Week of the 11th to the 17th

Today marks the offical launch day of our new website, huzzah!

It is a constant work in progress, much like the castle itself.

In other news, I would like to remind everyone that this friday the 15th the castle will host the Reflective Light - Grief Songs by Anne Haverty & Donal Lunny. As such, tour times for the 16th will be 2pm and 4pm. This will afford us time to clean the Gallery after the event. Thank you for your patience and we look forwards to seeing you there.

Below is the offical press release for the event.

Press Release                                                                                      1st September 2023

‘Reflected Light - Grief Songs’

on Friday, 15th September 2023 from 8pm

Join Anne Haverty and Donal Lunny for a dramatic and moving performance of Donal's original compositions inspired by Anne's poems about grief and consolation.

Taking place in one of Ireland’s hidden gems, Charleville Castle, Tullamore, County Offally, this unique and ponient event is taking place on Friday, 15th September 2023 from 8pm.

With performances also by Zoe Conway and Graham Henderson, ‘Reflected Light - Grief Songs’ is part of a series of concerts taking place across Ireland and is funded by the Arts Council.

Tickets are €20 and are now available: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/reflected-light-grief-songs-tickets-706845924187

Donal Lunny was born in Tullamore before moving to Newbridge, County Kildare had an implicit awareness of Irish music from an early age due to the influence of his parents Francis and Mary, and from summers spent in Donegal.

As one of the founding members of the group ‘Planxty’, he joined the ‘Bothy Band’, producing four albums in four years including ‘Out of the Wind and in to the Sun’ and ‘After Hours’. In 1980, ‘Planxty’ reformed and he produced the three resulting albums before finally forming ‘Moving Hearts’ with some of his former Planxty band-mates. ‘Moving Hearts’, who were responsible for such albums as ‘Dark End of the Street’ and ‘The Storm,’ were a hybrid, incorporating contemporary folk music, jazz and other influences with elements of rock.

Anne Haverty was born in Holycross Co. Tipperary and was educated at Trinity College Dublin and the Sorbonne. Her first novel, One Day As A Tiger, a rural tragic-comedy won the Rooney Prize and was shortlisted for the Whitbread.

The Far Side Of A Kiss, set in Hazlitt’s London of the 1820’s, was long listed for the Booker Prize. The Free And Easy, a novel about Celtic Tiger era Ireland, appeared in 2006. Her poetry collections are The Beauty of the Moon (a Poetry Book Society Recommendation) and A Break In The Journey (2018). Her biography of Constance Markievicz, An Independent Life was first published in 1989 and re-issued as Irish Revolutionary in a new edition in 2016.

She has written literary criticism and journalism for publications such as the TLS and The Irish Times, scripts for film and radio and co-directed the C4/RTE documentary, The Whole World In His Hands.

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