cleansing vocals. While original lyrics pour forth from her in a torrent of meaning, she sings songs of birth and death, woman’s rights, first love, the call of motherhood, the death of men at sea and post-colonial wrongs.