Inaugural Thomas MacDonagh Hedge School a resounding success

THE inaugural Thomas MacDonagh Hedge School took place in late September and feedback from artists and audience confirm it was a resounding success.

The Hedge School, an initiative of the Thomas MacDonagh Museum in Cloughjordan, started on Wednesday September 20th with a fully subscribed workshop, Poetry as Commemoration, hosted by poet Thomas McCarthy. Participants, who used Civil War material from the Museum’s collection as creative prompts for their poems, shared their appreciation and how surprised they were by how much they enjoyed every minute of the experience.

Poet Stephen Sexton was guest of honour at the museum for Culture Night on Friday September 22nd. Stephen read and discussed his poem ‘The Head of a Man’, a poem inspired by a “charred bundle of fragments [which] relate to Pleadings Made to the Law Exchequer, 1773” recovered from the Public Records Office after the attack on the Four Courts in June, 1922. (National Archives of Ireland.)

Seamus Costello, director of Cloughjordan Drama Group, was the MC for Culture Night and put everyone at ease. Seamus invited members of the audience to read and discuss a selection of poems by Thomas MacDonagh. The discussion was expansive and deeply informative, and for some guests, it was their first reading of MacDonagh’s poetry. Several workshop participants shared their new writing which was enthusiastically received.

On Saturday morning September 24th, Margaret Kelleher, Professor and Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College Dublin, gave the keynote address entitled ‘Creativity and Friendship’. Professor Kelleher’s presentation located MacDonagh’s central position in the cultural and political milieu of revolutionary Ireland of the 1920s. Professor Kelleher, who is currently writing a biography of Mary and Padraic Colum gave a fascinating account of the close friendship between the Colums and Thomas MacDonagh.

In the afternoon, Dr Lucy Collins chaired a panel discussion and reading on the theme of Ethical Remembrance with Martin Doyle, Books Editor of the Irish Times, and Professor Linda Connolly, Director of the Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute. Sensitive to the issues being discussed Dr Collins teased out the concerns around remembering past atrocities and their impact on the current political and cultural climate.

To close the Hedge School, poet and author Nessa O’Mahony invited award winning poets Gail McConnell, Stephen Sexton and Eleanor Hooker to read from their latest works. Dr O’Mahony asked each of the poets about the particular challenges they faced when writing about people from real life, their approach to their research and any ethical issues concerns that arose for them as a consequence of their research.

The Poetry on Scohaboy Bog scheduled for Sunday September 24th was unfortunately cancelled as Coillte has plans for maintenance work on the boardwalk.

As part of their introductions to the panels and discussions throughout the Hedge School, Una Johnston and Tori MacMorran, Directors at the Thomas MacDonagh Museum gave a history of the museum and its mission. They extended their thanks to artists and guests, and their generous sponsors and hoped for an equally successful Thomas MacDonagh Hedge School in 2024.

The Museum would like to warmly thank poet and writer Eleanor Hooker, who curated such an exceptional programme of talks. They would like to thank their sponsors for making the Hedge School possible - Tipperary County Council and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media for their support as part of the Tipperary Decade of Centenaries programme; The Creative Ireland Community Grant programme, also with support from Tipperary County Council. They are grateful to the Poetry as Commemoration Project, an initiative of the Irish Poetry Reading Archive at UCD, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, under the Decade of Centenaries 2012-2023 programme. Finally they would like to thank the Tipperary CoCo Arts Office and the Arts Council of Ireland for their support for Culture Night 2023.

A big shout out to their local suppliers who provided such wonderful behind the scenes hospitality, tech and transport that created such a warm and welcoming atmosphere for their speakers and guests – the B&B hosts Owen Wynne, Tamara MacGinty, Deirdre & Eoin O’Brolchain and Django’s Hostel; the caterers Brenda Ainsworth, Greg Whelan and Austin’s Centra; sound engineer Denis Powell and AV supplier Star Systems Ltd. Thank you to local radio and print media for your in-kind support.