Mayo island to hosts special outdoor concert of lament, poetry and song

A HISTORIC Mayo mountainside village will be the venue of a spectacular outdoor concert of lament, Sean Nós, bardic poetry, song and storytelling in remembrance of our exiled generations.

Haunting, evocative, Achill’s Deserted Village consisting of over 130 houses that once housed more than a 1,000 souls is a tragic reminder of the countless Irish generations, born and gone, whose lives ended in exile, scattered across the globe.

BAFTA-winning writer and Achill islander Kevin Toolis and the musicians of the Wonders of the Wake band will perform this epic show celebrating the ancient rites and traditions of the Irish Wake within the walls of this very special place.

READ: Jeep burnt outside the front of home in Mayo

“Of all the traditions the exiled Irish carried with them the Irish Wake remains the most powerful, the very touchstone of what it means to be Irish. This special concert, The Keening, is both an act of joy and elegiac remembrance for those souls and bodies who left their homeland forever. And there is no more fitting place in all of Ireland to hold this event than in Achill’s Deserted Village – a monument to those lives born and gone,” said Festival Director Kevin Toolis.

The Wonders of the Wake will take place on Saturday, May 17 in the Deserted Village at Slievemore on Achill Island at 3.30pm. To book your tickets visit www.ticketsource.com/thekeening.