[spectre] The Aisling Project

[Séamas Cain]

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THE AISLING PROJECT

presented by IMRAM in association
with the Dublin Writers' Festival

8:00 p.m., Tuesday 24 May 2011

The Sugar Club,
8 Lower Lesson Street,
Dublin 2, Ireland

http://www.dublinwritersfestival.com

Phone : 01-6040020

The aisling - or vision poem – is a poetic form that developed during
the late 17th and 18th centuries.  In an aisling, Ireland appears to
the poet in a vision or dream in the form of a woman, sometimes young
and beautiful, sometimes aged and haggard.  This figure is referred to
in the poems as a spéirbhean.  She laments the state of the Irish
people and predicts an imminent renewal of their fortunes, frequently
linked to the return of a Stuart pretender to the English throne.  The
first and greatest of the aisling poets was Aodhagán Ó Rathaille -
athair na haislinge (father of the aisling). In his hands, the aisling
was a powerful mode of political writing.


On Tuesday 24 May 2011, at 8:00 p.m., IMRAM with the Dublin Writers'
Festival will stage a major reading in which leading Irish language
poets Paddy Bushe, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn and Dairena Ní Chinnéide
perform newly composed poems in the aisling form addressing the
current state of Ireland.  These poems will be performed with
specially composed live music by acclaimed composer and
multi-instrumentalist Seán Óg McErlane, and on-screen projections by
artist Margaret Lonergan.

This event is curated by Liam Carson, director of the IMRAM Irish
Language Literature Festival.

In vision,

Séamas Cain
http://www.saorsainn.net
http://alazanto.org/seamascain
http://seamascain-writernetwork.org

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