www.seancorcoranseries.com<\/a><\/p>\nAt the heart of this year\u2019s programme is LAOCH, the annual gala concert at St Augustine\u2019s Church on Saturday 5 September. A celebration of the heroes of Irish music, song and dance, LAOCH also marks the 50th anniversary of F\u00e9ile na B\u00f3inne, the landmark Drogheda folk festival first held in 1976. The line-up features Landless, alongside D\u00f3nal Lunny & Macdara \u00d3 Faol\u00e1in, Caoimhe N\u00ed Mhaolag\u00e1in & Seamas Hyland, and Mick O\u2019Brien & Caoimh\u00edn \u00d3 Raghallaigh, with surprise guests also promised on the night.<\/p>\n
On Sunday 6 September, Drogheda\u2019s Georgian St Laurence Street will become the setting for a special street-wide programme of arts, heritage and community events.<\/p>\n
One of the weekend\u2019s most distinctive events will be the Cake Dance, hosted by renowned dancer Edwina Guckian in collaboration with Luail \u2013 Ireland\u2019s National Dance Company. Drawing on an old social tradition where dancers literally dance to win the cake, the event promises to bring music, movement and plenty of fun into the heart of the town as part of a special road closure programme supported by the Irish Walled Towns Network of the Heritage Council.<\/p>\n
Also on Sunday, F\u00e9ile na B\u00f3inne: A Legacy Explored will look back at the festival\u2019s important place in Drogheda\u2019s cultural history. Aoife Nic Cormaic, presenter of RT\u00c9\u2019s Rolling Wave, will host a live conversation with Nuala O\u2019Connor, director of South Wind Blows, and former RT\u00c9 presenters and musicians Paddy Glackin and Peter Browne. The event will be recorded live in Drogheda\u2019s Old Methodist Church for broadcast.<\/p>\n
The festival features a number of unique Louth debuts, including NEST by acclaimed young Irish composer Amanda Feery, presented in the intimate setting of Gerrard\u2019s Church.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Eoghan \u00d3 Ceannabh\u00e1in and Niamh Keady-Tabbal present \u2018S\u00e9 mo l\u00e9an gan m\u00e9 i m\u2019\u00e9in\u00edn\u2026\u2019, bringing sean-n\u00f3s singing and Irish traditional music into dialogue with Arabic songs from Palestine and Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Across the weekend, the town itself becomes a stage and gallery:<\/p>\n
BENCH #6: Pit by Alex Vostokova and CoisC\u00e9im Dance Theatre explores the social, psychological and ecological effects of modern urbanism, while Tion\u00f3l na mBan, led by piper Emer Mayock, brings women and girl uilleann pipers together for a special on-street performance celebrating Na Piobair\u00ed Uilleann.<\/p>\n
Visual arts feature prominently, with the festival opening on Friday with THREAD by Cathal Carolan, launched by photographer Rich Gilligan. The work is a personal photographic journey through the friendships, communities and spaces connected by skateboarding.
The weekend also includes ROCKS & SHAPES, a collaboration between SPIRAL X Se\u00e1n Corcoran Series and Drogheda Zine Fair, inviting participants to create a zine inspired by the shapes, symbols and motifs of prehistoric rock art.<\/p>\n
The festival will also celebrate Highlanes Gallery\u2019s 20th birthday with a special programme including a workshop with Miriam de B\u00farca, an in conversation between writer Belinda McKeon and poet Leanne Quinn, exploring Quinn\u2019s collection Landscape with Question, and a walking tour with community historian Brendan Matthews, exploring the life and work of celebrated Drogheda painter Nano Reid.
Beyond the headline events, the Se\u00e1n Corcoran Series programme includes analogue synth building with Synthesize_Her, bat-friendly gardening with Dr Niamh Roche, spinning and weaving, food, fermenting, printmaking and straw weaving.<\/p>\n
Tickets and full programme: www.seancorcoranseries.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Se\u00e1n Corcoran Series returns to Drogheda on 4\u20136 September with three days of music, song, dance, art…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-609991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}