Patrick Kavanagh Country

Pride of Place 2013

Community Arts Initiative

Inniskeen

Village largely unchanged since early 20 th Century

Home to Patrick Kavanagh, ‘the ploughman poet’

Inspired by the drumlin landscape and the everyday life of working a small farm

‘O Monaghan hills when is writ your story

A carbon copy will unfold my being’

‘To get to know even one small field is a lifetime’s exploration’

Patrick Kavanagh

• Our most famous son• Born 1904 in Mucker, Inniskeen• Work featured many physical

locations• Many of the sites largely unchanged• Internationally recognised poet

– Studied on schools curriculum, north and south

• ‘In Memory of My Mother’• ‘Spraying the Potatoes’• ‘Shancoduff’• ‘The Great Hunger’

‘I cannot die, unlessI walk outside these whitethorn hedges’

Our Story• Decline of village in 1950’s with closures of

railway & mill• Further decline in 1980’s, with outward migration

of young people and few new families• Inniskeen Enterprise Development Group

formed, to try to reverse the decline:– Identified tourism as offering most potential– Identified Patrick Kavanagh as unique asset– Secured funding to restore disused parish church

• Patrick Kavanagh Rural & Literary Resource Centre

‘I dabbled in verse, and it became my life’

Patrick Kavanagh Centre

• Provides central point of contact for visitors to the village

• Opened in 1994 by President Mary Robinson

• Acts as a catalyst to kick start tourism to the area, thus providing opportunities for local people to develop support businesses

The trip of iron tips on tileHesitated up the middle aisle

Heads that were bowed turned to seeWho could this late arrival be?

Activities include:– Schools Programme

– Poetry/ writers workshops

– Tours of Kavanagh Country

– Annual Kavanagh Weekend

– Inniskeen Road July Festival

– Childrens halloween and christmas events

– Unique concert venue

The Money Side

• Construction €300,000 approx • Grant aid of 75% received for PKC

– Ex VAT, so grant covered just 54% of actual cost to group

• The rest raised locally – over €100,000• Operation: Costs €60,000 /year to run

– financed by:– Admissions, Tours, Shop Sales, Events, Workshops,

Rent of facilities, Fundraising, Grant assistance

The Visitor Experience

• 1920’s rural Ireland – pre-mechanisation

• Local people

• Welcoming

• Authentic

• Quality

• Everyone has a part to play

Mullahinsa, Drummeril, Black Shanco-Wherever I turn I seeIn the stony grey soil of MonaghanDead loves that were born for me.

Tours of Kavanagh Country• Guided bus tours

• Local people give background and recitals

• Unique insight into the work of a poet

• Walking tour also available

Virtual Tour of Kavanagh Country on our website, www.patrickkavanaghcountry.com

‘Who owns them hungry hills,That the waterhen and snipe must have forsaken.

A poet? Then by heaven he must be poor’I hear, and is my heart not badly shaken.

Kavanagh Trail• Billy Brennan’s Barn

• Drumcattan Church

• Shancoduff

• ‘The triangular field’

• Rocksavage orchard wall

• ‘Cassidy’s Hanging Hill’

• Kavanagh homestead‘The bicycles go by in twos and threes

There’s a dance in Billy Brennan’s Barn tonightAnd there’s the half-talk code of mysteries

And the wink-and-elbow language of delight’

• Marked 100 years since Kavanagh’s birth

• Year-long programme • Launched by President

McAleese• Guests included Seamus

Heaney• The major literary event in the

country in 2004• Funded by the Arts Council• All run by volunteers

Centenary Programme

Centenary Year 2004•Wreath Laying •Programme of high profile speakers•2 annual events initiated: -Royal Canal in Dublin-Raglan Road Festival in Inniskeen

Annual Patrick Kavanagh International Poetry Competition

• Run in association with Kavanagh Society

• International poetry competition for unpublished poets– Parallel Schools Competition– Previous winners include

Paul Durcan• Not many community

groups can say they run an international event – we run two!

The Kavanagh Weekend

• Guest speakers, special performances, a mix of scholarly excellence with Inniskeen ‘craic’

• Organised entirely by the local committee

• Attracts Kavanagh lovers from all over the world

Annual Writers workshop

Out of that childhood country what fools climbTo fight with tyrants Love and Life and Time?

Other Events

‘Half-past eight and there is not a spotUpon a mile of road, no shadow thrownThat might turn out a man or woman, notA footfall tapping secrecies of stone.’

Inniskeen Road, July Evening Festival

•Arising from conversation at launch of Landscape Character Assessment Report•Huge local support

•Stewarding•Costumes & bicycles•Actors & set dressing•Children demonstrated old schoolyard games

•Unprecedented access to private lands•Billy Brennan’s Barn•The House of the Wedding•Shancoduff

•Praised on Pat Kenny’s radio show

‘And I was there with a knapsack sprayerOn the barrel’s edge poised’

1920’s Rural Ireland Theme

Worked with Monaghan County Council & Bike Week to refurbish old High Nelly bicycles

‘My father played the melodion outside at our gateThere were stars in the morning eastAnd they danced to his music’

‘And over that potato-fieldA lazy veil of woven sun,Dandelions growing on headlands, showingTheir unloved hearts to everyone.’

They laughed at one I loved-The triangular hill that hungUnder the Big Forth. They said That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedgesOf the little farm and did not know the world.But I knew that love's doorway to lifeIs the same doorway everywhere.

...there’s a dance at Billy Brennan’s barn tonight

Conservators of Kavanagh

• Very aware of our responsibility to conserve Kavanagh Country

• Reference library in Kavanagh Centre

• Assistance to owners of Kavanagh ‘places’ regarding their conservation and restoration

Billy Brennan’s Barn, restored with funding from Heritage Council

Landscape Character Assessment

•Completed September 2012•Identifies all sites featured in Kavanagh’s work•Assesses their current condition•Advises on their conservation•Advises on enhancements to the village•Baseline document for conserving Kavanagh Country

From Cuchulainn to Kavanagh

• Schools programme• Explores the story of local

places– The history behind where you live– How local places got their names– The landscape of south Ulster –

where the small field size and whitethorn hedges came from

• How these fed Kavanagh’s Sense of Place and of the importance of the local

President Mary McAleese launching our schools programme in 1998

Where we’re going

• PKC is not a museum – it is a resource centre which aims to inspire future works of art

• We aim to present to the visitor how various landscapes inspire artists – including painters, novelists and musicians

• The artist’s vision to be aided by preserving Kavanagh Country– Artist in residence, working the land as Kavanagh did

Now leave the check-reins slack,The seed is flying far today -The seed like stars against the blackEternity of April clay.

Support Projects

• Community-driven– Coffee Shop– Pitch n Putt– Folk Museum– Drumcattan Church– Fane river walk– Monaghan Way

• To create a nucleus of ‘things to do’, in order to attract visitors to the area

The Monaghan Way

The Poet’s Rest•2 derelict cottages

•Feel of the original cottage retained

•Open 7 days a week

•The only place in Inniskeen which provides meals at lunchtime

•Can cater for a full bus load of visitors

•Used by community as a meeting place

-Storytelling-Card drives

Before & After

Folk Museum• Former Church of Ireland

building• Used as a folk museum

during the 80’s• Corrugated iron roof

disintegrated• Restored in 2007• Cost €150,000 approx• Funded by Peace 11• €12.000 raised locally.• Superb venue for exhibitions,

concerts • Also for community use –

boxing club & scouts

– Another way to enjoy Kavanagh Country

– Only waymarked way in the county

– Inniskeen Dev heavily involved in its development

– Starts in Inniskeen– Insured by Monaghan

County Council– Featured in Irish

Independent

Monaghan Way

Illustration by Christopher Somerville, Irish Independent, who chose the Monaghan Way as his Walk of the Week 6th August 2011

The Wider Story

• Kavanagh’s high regard for ‘the power of the Bard’

• PKC runs storytelling events– National Telltale Day 20th August

• Links to The Bard of Armagh– Annual humorous verse competition

• Links through the legends of the Fianna to the seat of the High Kings of Ulster – Navan at Armagh

How we keep the show on the road

• Weekly Pick 4 LOTTO– Run by multiple clubs – presently Inniskeen

Development Group, Blackstaff School and the Ladies Football Club

– Proceeds go to whatever community venture needs the help at a given time

– Provides the community with a source of funds which enables them to respond to cases of hardship, crises etc

– Has been running every week since 1995– Has raised in excess of €500,000, all of which has

been invested back into the community

Future Plans

• Re-branding and new marketing material– Refreshing our ‘look’, which is now 15 years old!

• Northern Ireland schools targeting– Kavanagh recently added to their curriculum

• Upgrade Kavanagh Trail– Information boards & lay-bys– Podcasts – Further walking routes through Kavanagh’s immortal

hills and whitethorn hedges• Old drovers’ routes and ‘mass pads’

• Expand on the ‘sense of place’ theme both through our exhibitions and our events

• Develop the ‘wildlife/ countryside’ elements of Kavanagh’s poetry to fit with the growing interest in green tourism and biodiversity– ‘what is life, if full of care we have no time to stand and stare’

Upon a headland by a whinny hedge A hare sits looking down a leaf-lapped furrow

• Continue village enhancement work– Create continuous stone ditches through

village– Preserve the 1920’s feel & restore lost

features

• Further linkages– Brian Boru route– Railway lines to Carrick and Dundalk– Bellaghy Bawn centre (Seamus Heaney)

• Linking with Carrickmacross and Dundalk to create a ‘Gateway to Kavanagh Country’

• Promote an appreciation of Kavanagh locally & assist landowners to conserve the landscape appropriately

• Work with landowners to improve public access to important sites

• Continue to provide assistance to private sector to develop business opportunities

• Continue to develop events which bring people back again and again to savour life amongst the whitethorn hedges

‘The wet leaves of the cocksfootPolished my boots as IWent round by the glistening bog-holesLost in unthinking joy.

I'll be carrying bags to-day, I mused,The best job at the millWith plenty of time to talk of our lovesAs we wait for the bags to fill.

Maybe Mary might call round...And then I came to the haggard gate,And I knew as I entered that I had comeThrough fields that were part of no earthly estate.’