Visit to rural Ireland
The Irish Culture Retreat is a real treat.
Arriving in Carrick on Shannon, in Leitrim - Ireland, you wouldn’t think such an array of traditional arts could possibly squeeze into such a small area but it does and it works. Part of my research under the banner of Creative Scotlands Go See Share funding was to visit rural areas where folks live, work, eat, sleep and contribute to the community through the traditional arts. Not only to experience how the trad arts thrive there, but to live it myself for a short time and to decipher how this relates to my own practice and plans for Slanjayvah Danza and our immediate community.
I got to experience not just the music and the dancing (which was impeccable), but also got to hear stories of the people and the place, their beliefs, their past struggles and how they have fought to keep dance and music at the forefront of their culture. The history of the area on that note is without a doubt enough to send chills up and down the body. It’s not so different from some of the things that happened in Scotland during the Highland Clearances, when people were displaced, fiddles were burned and speaking Gaelic was forbidden. But, it is different indeed as the people fought for their arts culture and it still very much exists.
The Irish Cultural Retreat is the brain child of Sean Nos dancer and artist Edwina Guckian. During my time there I found many things resonating, not only historically, but also the rural similarities or the landscape, the music and the dancing and yet, excitement totally gripped me when…
Someone else talked of folk tales surrounding the Fae,
of old herbal remedies still used today
and the crafts they still make, built from straw and hay,
where stories of old are still told today.
Where dance is a way of life and laughter brings tears,
where folks celebrate Celtic dates, without any fear.
It was all very familiar to what I hold dear -
yet I still learned so much, within a braw atmosphere.
I can’t possibly write about all of what happened in that week, all I can tell you is that it was a jam packed week of INCREDIBLE! With thanks to Edwina Guckian, her crew of fantastic artists and the locals who were fabulous and to Creative Scotland for supporting my research.
Author: Jen Wren