Claremorris honours ballad queen Delia Murphy with gala festival

Claremorris honours ballad queen Delia Murphy with gala festival


Michael Commins

SONGS of ballad queen Delia Murphy will be to the fore in Claremorris this weekend as the town will host the inaugural Delia Murphy (pictured) Festival on June 29 and 30. Songs like The Spinning Wheel, If I Were A Blackbird and The Queen of Connemara, were hugely popular on Radio Eireann and Delia was a major star of the scene in the 1940s and 50s. She died in Dublin in 1971.
Former Provost of Trinity College, Dr John Hegarty, a native of Ballinasmalla, Claremorris, will preside at the opening of the festival in Claremorris Library at 7pm on Friday evening.
There is a wonderful line-up of activities on Saturday when the town will embrace the music of Delia Murphy and celebrate her association with the region. It will begin with So Many Stories To Tell in the Dalton Inn Hotel with guest historian, biographer, family members and celebrities telling stories about Delia and Tom Kiernan and their achievements at home and abroad. Admission is free to the afternoon events.
Carol Kiernan will deliver a talk entitled “Delia Murphy and Thomas Kiernan, envoys for Ireland” at 2pm. This will be followed at 2.30pm by “TJ Kiernan, the diplomat’, a talk by Dr Michael Kennedy, executive editor of the Royal Irish Academy’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy.
There is sure to be a warm welcome back to Claremorris and Mayo for Donegal native Aidan O’Hara, who will speak about “Delia Murphy, the ballad singer”, at 3.15pm. Aidan is the author of the Delia Murphy biography, I’ll Live Till I Die, and he is a former presenter of Failte Isteach on RTE Radio 1.
John Duggan from Mid West Radio, who has written several songs over the years, will present a half hour reflection at 4pm on “Delia’s songs ....I remember so well”, together with Maire Hastings. The afternoon session will conclude with the launch by Alan Morrisroe of “If I Were a Blackbird”, a new cd of Delia’s songs.
The Delia Murphy Dinner and Concert takes place in the Dalton Inn on Saturday night with the dinner starting at 7.30pm. Tickets for the dinner and concert are €40 and are available from the hotel on 094 9371488 and also from Shine Boutique, D’Alton Street on 094 9373206. (Tickets for the concert only are €20 and are available from the same outlets).
The concert takes place from 9pm to 11pm and will feature former Eurovision star Johnny Logan as well as Kate Purcell and Roisin Elsafty. This will be presented by Ronan Browne, the Connemara based musician and composer and grandson of Delia.
The festivities conclude with a big Irish breakfast where oral historians will record Festival visitors reminiscences of the impact of the President’s visit to Ireland in 1963 and of Delia’s music on their lives.
Nina Warde, Delia’s grand niece and proprietor of Shine boutique, Claremorris, is one of the driving forces behind the weekend festivities in the town. The festival website is www.spinningwheelsite.com.