G is for Tyrone Guthrie

Who is the most influential British director of modern times? Peter Brook revolutionised our notion of the empty space. Peter Hall has shown what permanent institutions can achieve. But arguably the greatest legacy comes from Tyrone Guthrie (1900-71) – even if his name is scarcely known to a younger generation. Even to label Guthrie as "British" is slightly misleading, since he once dubbed himself "a very Irish sort of Anglo-Scot". But this six-foot-five giant of a man was not only a great director: his unceasing campaign for the open stage has left its mark on theatres all over the world.

Click here for the full article in the Guardian

Happy Birthday

In October 1981 Janet Pierce, Bernard Farrell, Geraldine O'Reilly and John O' Conor were among the first creative artists to reside here at the centre. With our 30th birthday just past we look forward to many more years, many more guests, and dinner, everyday. We still have cpopies of the 25th anniversary book which would make a wonderful gift!

Minister for the Arts Visits

Minister for the Arts, Jimmy Deenihan TD, met with the members of this year’s Stewart Parker Trust Playwrights’ Week with the goal of engaging with them on the challenges facing young writers and the support that can be given to them.

The Minister spoke at length about Irish literary history and how he intends to aid Irish writers.  He told the group of his personal relationship with the arts including his part in establishing the Listowel Writers’ Centre.

The playwrights were impressed that despite his hectic schedule the Minister is finding time to write his own book about his life as a Kerry footballer, the proceeds of which will go to charity.

Studio Evenings

One of the great parts of a staying at the centre are the impromptu showings and readings. Sharing thoughts and discussing work with your peers around the table at dinner was Tyrone Guthries only request. Here are some works that Pat Keenan and Oonagh Catchpole showed after dinner. Readings from unfinished works and songs that we will all hear song were shared around the table last week.

Arvon International Poetry

Irish poet Jean O'Brien has won the Arvon International Poetry competition. Founded by Ted Hughes and now in its 30th year, the Arvon International Poetry Competition is one of the UK's most prestigious open poetry prizes. The first prize of £7,500 is one of the largest available for a single poem. The competition is truly international, receiving entries from around the world.

This year's competition was judged by the current Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy with Elaine Feinstein and Sundeep Sen. The Winner was announced in London on the 4th of November. O'Brien's poem titled Mereman, is a modern take on the mythological story of Glaucus a fisherman who became a merman by eating a magical herb, he was in love with the beautiful Scylla who rejected him. Jean O'Brien is a Dubliner who moved to live in the Midlands in 2005, and in the same year she worked as the Writer-in-Residence for County Laois. Her Third and latest collection of poetry Lovely Legs came out from Salmon Publishing (Irl) in 2009, she is currently working on a new collection. O'Brien has previously won places in a number of poetry competition and in 2008 she was the winner of the Fish International Poetry Prize. Her work is widely published, anthologised and broadcast in Ireland and elsewhere. She earned an M.Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin and has taught Creative Writing in The Irish Writers Centre for over ten years. She is the featured poet in the current New Hibernian Review USA. Fiona Sampson writing in the Irish Times said of O'Brien work ...'This is effortless writing, graceful and exact as any pirouette in its insight.'

Conversations in the Irish Art World: Vera Ryan

MOVERS & SHAKERS 3

Movers & Shakers 3: Conversations in the Irish Art World is based on interviews with a cross section of people who are or have been important players in the field of Irish Art since the 1950s. The views expressed and the memories recalled enable readers to get an almost back-stage glimpse of a world that can seem opaque and mysterious. The fascinating voices of Basil Blackshaw, Ronnie Tallon, Suzanne Macdougald, Ian Whyte, Babara Dawson, Peter Murry, Patricia Noone, Robbie McDonald, Geoff Steiner-Scott, Cormac Mehegan and Aidan Dunne make this book historically significant and very engaging.

Pictured here: New Director at the launch of Movers & Shapers 3: Conversations in the Irish Art World by Vera Ryan at the Crawford Art Gallery Cork. This volume completes the trilogy of interviews with a cross-section of people in the Irish art world, L / R Geoff Steiner-Scott, Robbie Mc Donald, Vera Ryan, Peter Murray, Cormac Mehegan.

'My father brought me in on the bus. I had a wee portfolio of drawings. We went up to see the headmaster. "Yeah, you're all right, you can start." he said I got into art school That way'
Basil Blackshaw

'Creativity is an area of functioning not damaged by mental illness and quite conflict-free'
Patricia Noone

'Dublin was less pretentious then. The infrastructure of professional salaried jobs in the arts was not yet established. People woild say "Can I get involved? Can I Help?'"
Peter Murray

New Director Appointed

The Chair and Board of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Co. Monaghan are delighted to announce Robbie Mc Donald as its new Director. Robbie Mc Donald succeeds Dr. Pat Donlon as Director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in the New Year, leaving his current job as Director of the Hawk's Well Theatre in Sligo.

Announcing the new appointment, Brian Garrett, Chairman of the Board of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre said:
"We are delighted to welcome Robbie Mc Donald to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and are confident that under his experienced guidance, the Centre will not only rise to any challenges ahead but go from strength to strength."

A native of Cork city, Robbie Mc Donald has made a significant contribution to developing the arts in Ireland over the past thirty years. Among his many achievements are: co-founding and directing the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork; overseeing the development of the Firestation Artists' Studios in Dublin; re-modelling The Firkin Crane as a centre for contemporary dance; overseeing the development of what is now the Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton, Co. Sligo, and his work as Director of the Sligo Art Gallery and Director of the Hawk's Well Theatre.

Speaking about at his new appointment, Robbie Mc Donald said:
"The Tyrone Guthrie Centre is one of the most important artist support facilities in Ireland. Over the last thirty years Annaghmakerrig has enabled a myriad of artistic ambitions to emerge and enrich our lives. It is my intention to ensure that artists will continue to have the opportunity and the support that Tyrone Guthrie's vision and generosity secured for them."

Since it first opened its doors in 1981, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre has offered a haven of inspiration and comfort to over 5,000 artists, giving birth to countless works of art across the different artistic media. As it celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2011, it looks forward to nurturing the work of many more artists.

Dr. Pat Donlon Retires

‘I am retiring from Annaghmakerrig at the end of December for personal and medical reasons.  I have had the extraordinary privilege to be Director at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for the past four years.  These years have been some of the busiest and most productive of my career and I know I am really going to miss this wonderful place.  There really is no other place quite like it. So thank you to all who travelled with me on the journey so far: to the Chairman and Board of the Centre for their sustained support, the tireless staff whose dedication and sense of fun is so special and above all to the many artists who visited during this time.  You are the life blood of the Centre, without you it would be just bricks and mortar – with you there the place hums and thrums with life, creativity and just a little bit of madness! I will miss all of you.’

Galway Film Fleadh pays tribute to Lelia Doolan

This Article Thanks to the Irish Times
The tribute to Doolan takes the form of a public interview on Saturday, July 10th, in the Cinemobile, which she helped to initiate. Doolan, Miriam Allen, Bob Quinn and Joe MacMahon were founders of the first festival in 1988, and it has become a major event on the international film calendar. Doolan worked in RTÉ in the 1960s on The Riordans and 7 Days , a forerunner of Primetime . She resigned over RTÉ policies, along with Bob Quinn, in 1969, and she moved to print journalism and became artistic director of the Abbey and Peacock theatres from 1971 to 1973. She lectured in communications, worked with adult literacy schemes in Belfast, was first chairwoman of the Irish Film Board and was a key mover in the Burren Action Group which successfully opposed original plans to build an interpretative centre at Mullaghmore, Co Clare.

Clifton appointed Ireland Professor of Poetry

This Article Thanks to RTE News
Dublin-born poet Harry Clifton has been announced as the new Ireland Professor of Poetry. The announcement was made by Taoisaeach Brian Cowen at a gathering this evening at Newman House. Mr Clifton, who spent many years living and working abroad before returning to Dublin to teach at UCD in 2004, said his appointment was a 'huge honour and totally unexpected.' His collections of poems include 'The Desert Route; Selected Poems 1973-1988' and 'Secular Eden; Paris Notebooks 1994-2004'. His work has been translated into several languages and he has received many awards. Mr Clifton takes over the position from Michael Longley, who was the fourth Ireland Professor of Poetry.

The position was established in 1998 by the Art Council, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, Queen's University, Belfast, and University College Dublin. The role was created following the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Seamus Heaney, in order to honour his achievement and that of other Irish poets.

 

Glittering Prizes 2009

It is that time of the year again when Awards are in the air and congratulations are due to the many past and current Annaghmakerrig residents who are in the running for a range of Awards:

Congratulations to Abbie Spallen who has been nominated for her recent play Strandline for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize given annually for women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.

Congratulations to nominees for IRISH TIMES POETRY NOW AWARD

• Peter Sirr
• Vona Groarke
• Eileán Ní Chuilleanáin

Congratulations to Board Member Peter Fallon whose publishing house Gallery Press published four of the five nominees.

Congratulations to the many Annaghmakerrig residents who have received nominations for The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards 2009 including:

• Annie Ryan
• Dylan Tighe
• Michael West
• Seán Óg
• Loose Canon
• Jason Byrne
• Tania Banotti
• Conor Linehan
• Gina Moxley
• Karl Quinn

Congratulations to Julie Feeney who has been nominated Best Irish Female in the Meteors Music Awards Julie spent a considerable amount of time here in Annaghmakerrig working solely on all of the words for the work. Pages is released on her own mittens label

Times may be hard and funding tight – but talent remains untouched and we are proud to be associated with all the nominees for 2009. Keep up the good work – your country needs you!

Eithne McGuinness Dies

This peice is taken from the Guardian Newspaper

Eithne McGuinness, a frequent visitor to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, has died of cancer aged 48. She was a playwright and actor who was startling as Sister Clementine in the 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters. She infused her characterisation with a magnetic mix of cruelty and innocence.

A descendant of Muriel Gifford, who campaigned for Irish independence, Eithne had a strong sense of social justice. After attending secondary schools in Dublin, she worked in the Fitzpatrick Castle hotel in nearby Killiney, moving swiftly up the ranks with her capacity for hard work and scintillating sense of humour. She spent a decade in the US, returning to Ireland in the early 1990s and devoting herself full time to theatre.

Eithne soon carved out a niche in Dublin's theatre community, writing and performing one-woman pieces, including The Queen of Sheba and Typhoid Mary, a lyrical, elegiac play about Mary Mallon, an Irish cook who unwittingly infected her New York clients with typhoid in the early 1900s. Eithne first performed Typhoid Mary at the 1997 Dublin Fringe festival. A year later, a radio version was produced by RTÉ (the Irish national broadcaster). Eithne revived the theatre production in 2004 and again in 2009 for an international tour that was cut short by her illness. Her final appearance as Mary was, fittingly, in New York.

Eithne worked with many Irish theatres and was rarely "resting". She also engaged with community groups, bringing tremendous creativity and vitality to storytelling and theatre projects in Dublin, particularly the inner-city areas around Sean McDermott Street and Ballybough. In 2000 she appeared in the Irish TV soap Glenroe. During the last two years of her life, she entertained audiences all over Ireland with her beautiful singing voice, adroit dancing and perfect comic timing in the shows Menopause: the Musical and Dirty Dusting.

Eithne's dramatic writing was the quiet twin of her life as an actor, a vocation that she pursued with passion and a ruthless attention to detail. Her plays explore difficult, morally complex themes with humour and insight. A Glorious Day, set during the 1916 Easter Rising, was given a public reading at the Abbey Theatre. Limbo, dealing with immigration, was produced in 2000 and 2001.

In 2004 Eithne embarked on an MPhil in creative writing at Trinity College, Dublin, during which she wrote Miss Delicious, a powerful play about sexual abuse, which was later workshopped at the Abbey Theatre. Plans to produce it were under consideration when Eithne became ill.

She will be missed for her wit, warmth, perceptiveness, honesty and her wonderful dinner parties. She is survived by her parents, Kevin and Iseult, her sisters, Maura and Niamh, and her brothers, Barry and Dermot.

Tóibín wins Costa Novel Award

The following is a quotation from the RTE website

Irish author Colm Tóibín has been named the winner of the Costa Novel Award for his book 'Brooklyn'.

The Costa Awards, formerly the Whitbread Prize, "recognise the most enjoyable books of the last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland".
Tóibín beat Man Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel ('Wolf Hall'), Penelope Lively ('Family Album') and Christopher Nicholson ('The Elephant Keeper') to the award.

The judges said of Tóibín's 'Brooklyn': "Poised, quiet and incrementally shattering - we all loved this book and can't praise it highly enough."
Tóibín's book will now go forward for the Costa Book of the Year award, which will be announced later this month.

Joining Tóibín on the shortlist are: Raphael Selbourne ('Beauty', First Novel Award winner), Graham Farmelo ('The Strangest Man', Biography Award winner), Christopher Reid ('A Scattering', Poetry Award winner) and Patrick Ness ('The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, Book Two)', Children's Book Award winner).

Colum Mc Cann

The Following is a Quotation from the National Book awards website

ABOUT THE BOOK
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in Colum McCann’s intricate portrait of a city and its people. Let the Great World Spin is the author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Colum McCann is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Let the Great World Spin, Zoli, Dancer, This Side of Brightness, and Songdogs, as well as two critically acclaimed story collections. His fiction has been published in thirty languages. He has been a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was the inaugural winner of the Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award in Memory of Princess Grace. He has been named one of Esquire’s “Best and Brightest,” and his short film Everything in This Country Must was a 2005 Oscar nominee. A contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Paris Review, he teaches at Hunter College and lives in New York City with his wife and children.

finalistread f mccann from National Book Foundation on Vimeo.

Eugene donates signed copy

Author and Playwright Eugene Mc Cabe started the ball rolling for the Tyrone Guthrie centres Online Book Shop by donating a signed First Edition copy of his recent novella "For the Love of Sisters" We hope that other authors accociated with the centre will follow his lead and donate signed copies of thier works for sale. 100% of the proceeds benifit the Tyrone Guthrie Foundation whose goal is to promote the creation of arts