Listowel Writers Week presents Home Thoughts – Gerald Dawe and Eleanor Shanley
9.30pm
Friday 1st June
Listowel Arms Ballroom
Listowel, Co Kerry
What makes a place a home? Is it family? A location that becomes inextricably linked to significant life experiences? Walking streets that become so familiar that you can retrace them in your mind?
In Home Thoughts, poet Gerald Dawe and singer Eleanor Shanley explore the idea of ‘home’ in poetry, prose and song. Poet Gerald Dawe was born in Belfast in 1952 and remembers the city becoming a place of suspicion and violence in the early years of the Troubles. In this presentation, he will read a selection of the poetry and prose that he has written over four decades about his experience of these different places that became home to him.
Eleanor Shanley is a folk singer renowned for her unique interpretation of Irish and Roots songs. A former singer with De Danann, Eleanor has also recorded with The Dubliners, U2 and many more. Accompanied by guitarist Donogh Hennessy, she performs gorgeous renditions of songs connected with Northern Ireland (I’ll tell me ma, Carrickfergus), Galway (Galway to Graceland) and Dublin (Raglan Road), all interwoven with Gerald Dawe’s readings.
Part performance, part meditation, Home Thoughts is a nostalgic and thoughtful exploration of the places that Gerald Dawe has called home.
