It is just a few days to Christmas 2023, and I am writing this short blog in a spirit of some remorse – remorse for so neglecting this slot for such a long time. We have, of course, been busy during the past year and we all in turn, having avoided Covid 19 throughout the height of the pandemic, succumbed to it in the course of the past 12 months. Hopefully, that’s history now and we can all look back on our exhibition, Na Cailleacha … with reference to Paula Rego, at the Dock in Leitrim with great fondness for all the great support we got and especially the seemingly unbounded can-do attitude of all the staff there, which, then, still included Sarah Searson. We want to wish Sarah every success in what she does next. Her kindness and thoughtfulness to us went far beyond the level of assistance you normally get from a curator, and her staff continued it. Thanks Everyone. We really enjoyed our time at the Dock and were delighted to find that our exhibition there was listed among the top exhibitions of the year in The Examiner, with Rachel Parry’s wonderful Kelp Cailleach attracting special mention. Right now Na Cailleacha is sharing a slot at the lovely Grilse Gallery in Killorglin, Co. Kerry with the artist and printmaker Geraldine O’Reilly and the poet, Mary O’Donnell. Rachel Parry had previously shown there and spoke highly of it but we were, nevertheless, amazed at the big audience that greeted us in Grilse on a Saturday in November. Having met Lucy and Robert Carter and spent a bit of time enjoying the atmosphere and meeting that audience we came away with a new confidence that art is flourishing around the country, and not just in Arts Council funded spaces. We would like to take this opportunity to wish this very young but very committed gallery every success in the future. Individually the Cailleachs have been busy too. Patricia Hurl’s IMMA exhibition travelled to the Wexford County Council Buildings to coincide with the Wexford Opera Festival and a month later it earned her the prestigious Irish Tatler Woman Artist of the Year Award for 2023. Patricia followed that by inviting all the rest of us to join her when she featured in RTE’s first show in its current season of The Works. Those who had not been converted to her work before were delighted by the obvious rapport between herself and John Kelly on the night. Therry Rudin and her international colleagues launched the 10th Homeland Film Festival in Homeland at Damer House, Roscrea and Barcelona in October and November in which they featured, among other things, the film Ithaca, with images and script by Cailleach Barbara Freeman and music and voiceover by fellow Cailleach, Carole Nelson. Helen Comerford and Gerda Teljeur showed work , some of which had been shown in our show in The Dock in the exhibition, Women and War, curated by Catherine Marshall, at the National Opera House in Wexford during the Opera Festival there. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we are busy working on our big project for 2024, details of which will be announced in our next blog.
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