Rolling Sun set to be a lunar spectacleÁine Ryan THE moon may not be full over the weekend of November 9 to 11 but there is bound to be lots of lunacy and mania when Waterboy, Mike Scott – armed with his fiddle-weaving merlin, Steve Wickham – take to the altar of Holy Trinity Church for the Rolling Sun Book Festival.
Now in its third year, this quirky, boutique festival once again assures audiences of a colourful programme, which includes a live recording of RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany, a reading by award-winning author, Kevin Barry, as well as stand-up revelry with Maeve Higgins. Authors Kate Kerrigan and Kathleen MacMahon, as well as children’s writer, Judi Curtin, will also be in Ireland’s favourite town for the three-day literary jamboree.
At an equinox back in 1991, when the late historian, Gerry Bracken captured the amazing phenomenon of the sun rolling down the pyramidal peak of Croagh Patrick – from the vantage of the ancient Boheh rock – his lens opened yet another window on the rich spiritual and cultural history of this area. The Rolling Sun Book Festival celebrates this cross-millennial narrative, deferring to the earthiness of the festive rituals that marked the Celtic calendar
And what better season than Samhain to indulge in prose and poetry, music and song, craic and shenanigans. After all this dark season is when the flimsy veil merges between grim reality and the world of muses and fairies, the imagination and the metaphysical.
Kevin Barry at The Quay CottageIN Kevin Barry’s short story, ‘Fjord of the Killary’, an ‘hysterical downpour’ signals the beginning of the tourism season, while an otter slurps soup in a hotel kitchen, as howls of wind blow down the Doolough Valley. And, naturally, as the deluge rises in the misty wall of Mweelra’s microclimate, a family of sheep float by – nonchalantly – in a currach.
In another story, ‘Wifey Redux’, the reader is brought behind the designer-clad, wine-stained walls of a south Dublin home. Barry creates the perfect cosmetic domestic tableau and then, inimitably, takes a pestle (that has the power of a sledge-hammer) and clinically destroys it.
Short story compilation, ‘Dark lies the Island’ is the Limerick-born author’s third book, following the successes of ‘There are Little Kingdoms’, which was awarded the Rooney Prize in 2007, and ‘The City of Bohane’, glowingly reviewed by The New York Times. Already feted as the leading post-Banville Irish writer, Barry’s self-declared ‘naked seething ambition’ coupled with an anarchic talent and genius sense of irony, would appear to affirm this.
Adventures in Holy TrinityADVENTUROUS Waterboy, Mike Scott has already proven his shamanistic creativity and now seamlessly moved from the spell-binding music and metaphysical odyssey of ‘An Appointment with Mr Yeats’ to writing his memoir.
He will read and perform from his memoir, ‘Adventures of a Waterboy’ in the hallowed atmosphere of Holy Trinity Church, alongside master fiddler and Waterboys member, Steve Wickham. This memoir brings the reader behind the stage settings of the Edinburgh native’s career and beyond such perennial favourites as Fisherman’s Blues and The Whole of the Moon. It straddles the world of the rock-star and the poet, the instinctual businessman and the uncompromising and stubborn artist.
There has been an endless cast of players in this chameleon’s 30-year career so that he could remain true to the music and lyrics that have inhabited his head since he was a young boy. The early seminal influence of punk poet Patti Smith and the Pyramid stage of Glastonbury in 1986 brewed up storms for Scott. These days he is still creates a wizardry of sounds and lyrics, albeit with more subtle and thoughtful undercurrents.
Back in the real world, as he conceded in a recent Irish Times interview, the ‘difficult Mike’ tag is valid.
“Absolutely, absolutely. I have a very clear idea of myself as an artist and the kind of stuff that my band or I should do. I’m open to suggestion about other people’s input, but if the input isn’t right for me then I won’t do it.” Then after a pause, eyes twinkling, he says: “Indeed, I almost never have. If the music tells me to do something, then I stick to it.”
Rolling Sun programmeBUT first to the secular ambience of the Clew Bay Hotel where, on Friday November 9 at 7pm, RTÉ Sunday Miscellany Producer, Cliodhna Ní hAnluain, will perform the official festival opening, helped along with a little acapella indulgence by Coda, washed down by a complimentary glass of wine.
For more on the Rolling Sun Book Festival line-up visit the Rolling-Sun-Festival page on Facebook. For tickets to festival events, call the Clew Bay Hotel on 098 28088. More coverage in next week’s Living section.
Westport’s third Rolling Sun Book Festival hosts wide-ranging events over three days in November
