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Below is last years information. 2004 activities & performers
will be listed soon!
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| Water Tower in Miramichi |
Immerse yourself in Irish culture by signing up for a workshop while
you attend the Festival. Learn to play the Irish whistle, do research into your family's history, or attend an historical
talk. Noted scholars, authors, genealogists and musicians make our workshops an unforgettable part of the week's festivities.
Workshops & Information Sessions
Book Launch
Ireland’s Eye
By Mark Jarman
Ireland’s Eye is
“Funny and touching. It’s a shame more history can’t be this entertaining: alive, loud, vital.”
Books in Canada
“It’s a memoir
of sorts, a farce, an inquiry into family memory and tribal mythology, expos of contemporary Dublin shamroguery and paddywhackery,
a riotous send up of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger crowd and a heartbreaking portrait of old aunts and dead cousins besides
Jarman is one of Canada’s best practitioners of the genre of creative nonfiction.”
Vancouver’s Georgia
Straight
Mark Anthony Jarman’s nonfiction has won the Maclean-Hunter Endowment
Award, Event Magazine’s Creative Nonfiction Contest, has been cited in Best American Essays 2001, and
won gold in the 2002 National Magazine Award. His fiction has been shortlisted for the Journey Prize, the National Magazine
Award, the Western Magazine Award, the O.Henry Prize, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and has appeared in Best
Canadian Stories. Mark Jarman is professor of creative writing at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton.
Reading & Discussion at
New Brunswick Community College. 2:00pm - 3:00pm Friday / 3:00pm - 4:00pm Saturday
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Newfoundland - New Brunswick Irish Connection
Seminar by Larry Dohey
Larry Dohey is an archivist for
the Archdiocese of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Newfoundland and New Brunswick are linked by geography, commerce, religion,
and “Irishness”. Larry will explore this relationship.
In 1807 Bishop Patrick Lambert of Newfoundland was being pressed by the Vatican and Quebec to accept New Brunswick
as part of the ecclesiastical province of Newfoundland. Bishop Lambert rejected the idea telling the Vatican that “I
have too much sailing round the coasts of Newfoundland without going across to the continent.” Bishop Lambert may have
rejected a direct ecclesiastical relationship but the two places continued to be linked by geography, commerce, religion and
the Irish. This illustrated lecture will explore some of these connections.
Friday & Saturday, 4:00pm - 5:00pm,
New Brunswick Community College
Carrickmacross Lace Workshop
by Martha Hughes
Carrickmacross Lace originated
in the early 1820’s. The making of lace provided much needed employment for the young women of County Monaghan and the
craft has survived in the area to this very day. The Irish Festival welcomes Martha Hughes, from Carrickmacross to conduct
the workshop on the craft of making lace. Carrickmacross Lace was used in Princess Diana’s wedding dress, as but one
example of its fame in the fashion world. The intricacies of this craft will be introduced during this much-anticipated one-week
workshop.
Classes will be held from July 14-18.
Cost of Course $50.00 + cost of materials. For information call Maureen English at 506.622.4662
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick
The Provincial Archives of New
Brunswick will continue its annual tradition, inaugurated by Denis Noel at the first Irish Festival, of greeting old friends
and welcoming new ones to assist them in learning about their Irish roots and New Brunswick history.
The Archives will bring guides
and copies of records related to the Irish in New Brunswick, historical photos and documents of the Miramichi area, and an
exhibit tracing Irish migration to New Brunswick and other products that are the result of Irish-New Brunswick research.
The Archives is particularly
pleased to participate in what has become an important attraction of the festival and has been the model that has taken them
to many community gatherings and conferences in the province. For more
information on their services, visit the website at: http://archives.gnb.ca/archives/default.aspx
Visit their display, Friday
& Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm at the New Brunswick Community College.
by Marilyn Inch
Marilyn
studied and played the bassoon for 13 years before she discovered the magic of traditional music and the tin whistle
while living in Newfoundland and playing with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. Now,
over 20 years later, her superb tin whistle haunts you as if magic, as any good Irish whistle should. Listen and watch as her fingers fly over melodies and harmonies like a graceful vocal aria.
Marilyn has also written a Tin Whistle Method Book, which includes some
of her original compositions and helps the beginner overcome the many challenges of playing the instrument well. Often called upon to give workshops around the province, she has been invited to Miramichi,
Fredericton and Saint John as an authority on the instrument and often referred to as “the best in the Maritimes”. She has recently travelled to Ireland where she had the opportunity to sit
in on a few sessions and experience the music, as it was meant to be played, first hand.
Marilyn's whistle
wizardry has been heard repeatedly over television and radio airwaves over the years and on many Atlantic Canadian recordings
by such artists as Frank Taylor, Sons of Maxwell, Snowdonia and two recordings with her own Toot Sweet.
Marilyn has also recorded a tin whistle CD of mostly original tunes that is yet to be released.
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Irish Festival Office
Box 415, 1745 Water Street
Miramichi, NB, Canada E1N 3A8
Tel: 506.778.8810 Fax: 506.773.4525
E-Mail:
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| www.mightymiramichi.com |
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