Feast of entertainment for Bealtaine at Nenagh Arts Centre

The festival is run by Age & Opportunity, the leading national development organisation working to enable the best possible quality of life for us all as we age.

Age & Opportunity Arts provides opportunities for older people to be more creative more often, to create meaningful participation and representation for all older people in cultural and creative life and to demonstrate and celebrate how our creative potential can improve with age.

We are excited to present to you our fantastic May programme full of free events, shows, workshops and art.

FREE EXHIBITION

Seen Unseen by Helen Costello is a free exhibition running from May 2-31. Join us for this artistic meeting with nature.

“Since childhood, nature has always intrigued me,” says Helen.

“I have spent my youth and working life on farms. Each horse or cow in the herd is the same, but so different.

The beauty in these similarities and differences inspire me to show these to the viewer to help them to see and feel the magnificence of the ordinary and everyday wildlife and farm animals that surround me.”

WORKSHOP

A free Ageing Creatively Workshop, part of our Outreach Art & Identity series, takes place on Tuesday, May 2, from 7pm to 9pm. Is ageing affecting your identity? Does it change how others see you?

If you’re over 50 and interested in how our own creativity can help us age well this free workshop is for you. This workshop will use poetry, drama, music, photography, and visual art to explore our shared identities.

We’ll tell stories, think about where we fit in the world and in our local community, and we’ll make art that positively represents us.

MUSIC

Luka Bloom appears on Saturday, May 13 at 8pm, tickets, €22. Luka will perform compilations from his triple CD album, Wave Up to the Shore, his collection of 50 songs and tunes from the past half century. It’s an unforgettable journey through sounds and emotions.

THEATRE

Country & Irish theatre features on Saturday, May 20 at 8pm, tickets €15. A man, a banana and a tape recorder…and a bomb! Donie Burris has a whole heap of troubles facing him, with his girlfriend, her son, Albanian, gangsters, the Longford mafia and a very overbearing mammy. How can he get them all off his back? He imagines himself as the star of his own gangster movie, and he won’t go down without a fight…

Then on Tuesday, May 30, there’s a lunchtime show, Paddy goes to Petra, starting at 1pm, tickets €15. Rural Ireland meets the Middle East in a plot which follows middle aged farmer Paddy, whose lust for life has long vanished.

A trip to the ancient city of Petra in Jordan encourages him to feel a fresh wonder for the world, develop new friendships and begin an exciting love affair…with himself.

COLLAGE CAMPAIGN

On Tuesday, May 30, there’s Collage Campaign, a free workshop, which is part of the Art Centres Outreach Monthly Craft series. Running from 7pm to 9pm, in this craft session we’ll be making largescale collage the old-fashioned way (lots of cutting and pasting!) then turning them into digital images.

If you have a campaign you support, a statement to make, or a thought you’d like to share with the world, come make a collage about it.