Save the date! Special commemorative concert planned for seaside town in Waterford

Ceolchoirm - Cór Fear na nDéise (main picture) and below the Irish College Building, Ardmore (reproduced with permission of Waterford County Museum)

placeholder image — Ceolchoirm - Cór Fear na nDéise (main picture) and below the Irish College Building, Ardmore (reproduced with permission of Waterford County Museum)

Cór Fear na nDéise will be joined by the Ardmore Community Choir and by children from the local national school, Scoil Náisiúnta Deuglán Naofa

Details of a special commemorative concert featuring Cór Fear na nDéise male voice choir have been announced the Irish Office of Waterford City and County Council.

The concert, at St. Paul’s Church, Ardmore, will feature songs that were sung in Coláiste Deuglán, a thriving Irish College that existed in the seaside village of Ardmore one hundred years ago.

Cór Fear na nDéise will be joined by the Ardmore Community Choir and by children from the local national school, Scoil Náisiúnta Deuglán Naofa, for this special event.

One hundred years ago, in July 1924 one of the founders of Coláiste Deuglán, Mícheál Ó Foghlú published a booklet entitled ‘Cuisle Ceoil’, a collection of songs of the Déise, which he had gathered on his travels as a Conradh na Gaeilge ‘timire’, or organiser.

The booklet was published as the songbook for those attending the Irish college, which stood next to the current Round Tower Hotel. The concert is being organised to commemorate the Irish College and the songs that were learned by avid Irish language learners in the new Free State.

“Through funding from the Creative Waterford programme, we are delighted to be able to organise this special commemorative concert in memory of Coláiste Deuglán,” says Irish Officer, Máire Seó Breathnach.

“The Irish language was in use as a community language in Ardmore until the middle of the last century and Coláiste Deuglán was an important cultural and linguistic fulcrum in the village from 1920 until the mid-1940s. I am delighted that Cór Fear na nDéise will interpret the songs from Cuisle Ceoil and that the local community and school choirs in Ardmore will be joining them. This concert is a fabulous way to inform the younger generations of the culture and traditions of Ardmore in times past and bring those songs to life again in the fabulous venue that is St. Paul’s Church.”

The Cuisle Ceoil concert will take place in St. Paul’s Church on Tower Hill, Ardmore at 7.30pm on Friday, September. Tickets are priced at €10 and are available on Eventbrite or by searching for Cuisle Ceoil. Alternatively, you can emailing [email protected].