Kieran Owens, Exhibition Curator, writes about a very special event taking place this weekend in Farmleigh Estate in honour of arts patron and co-founder of Claddagh records Garech de Brún, who passed away earlier this year.
On this coming Saturday 14th July, from 2pm until 5pm, at Farmleigh Estate, in the Phoenix Park, there will take place an open-call traditional Irish music session entitled Tunes for Garech.
It is being presented by the Office of Public Works, the British Council and the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, as one of the Exhibition Support Programme events for Face to Face, the Anthony Palliser portrait exhibition which is running at Farmleigh Gallery until Sunday 2nd September.
The exhibition in question features over eighty portraits of more than thirty renowned Irish cultural figures, completed over a sixteen-year period by the Anglo-Belgian painter Anthony Palliser. These include Seamus Heaney, Thomas Kinsella, Edna O’Brien, John Boorman, Colm Tóibín, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Brian Friel, Bill Whelan, John Banville, Sinéad Cusack, John Montague, Paul Muldoon, John Hurt and the late The Honourable Garech Browne, amongst many others.
Unveiled at the exhibition opening, at the start of June, was Palliser’s recently-completed portrait of the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins. Palliser’s selection of Irish subjects began in 2002 with a painting of the poet Derek Mahon, to whom he was introduced by Garech Browne of Luggala.
Gareth Browne had established Claddagh records in 1959, and the influence of that label, on the worlds of Irish music and poetry are legendary. A long-time friend of Browne, it was through him that Palliser developed his contacts and relationships with many of the individuals who are featured in this exhibition. One group of artists that Garech Browne introduced him to were traditional Irish musicians, including Paddy Moloney, Siobhán Armstrong, and Ronan Browne. The Tunes for Garech event has been organised to acknowledge and pay tribute to Gareth's extraordinary vision and achievement for this area of musical excellence.
The afternoon is structured as an open invitation to any singer or player who would like to bring an instrument or their voice and pay a personal musical tribute to Garech for his contribution to the development of the Irish musical tradition. It is intended to be a very loose and open affair. Being led off on guitar and bouzouki by renowned musician and accompanist Mark Lysaght senior, it is hoped that a core of traditional performers from the city's regular sessions will attend, but anyone of any age or skill level is very welcome, especially if they end up having the opportunity of sitting in with other more seasoned musicians.
Listen: Artist Anthony Palliser and Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains join Marian Finucane in studio to talk about Face to Face:
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The uilleann piper Ronan Browne will giving a free performance talk at 3pm in the Farmleigh Gallery on Saturday 28th July (the last in the Exhibition Support Programme series) entitled Pipers, Portraits & Planxties, on the theme of the Planxty as a reflextion or portrait of the paton's character.
The session will be a special moment to pay respect to Garech in the most open, democratic and uplifting way possible. If all goes to plan, and the weather permits, it could turn out to be one of the most magical and memorable traditional music events the city has seen in a while.
Tunes for Garech takes place from 2-5pm on Saturday 14th July - find out more here. For further information on the Face To Face exhibition, go here.
