Hyde Conference:‘Many Streams, One Broad River’
The past, present and future roles of traditional Irish music in the shaping of Irish culture is one of the main issues for discussion at the 19th annual Douglas Hyde Conference (Comhdháil an Chraoibhín) in Ballaghaderreen this coming weekend. Granted it’s outside the I-435 loop, but what gets discussed there has consequences for anything purporting to represent Irish culture in the US.
The event is titled ‘Many Streams, One Broad River’ - no mention of dry ice, I notice - and it will also include discussions on the influence of Irish music on other cultures around the world.
Their website is either a bit messed up or not quite ready yet, but if you have a read through the programme you’ll see the quality of the contibutors. They include Sean Nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, uilleann piper and Bothy Band founder Peter Browne, Irish-language poet and dramatist Liam Ó Muirthile, fiddler Deirdre Shannon, poet Ciaran Carson, and Professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.
There’s also contributors from the worlds of architecture and archaeology, and comparisons of the struggles of the Navajo language with that of the Irish language.
And because it’s all done in the celebration of Ireland’s first president, Douglas Hyde - a man my grandfather used to chat with on strolls in the Phoenix Park - the current President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, is giving the keynote address.
See Also
• Ban the Irish Language
• Irish Choral Music & Celtic Underpants
• Flatley The Re-inventor
• Broadway in Chicago: Pirate Queen
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