Ports, Past and Present at Rosslare Harbour Festival: Heritage Arts Music

Description

Rosslare Harbour Festival is a mix of heritage, music, and arts all joined together by the port, the village. It embraces Rosslare Harbour’s connections with French and Welsh ports and will showcase some of the best that arts heritage and music in Wexford and beyond have to offer. There will be something for everyone to enjoy and all events are free to attend.

Friday 17th June 2022

3.30pm Screening of The Wexford Whale and Welsh Folk Tales with Peter Stevenson.

A short animation written, directed, animated and edited by David Begley with music and sound design by Ruah Pearson.

In April 2021 David Begley gathered driftwood at The Burrow, Rosslare and Rosslare Harbour in order to bake driftwood charcoal for 5th and 6th class pupils at Scoil Mhuire Rosslare. Assisted by Nadia Corridan, David facilitated drawing and animation workshops with the children to explore the story of Ned Wickham and the blue whale which stranded at the mouth of Wexford Harbour in 1891. The children learned about the history, heritage and culture of Rosslare Fort, Ned Wickham’s life, enjoyed drawing at the Burrow beach, Rosslare – reimagining Wickham’s first sighting of the whale – drew scenes from the story of the whale, learned how to animate in charcoal and created some astonishing work.

Featuring drawings and animations made by David and the children, ‘The Wexford Whale’ is a 12 minute black and white film which will have its first Irish public screening at the Rosslare Harbour Maritime Heritage Festival.

The film showing will be followed by a storytelling session with Peter Stevenson, renowned Welsh story-teller who will share some Welsh and Irish sea folklore with attendees.

Users of the car park please be reassured we will keep disruption and closure to a minimum. Thank you for your support and understanding.

Location: Rosslare Harbour Beach Car Park Duration: 1 hour

8pm Screening At the Water’s Edge: Stories of the Irish Sea, with a short closing performance by Sarah Deevy, 2022 winner of Wexford’s Got Talent.

Ports Past and Present in Partnership with Rosslare Maritime Heritage Festival invite you to the Irish premiere of our film At the Water’s Edge: Stories of the Irish Sea.

The documentary was filmed across five ferry port communities around the Irish Sea, Rosslare Harbour, Pembroke Dock, Fishguard, Holyhead and Dublin Port. It features local people with a passion for their town’s history and heritage. We hear unique stories about ginkgo trees, invasions, secret gardens or one-eyed captains and their pet ravens, and discover the wonderful wildlife on land and at sea.

Users of the car park please be reassured we will keep disruption and closure to a minimum. Thank you for your support and understanding.

Suitable for all ages.

Location: Rosslare Harbour Beach Car Park Duration: 1hr 30mins



Saturday 18th June

12.00pm Sandcastles and a Tidy Beach

Just before it gets invaded by the Normans again (See below about the re-enactment of the Norman Invasion), come along and build some castles for them to raid.

There will be prizes for the most interesting, and fun creations on the beach, and while we make the castles (or sea creatures, or monsters) of our dreams. We’ll pick up any litter we find and leave the beach cleaner than we found it.

Going solo or with a group, EVERYONE is welcome to come make something mad, beautiful, fun or ferocious on the beach.

Location: Rosslare Harbour Beach` Duration 1.5 hours

12.00pm Walk and Talk Around the Port with Port Historian Oliver Doyle

The walk and talk will start in the Dock Boutique Hotel Car Park near De Lapps Hill, will go on to the Railway club, houses and dormitory and will end at the former RIC station which has an interesting Railway connection. The talk will cover lots of topics including the early pier, the Waterford & Wexford Railway company, coal shortages and the Great War, early car transportation and its dangers, closure of the port between 1941 and 1947, and more. This is a must for those with an interest in Wexford heritage, railways, transport, and social history.

Oliver Doyle is from a local railway family. He joined CIE as a booking clerk in Rosslare harbour June 1962 and retired after 48 years as Deputy to the Chief Executive (Operating Schemes Development) in 2010. Oliver has written extensively on railways in Ireland and Mauritius – both current and historical. Co-author of 3 books including a history for the 150th anniversary of the railways in Ireland in 1984.

Start: Rosslare Harbour Heritage Museum Duration: 1 hour approx.

1.30pm Norman Landing Re-Enactments

The Enniscorthy Re-enactment Society will bring heritage to life, by storming the beach like the Normans in 1169. They will be in full battle dress, providing fun for all the family.

Location: Rosslare Harbour Beach Duration 45mins

2.30pm A Norman Family Gathering in the Memorial Garden

Immigrants have been coming to Rosslare Harbour for centuries and they have greatly contributed to rich heritage that the area benefits from and so it was with the Normans. They took the trip from Pembroke, to help an Irish King, and decided to stay (it didn’t work out for the King). One of the lasting legacies is that there are many Norman names, sometimes changed but still Norman all over Rosslare Harbour and indeed Wexford and Ireland as a whole. Come along and join Leo Coy’s interactive talk on some local Norman names, where they come from or what they mean, and you can find out if you are a little bit Norman.

Location: The Memorial Garden Rosslare Harbour Village Duration 45mins

3.00pm Rickard Donovan and the D-Day Landings: A Talk by Brian Donovan in the Maritime Heritage Centre

Rickard Donovan (1898-1952), was an architect of the D-Day Normandy landings, and one of the most important military figures from Ireland in the modern era, yet few have heard about him or know he existed. In this talk I hope to uncover his story and his two great loves, the sea and his home at Ballymore near Ferns. Rickard spent much of life in the navy or working as a naval engineer, but he also commanded submarines in the thick of battle in WWI, sold china door-to-door during the worst of the Depression, and even tried to change Churchill’s mind about Irish neutrality during WWII. He lived in extraordinary times and ploughed a course through the tumultuous changes in Ireland and internationally of the first half of the 20th century

Brian Donovan is also from Ballymore, born in 1967, and Rickard’s grandson. He works as the Strategic Initiatives Manager at family history company Findmypast, as well as Director at Eneclann which he founded with his wife, Fiona Fitzsimons. He previously lectured in history at Trinity College Dublin in the 1990s and since then has lectured worldwide on history, genealogy and digitisation. Currently Brian is responsible for a range of global initiatives at Findmypast, involving new data, new markets and new opportunities.

3.30pm A Sea of Stories with artist Robert Jakes

As part of his work with the Ports Past and Present Project Robert created a ceramic mural ‘A Sea of Stories’. It captures some of the wealth of heritage, wildlife and myth shared by Rosslare Harbour, Pembroke Dock and Fishguard. We will display a copy of the work at this event and Robert will share some of those stories he found and how they became this beautiful work.

Robert Jakes is a Sculptor/Community Artist based in south Pembrokeshire working to create visual features for specific places and communities both in the UK and abroad, mainly working with wood, mixed media mosaic and community lantern events.

www.robertjakes.co.uk www.sandpalacearts.org.uk

Location: The Memorial Garden Rosslare Harbour Village Duration 45mins

4.30 pm Peter Murphy: A reading from We Have Always Been Your Harbour and a chat

Peter Murphy will read from his work ‘We Have Always Been Your Harbour’ – A Play For Voices (After Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood). Peter wrote and recorded this work as an audio-literary response to Dylan Thomas’s 1954 radio play Under Milk Wood. Set in Rosslare Europort, Wexford, in the present day, this multi-disciplinary project (text, sound, film, performance, score) utilises the voices, dialects, stories, folklore and history of the south-east coastal region. He will then talk about the work and how it was developed and perhaps tell a story or two that didn’t make it in to the finished work.

Peter Murphy is a writer, spoken-word performer, musician, actor and journalist from Wexford, Ireland. He is the author of two novels, John the Revelator (2009) and Shall We Gather at the River (2013), published by Faber & Faber in Ireland and the UK, and by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the US and Canada, and he has also published numerous short stories in various anthologies.

Peter’s journalism and non-fiction has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, the Irish Times, Hot Press and Huffington Post. He has released two spoken word/music albums with the Revelator Orchestra, The Sounds of John the Revelator and The Brotherhood of the Flood. He currently leads Cursed Murphy Versus the Resistance, whose eponymous first album was released in July.



Location: The Memorial Garden Rosslare Harbour Village Duration 45mins

8pm Melaine O’Reilly and Celtic Jazz Ensemble. The Dock Boutique Hotel

To round off the events at the Rosslare Maritime & Heritage Festival, singer and songwriter Melanie O’Reilly & her Celtic Jazz ensemble perform her unique Celtic Jazz fusion presenting the theme of songs of the sea: an exciting fusion of jazz interwoven with Irish cultural themes . Melanie will not only sing her original songs co-composed by Melanie and Gaelic poet Nuala Ni Dhomnaill , but also weaves in traditional Irish songs with a contemporary jazz twist and will also add some swingin’ jazz standards. Her ensemble features some of south-east’s stellar musicians, – Carole Nelson on piano, Adrian Jackson on bass, and Kevin Lawlor on drums. A fun and celebratory end to the festival. Not to be missed!

Melanie O’Reilly is an internationally acclaimed performer who has toured extensively throughout I Europe as well as the United States, She was awarded Artist -in-Residence at La Mue Residency Normandy in 2019 and represented Wexford and Ireland at the European Heritage Weekend also in Normandy, September 2019. She is currently Jazz Artist in Residence with Jazz Appreciation Series, supported by the Irish Arts Council at Wexford Arts Centre, and is vocal instructor at Co. Wexford School of Music. She is also the creator and host of her award winning show Jazz on the Bay, now on KCSM.org.

Kevin Lawlor is a jazz musician, composer and educator from Co. Wexford. He is the Director of Jazz studies at County Wexford School of music and also teaches drums, jazz ensemble, classical percussion and classical theory. Carole Nelson is a pianist and composer, whose career has spanned across many musical genres and has gathered international awards and great critical acclaim. Adrian Jackson one of Kilkenny’s foremost bass players who has played with many of the finest jazz musicians, and leads the popular Hot 4 Jazz Quartet in Kilkenny

12.30pm-3.00pm Rosslare Harbour Walk Trad Trail

A wonderful selection of local musicians will play by the Marian Shrine, The RNLI Watchbox and The Playground. They will be playing lots of different music including trad and acoustic sets.

Marian Shrine, RNLI Watchbox, The Playground

Exhibitions

Irish Ferries the French Connection, A Photographic Exhibition.

A photographic exhibition exploring the history of the Irish Ferries crossings, in particular to France. Worth a visit for the maritime history and the fashions past.

Location: Maritime Heritage Centre 17, 18 &19 June



Ports Past and Present are delighted to be partners in presenting the Rosslare Harbour Festival along with The Rosslare Harbour/Kilrane Development Team, SuperValu Rosslare Harbour, Roche Freight, and Wexford County Council.

Period	17 Jun 2022 → 18 Jun 2022
Event type	Festival
Location	Rosslare Harbour, IrelandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International