Culture Ireland to celebrate Poetry Day with live-streamed performances

Culture
29 Apr 20

Now We’re Talking: A Town Hall Gathering, an event hosted by Lyons Tea in partnership with Hot Press and Pieta House, the suicide prevention and self-harm crisis charity, at Smock Alley Theatre last night. At the event, a host of people from across the spectrum of Ireland’s public life shared their personal mental health stories over a cup of Lyons tea. The panel of well-known personalities, which included Professor Colin O’Gara of UCD and St. John of Gods, Elaine Austin, CEO Pieta House, Jordanne Jones, Actor, Hannah Tyrell, Rugby International, Fergal D’arcy, Today FM, Sinéad Rafferty, Clinical Manager, Pieta House West, Elaine Crowley Virgin Media, Niall O’Meara, All Ireland Winning Hurler, and rapper God Knows (Rusangano Family), encouraged the Irish public to speak more openly about their mental health to reduce the stigma. The audience were captivated by live performances from duo Saint Sister, poet Stephen James Smith, singer-songwriter Emma Quinn, Delorentos and Hamsandwich. During October Pieta House will take over packs of Lyons Original 80s, to encourage people to open up and talk about their mental health. These special takeover packs include vital contact information for anyone who needs the services of Pieta House and every pack sold will raise much needed funds so that the charity can continue to offer their services to those in need.

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Stephen James Smith, Mairead O'Donnell, Siobhan Potter and Ciaran O'Driscoll will all feature on Culture Ireland's programme tomorrow.

Culture Ireland are set to take Poetry Day online tomorrow, April 30, with a programme of live-streamed performances from some of the country's most thrilling talents.

Through Culture Ireland's new initiative, Ireland Performs, presented in partnership with Facebook and First Music Contact, poets will present their work online – reaching audiences around the world from the comfort and safety of their own homes.

Stephen James Smith will kick off proceedings at 12:30m, with a spoken word performance on his Facebook.

A Dublin poet and playwright central to the rise of Ireland's vibrant spoken word scene, Stephen's poetry videos have amassed over 3 million views online to date.

In 2017 he was commissioned by St. Patrick’s Festival to write a new poem as a “celebratory narrative” of Ireland. The resultant piece ‘My Ireland’ is accompanied by a short film by director Myles O’Reilly, arranged and mixed by Conor O’Brien (Villagers), with music by Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Loah, Saint Sister, Eithne Ní Chatháin (aka Inni-K) and Ye Vagabonds.

Stephen’s debut collection Fear Not, published by Arlen House, was released in September 2018 and he has recently released a poetry pamphlet, Hear Now. His poetry is included on the syllabus at Western Connecticut State University, and his work has been translated into Irish, Spanish, Slovenian, Polish, Dutch and Italian.

Stephen's performance will be followed by Mairead O'Donnell of the Living Room Folk Sessions, who will be joined by poet Mary Montague and multi-instrumentalist Maeve McCann for a live performance at 17:00 here.

The Living Room Folk Sessions are a new, specially curated series of traditional Irish & folk music, song and poetry performances. With host and founder Mairéad O’ Donnell on fiddle and vocals, a different theme is picked for each evening on which the programme is based. Guest musicians and writers join Mairéad for a varied and stimulating evening of tunes, songs and words.

Siobhan Potter and Ciaran O'Driscoll will be capping off the Poetry Day celebrations, streaming live from Siobhan's Facebook at 18:30.

As two poets in two cocoons at two stages in writing careers, Siobhan and Ciaran will be discussing poetry in the time of pandemic over a cup of tea – sharing their journeys into poetry, their writing process and what poetry projects they are currently involved in, as well as reading poetry throughout to illustrate the conversation.

See Culture Ireland's full Poetry Day programme here.