Bealtaine Archive

The Bealtaine festival is part-funded by the Arts Council.

Each year, Bealtaine grows and diversifies, with an increase in the number of events, the number of groups involved and the range of art forms represented. The major Age & Opportunity Bealtaine projects for 2009 are still up on the Bealtaine website. Read here some of the highlights of Bealtaine 2009, Bealtaine 2008, Bealtaine 2007, Bealtaine 2006 and Bealtaine 2005.

Bealtaine 2009

'Go and open the door' was the theme for Bealtaine 2009, taken from a poem by the Czech poet Miroslav Holub. This invitation brought out even more participants than ever before to events all over Ireland. Here are just a few highlights of projects Age & Opportunity were directly involved with:

The Magpie's Nest

The Magpie's Nest takes a leaf out of the scavenger bird's book and encourages people to think about how and why we gather things. Artist Michael Fortune put together a team of six Bealtaine participants who immersed themselves in the wide and wonderful collections of the National Library of Ireland, creating three exhibits based on: Ireland's first magpies on the Wexford coast; photos of the Coolgreany Eviction of the 1880s; and pottery and delft fragments from an 1850s shipwreck off Rosslare, still turning up on the shore today.

Blow the Dust Off Your Trumpet

The National Concert Hall invited past musicians  willing to take up their instruments again, in preparation for a one-off performance at the end of May, with coaching from experienced musicians and teachers. After initial 'jamming' days, the facilitators worked very closely with the group, welcoming ideas, suggestions and questions from participants. They also built arrangements for the concert based on the people who had become involved.The group have taken on a life of their own and continue to meet and play.

Generation

Project Brand New - Generation was a chance for both established and younger artists to explore intergenerational experimentation together. Run through Project Arts Centre its aim was to generate new ideas, projects and artistic processes. It asked artists of all ages to take a risk, try something new, work with strangers of a different ilk, make something short, show it to an audience and see what comes back.

Swans at the Abbey Theatre

A group of Bealtaine participants joined theatre director Darragh McKeon for ten days of exploration into their own past using theatre and performance techniques. From the stories and with the group as performers, Darragh explored how this might become a full dramatic work for the future.

Supported by the Abbey Theatre, the project was inspired by a book from Nassim Taleb called 'The Black Swan'. 'Black Swan' is a metaphor for something that people thought could not exist until it was discovered that it was something that did exist; it is 'an impossibility' come to pass. So many of us have 'Black Swan' moments in our lives, where something we thought impossible or something that would never happen to us, comes to pass.

National Grandparents Day

We often forget that, when we talk about intergenerational work, we have a lot to teach each other, across the generations. On the 1st May, national school children around the country were invited to bring their grandparents to school for a day.

Activities varied locally but, for half of the day, the adults taught the children and, for the other half, the children taught the adults. This was a collaboration initiated by Mayo Education Centre, supported by Castleknock Community College and Bealtaine.

EnvisAge

EnvisAge was a Bealtaine-initiated collaboration that asked people to imagine starting again from scratch and building a new kind of care setting that people would be clamouring to get into. Phase One of the project was research; an arts facilitator used arts and theatre processes to ask older people what would make an ideal home.

Phase Two of the project brought together a select group of entrepreneurs, social developers, artists, designers, council employees, nurses, retirees and planners of all ages; they met in Castlebar for an intensive two days to consider this issue of ideal collective residential spaces. The aim for these two days of imagining was not to create a policy or a code of practice but to change people's thinking about what a care setting could do, to expand the possibilities of how care homes can work and what part individuals can play in making change happen.

EnvisAge was a Bealtaine project supported by Inspiration Station and Mayo County Council Arts Office.

Bealtaine 2008

The theme for Bealtaine 2008 was 'Now strike your note' taken from 'Station Island' by Seamus Heaney. As a clarion call for creativity, it once again brought out a record number of people to participate in Bealtaine events all over Ireland. There were some 330 organisers of events and an estimated 55,000 participants in 2008. Here are just a few highlights of projects Age & Opportunity was directly involved with:

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in Laois and Tipperary

Age & Opportunity brought the internationally acclaimed US-based Liz Lerman Dance Exchange Company back to Ireland to collaborate with The Dunamaise Arts Centre in Portlaoise and The Source Arts Centre in Thurles. Over 30 dancers participated in a poignant and mesmerising performance that mingled experiences of older people from the local area with challenging social and environmental issues. One of the themes was the rich lace-making tradition from the local area. Called ‘An Act of Stitch and Stone’, the show involved music, imagery and the spoken word as well as dance.

Magic Me

London-based Magic Me’s project in Ballymote, Co. Sligo worked with local older people and people from other countries who have made the town their home in recent years. They explored the idea of ‘Welcome’, how we welcome people into our community and what makes people feel welcome. The group looked at unusual views of Ballymote and gathered little-known stories about the area. From there, they produced drawings, postcards and animation. A celebratory Open Day invited everyone from  the community to an exhibition entitled ‘The Elephant in the Bakery’ (named after one of those little-known stories of a circus elephant on the rampage in the town!) and there was a sharing of stories, food and experiences. Sligo Arts Service (who supported the project along with Age & Opportunity and Ballymote Family Resource Centre) hopes to build on the success of this project by continuing to develop intercultural intergenerational programmes in the future so that the ‘Magic’ will continue.

Silver Stars

Instigated by Age & Opportunity, Silver Stars explored the lives of older gay men in theatre and song. When songwriter Seán Millar took a taxi from Limerick to Dublin, the driver’s stories sparked an idea, and Silver Stars was born. Having talked and listened to older gay men, the songs of Silver Stars capture the tales they tell; tales of love, family, solidarity and spirituality. Performances were developed with the support of Seán, lighting designer Sarah Jane Shields and theatre innovators Brokentalkers. Both an exciting and moving event, Silver Stars was named as an Irish Times 'Pick of 2008'.

Glen Road Sessions

The Glen Road Sessions were a series of three concerts that brought very local traditional styles 'on tour'. The leader of the sessions, Kitty Sean Cunningham, is a musician whose vibrancy and attitude embodies many of the Bealtaine ideals. Other musicians in these sessions included: Eddie Gara, melodeon and piano accordion player, based mostly in the UK; Con McGinley a fiddler of note with a reservoir of old tunes from his locality; Bridget Gara, melodeon and accordion player from Leemagowra in Ardara. All four have unique and individual repertoires from their localities in Glencolmcille.

Bealtaine 2007

Thousands of events took place all over Ireland during Bealtaine 2007. The theme for Bealtaine 2007 was 'Forever Begin' taken from Brendan Kennelly's poem 'Begin'. Here we list some Bealtaine highlights to give you a flavour of what took place:

Nationwide Bealtaine Film Tour

Ladies in Lavender, directed by Charles Dance and starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, was screened in 34 locations countrywide during May. The tour was organised by access Cinema and the Irish Film Institute (sponsored by Seven Seas).

Concert Series: Bealtaine sessions

A series of traditional music concerts involving musicians young and old took place in Dublin, Donegal, Clare, Carlow and Monaghan.

The Lost Art of Letter Writing

This letter-writing project involved local Public Libraries, the Library Council and The National Library. People all around the country were invited to write a letter: perhaps to a friend or family member, to parents or grandchildren as part of Bealtaine 2007.

Visit by Annie Proulx

The award-winning author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain Annie Proulx, who was in her late 50s when she published her first novel, visited Dublin during Bealtaine, giving a reading at The Abbey Theatre.

Murmur in Dublin's Docklands

Dublin’s Docklands experienced [murmur] during May 2007, where there were [murmur] signs on buildings giving a telephone number. When you rang the number (for the price of a local call), you could listen to stories about that building or location. Older communities in the area were involved in identifying the locations and in telling the stories.

Bealtaine 2006

In 2006, the Bealtaine festival adopted a theme 'From Hand to Hand - The Creative Exchange' to draw attention to the role of older people in transmitting art and culture, in defining and communicating what are the essential and important elements in our culture for younger generations.

Traditional music concerts

To reflect the theme, a series of intergenerational traditional music concerts took place country-wide in which older and younger musicians played in concert together - sometimes grandparents with grandchildren. These concerts celebrated the diversity within traditional music and honoured the tradition, creating a snapshot of traditional music in Ireland today.

Who Inspired You? - Public conversations for Bealtaine

Another set of events was entitled The Bealtaine Conversations, a unique opportunity to listen in on conversations with artists whose work has inspired and defined the cultural landscape of Ireland. These were public exchanges between a key figure in the arts community and an older artist of their choosing arising from Bealtaine's posing the question - Who has inspired you? Some fascinating conversations ensued.

Bealtaine 2005

2005 marked the tenth year of Bealtaine - art forms in 2005 included theatre, literature, dance, film, storytelling, music, painting and sculpture. Events took place in local libraries and in national cultural institutions, in community halls and in art galleries, in hospitals, day care centres and nursing homes and in various other settings.

Visual Arts

The visual arts were celebrated in a many different of ways during the festival. IMMA encouraged older people to take part in the Charcoal and Chocolate programme, an artist-led introduction to contemporary art through drawing. The lives and work of two of Ireland's finest visual artists, Tony O'Malley and Patrick Scott, were celebrated in Bealtaine through the medium of film.

Film Tour

The Bealtaine Film Tour featured the bittersweet comedy Calendar Girls, touring nearly thirty venues across Ireland.

Affairs of the Arts

Affairs of the Arts, an annual collaboration between The Abbey Theatre, Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Irish Film Institute and Age & Opportunity, offered a unique two-day introduction to three art forms - theatre, film and contemporary art.

Boithrin na Smaointe

Photographer John Minihan took photos for a publication entitled Boithrin na Smaointe, which is a miscellany of memories from older residents of Cape Clear Island. Storyteller Nuala Hayes worked with Cumann na Croise Deirge Active Retirement Association on Cape Clear in compiling Boithrin na Smaointe, which was funded by Cork 2005, European Capital of Culture/Credit Union Arts Residency.

From Hand to Hand

There was a particular interest in traditional music sessions in 2005, with some of Ireland's older players performing with younger musicians, recognising the intergenerational aspect of traditional music. Concerts took place in Clare, Leitrim, Sligo and Tipperary (North). The success of these events led to the choice of the theme adopted for Bealtaine 2006, From Hand to Hand.