Clonmel hosted a wonderful celebration of the arts

From the Music Generation Tipperary kids and teens who showcased their music at Clonmel Junction Festival, to the Tipperary writers who provided an evening of new writing in English and Irish (with some Ukrainian and Polish for good measure), the town came together to celebrate the festival where all the arts meet at the 2023 Clonmel Junction.

The Words Matter poems are on the festival website, and organisers Eileen Acheson and Jenny Cox were delighted with the range and quality of submissions.
Continuing Artistic Director Cliona Maher’s strong commitment to providing a platform to local talent, while bringing high quality national artists to the town, the festival saw over 250 theatre-makers, musicians, visual artists and writers performing and exhibiting in over 60 separate events around town.

The very popular Hucklebuck show featured many Clonmel and Tipperary musicians during its run including Pat Marnane, Cathal Ryan, Timmy Quaid and Eve Whelan in arrangements by James O’Donovan. Choreographer Ciara Laste, who led the dance troupe (and performed a reading of her own play with Riain Cash, ‘The Small Hours’) was delighted with the audience response, noting that there were enthusiastic music lovers and dancers in attendance at every show.

Audiences were delighted with the new site of the Dome on the Kickham Civic Plaza. Despite very poor weather, most of the Dome shows were sold out, with audiences showing that there is a strong base of theatre fans in Clonmel. The acoustic and ambience of the new South Tipperary Arts Centre space, the STAC Chapel, was celebrated with a broad range of concerts across all genres of piano music, with concerts featuring local musicians Vale, Edel Meade and Eamon O’Malley, as well as national favourites such as Steve Wickham. The Clonmel Originals Music Trail was a popular continuing feature, and local musicians were delighted to get the opportunity to focus on bringing their own music to the public.

“All credit to Ann O’Malley,” said Cliona Maher. “She came on board as the co-ordinator of the trail, and did a fantastic job of making sure that we had wonderful music at a huge range of bars and restaurants all over town.”

Aideen Wylde’s new play FOUND continued its theatre tour in Mulcahy’s Bar, having opened at Cork Midsummer Festival. The festival team noted that without allies such as Mulcahy’s, the Central Technical Institute, the Tipperary Education and Training Board, and Tipperary County Council, they wouldn’t have been able to deliver a festival with as many events and exhibitions.
“It’s not all over,” joked Cliona.

“The post-festival period is really busy, of course, but most of the visual arts programme is continuing through July and August,” she said.

Audiences can catch John Kennedy’s painting exhibition ‘This Will Be A Long Time Ago’ at the Main Guard, the thought-provoking ‘Art Enriches Life?’ group show at the Narrow Space gallery, Eugene de Leastar’s ‘Oh, the Allegory’ at Tipperary Museum, as well as experiencing the popular social space at South Tipperary Arts Centre.

The festival team only have a few days to rest as their September production of From Out The Land, a new large-scale site-specific play about Kickham Barracks, starts rehearsal on July 24.
Booking has already opened and tickets are available on: junctionfestival.com