Ella McSweeney

Ella McSweeney part of Cloughjordan 'SpeakEATsy' festival

RTÉ Star Ella McSweeney is just one of the highlights of an exciting event taking place in Cloughjordan on Saturday June 25th.

The 'Ear to the Ground' presenter is performing at the second 'SpeakEATsy', which will be held in the WeCreate building in the Ecovillage quarter of Cloughjordan from 7pm until 11. This unique music, poetry, food and conversation night explores farming and community, and also how humans live and produce nourishment in their landscapes.

 

The evening features fantastic farm and community food from Cloughjordan at 7pm, and entertainment from 8. Tickets are €20, with proceeds going to Cloughjordan Community Farm and the further development of Cloughjordan arts through the development of Bay 1 of WeCreate.

 

And who better than Ear to the Ground's Ella McSweeney and multi-award winning author Paul Kingsnorth to frame this evening with their thoughts on the extraordinary life and times of one of America's most iconic individuals – Wendell Berry.

 

Berry is a renowned poet and essayist, as well as being a farmer, environmentalist and ruralist living and working his land in Kentucky for decades. With over 30 books of poetry, essays, and novels to his name, he has “the gentle wisdom of a craftsman who has thought deeply about the paradoxical strangeness and wonder of life”.

 

Ella McSweeney has produced and written a 30-minute documentary piece for the BBC on Wendell Berry in 2015, when she visited him on his farm.

 

Paul Kingsnorth, fresh from picking up the Bookseller's Book of the Year prize 2015 for his novel 'The Wake', is compiling an anthology of Berry’s works for Penguin. The two will introduce some of Berry's ideas, and also converse on their meanings and message. Audio from McSweeney's recordings with Berry, including of his own poetry, and selected Berry readings from Kingsnorth, will feature.

 

The evening also features Weave – an after-hours jazz, country, folk combo - and a man travelling from Mayo called RasTinny with a special story and way of telling it.

 

Martin Naarendorp, aka RasTinny, is a Rasta poet and farmer. Originally from Suiranime, his journey goes from there to the Netherlands, then Cork and now the northwest of Ireland. A successful reggae performer who travels the world with various acts, he also has a deep connection to the land and how to produce food in harmony with nature. This is reflected in the poetry he writes, some of which he will perform on the evening.

 

Cloughjordan band Weave – fresh from a stunning show in Birr Theatre as part of the 'Voices Rising' event in May, and regulars now at the Electric Picnic, are the perfect soundtrack for the evening. Their way of bringing together gentle touches of acoustic genres, foregrounded by the stunning vocal range of Natasha Sinclair, is something to behold.

 

“'Voices Rising' was part of a build towards the development of a community amphitheatre for the arts in Cloughjordan, which is already progressing,” one of the SpeakEATsy organisers, Cloughjordan resident Davie Philip, says. “The recent formation of Cloughjordan Arts as a collective, spotlights how Cloughjordan Ecovillage is becoming a unique culture hub for entertainment and education.”

 

Join in on this momentum on June 25th from 7-11pm in Cloughjordan. Experience a tasty and thoughtful meander into a world where landscape and language, farming and food, nature and nourishment weave together seamlessly.

 

For bookings www.sheelaghnagig.com or email events@cloughjordancommunityfarm.ie