Latest news with #SeamusHeaney
Irish Examiner
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Francis Humphrys: Magic moments from 30 years of West Cork Chamber Music Festival
'I'm not sure I could pull something out of my rather decrepit brain,' protests Francis Humphrys when asked to list some highlights of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, which this year celebrates its 30th birthday. And the response can only be: pull the other one. He may recently have posted his own 80th birthday but Humphrys still seems as sharp as ever, and has just the finishing touches to the official programme for this year's festival, which begins on June 27 next and continues until July 6. The latest programme has 146 pages; by comparison, the edition for the first Festival back in 1995 had 56 pages - 'which wasn't bad'. Humphrys is chief executive officer of West Cork Music, which plans and stages three festivals every year in and around Bantry: The Chamber Music Festival, the Literary Festival, and the Masters of Tradition Festival, and his memories of the very first Festival - complete with his property deeds in the bank as collateral - are still vivid and coloured by the topsy turvy adventures of the years that have since passed, marked by fretting over budgets and scoring new, emerging and big names from the world of classical music and beyond, successfully cloistering them in West Cork for a few weeks. It's quite an achievement, even if he jokes that '30 years is chicken feed'. Below are some of the highlights, but as he explains: 'The most captivating concerts in the festival are the late nights, especially the ones in Bantry House. We've got the candles lit and all that. It works, it works very well." Bantry House provides an impressive setting for many of the events at West Cork Chamber Music Festival. Picture: Denis Scannell 1995: Seamus Heaney "I think the first festival is a place to go, because what's interesting there is the seeds of the Literary Festival are also sown, because our big event was Seamus Heaney coming, and that was the year that Seamus won the Nobel Prize. A number of gods were smiling on us that year. "I did invite Seamus, but long before the Nobel Prize came on, but that really put us on the radar, in a way. I don't think we would have been otherwise. Bantry House [used as a venue] was a great attraction. "I asked Seamus to come and read a long poem of his called Squarings [made up of 48 12-line poems]. And we did it alongside a very, very good cellist playing Bach's last Cello Suite. So there is a movement of the cello suite, and then Seamus would read, and then another movement, and Seamus would read, and so on. It was a packed house, and it went very well. He's such a gentleman, that man. He was wonderful. After he'd won the Nobel prize, he rang me up and said, 'Francis, I'm still coming'. That was good. Obviously, he was being dragged all over the world at that particular point in time." Seamus Heaney on one of his visits to Bantry. Picture: Eddie O'Hare Ten years later, and Seamus Heaney's return to Bantry again lit up the festival. "The thing about 2005, which was the 10th festival, it was also Cork Capital of Culture [European City of Culture]. We put on some fabulous programs, of which the Seamus piece was one. They gave us a bit of extra money to expand the artistic program. But it's always been like that with a festival. I go to these board meetings. We have a board, and I go to the meeting and say, the money will come. It just sort of parachutes in at the last minute, but, I mean, you really had to work on that European funding, but we had done the groundwork, if you like, we were there already. We just had to put it down in a funding application." 2010: Alina Ibragimova Russian-British violinist Alina Ibragimova playing in Bantry. "It's just fantastic having people come to Bantry. It really is, it's people who play to full houses in the great halls all over Europe. With Alina Ibragimova, she is another violinist who's been with us. The first time she came, she came outside the festival and she did all the Bach solo Sonatas and all the Bach solo pieces, the solo violin. She did them for us in the local churches. And not that long ago, she did them all in the Albert Hall to an audience of 1,000 people. And she comes almost every year. She has a string quartet who are coming back this year. They were here last year, she's been here almost every year now for 10 or 15 years.' Humphrys recalls a show many years ago at Bantry House when Ibragimova performed a late night Schubert piano triumvia: 'People came out ... I mean… people were dumbfounded.' 2011: Nicola Benedetti Nicola Benedetti was one of the headliners at the 2011 festival. (Photo by Jeff) "Well, that obvious special person was Nicola Benedetti. The reason why I try and try to steer away a bit from this is that there are names that are famous to me and famous to chamber musicians, but the rest of the world hasn't heard of them. I think that's the problem with chamber music. It is a niche area. Nicola runs the Edinburgh Festival now. She's internationally famous, a fabulous musician herself, and she's done a huge amount for development of young musicians in England, and in the UK generally. "You need people like her, big names like her, to generate private funding. She was great. She came two or three years. She came first with her then-boyfriend, who's a cellist, and they enjoyed being here. She could sit outside and not be bothered by people because she wasn't really known over here, you know, the music audience would have known who she was, but it's a great thing. You know, in Ireland, celebrities don't get pestered in the way they do elsewhere." 2023: Candle-light concerts "The festival keeps an archive of all the works played and who played them. Currently after 29 Festivals there are 3,200 entries, ranging from under 50 works the first year to over 120 in recent years. Of course many works get repeated several times, especially the unrivalled quartets by that wave of composers beginning with the founder of the string quartet Haydn, his friend Mozart, Haydn's student Beethoven, who upset their orderly world and of course the song-writer Schubert. "My favourite concerts have always been the candle-lit late-nights, a focus on a single work, the darkening sky outside and a deeply attentive audience. Two years ago the Paris-based (Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam are the great music cities of our time) Quatuor Ardeo, who return this year, gave a mesmerising performance of a Beethoven quartet composed in 1806, when Napoleon was imposing his will on Europe with his armies. This particular quartet, his Ninth, builds to a stupendous last movement climax delivered in overwhelming fashion by these four young women. Thus their return this year." The Vanbrugh Quartet were regulars at the festival. Picture: Des Barry 2025: New visitors Can you have a favourite memory from something that haunt happened yet? Maybe you can, and if so, it's testament to the power of music. "It's not exactly the festival, but I was 80 last year, and my daughter, unbeknown to me, arranged a birthday party, and she also brought in a string quartet, and they played, and all the neighbours were there. And one of the neighbours was so taken by the performance by this string quartet that she's booked to come to a concert in the festival. So it does reach. You just have to get people to hear, to listen. You have to drag them in somehow or other. And that's where Bantry House came in, in the early days: people came to hear classical music in the kind of surroundings that it would have been played in 100 years ago or 200 years ago. "What we found actually since covid is that our international audience has halved, they're not coming any more for many, many reasons. And I think that's true with all tourism, but our national audience has doubled. So people are kind of thinking, yes, this might be fun to go to." The 30th West Cork Chamber Music Festival takes place from June 27 to July 6. See
The Journal
09-06-2025
- The Journal
Book dealer cleared of selling 'extraordinarily rare' stolen Seamus Heaney editions worth €2,000
A BOOK DEALER who claimed he bought two missing and 'extraordinarily rare' Seamus Heaney first editions worth €2,000 at a bric-a-brac stall has walked free from court. Seventy-year-old Alan Ladak of Fahy Gardens, Loughrea, Co Galway, admitted he was reckless in buying the books for about €40 each, hoping to sell them for a profit. However, he pleaded not guilty at Dublin District Court to possessing stolen property – two books by the Nobel Prize-winning Derry poet, The Tollund Man , worth €1,250, and Shivers, valued at €750 last year. The books previously disappeared from Kenny's Books in Galway. However, they were located after Ladak later went to sell them to the Temple Bar Bookshop in Dublin between 1 May and 30 June and on 6 October, 2024. Granting a dismissal, Judge Adrian Harris accepted legal submissions from defence counsel Aoife Mutch, which focused on the lack of evidence presented in court, as the two books, after being returned, were re-sold before the trial. Garda Alan Cawley questioned Ladak, originally from England, who brought Shivers to the Temple Bar Bookshop on 6 October and returned four days later to complete the sale. During the interview, Ladak maintained that he had previously sold WB Yeats and Samuel Beckett books three or four times to the shop. His statement recorded that he was offered €200 for Shivers on 6 October. In his interview, he recalled selling The Tollund Man for €250 from May to June, the court heard. However, the pensioner maintained that he bought each edition for about €40 from an anonymous bric-a-brac stall in the centre of Galway city. He denied knowing they were stolen, but he agreed he had been reckless and was not diligent in establishing where the books came from, the court heard. Ladak admitted in his interview, 'I thought they were cheap at the time, and I hoped to make money,' but explained that it was difficult to say what they were worth, and he hoped to make €200 for each edition. Advertisement Asked why he came to Dublin to sell them, he told the garda that he had free travel, and it was a day out, and there were more shops there. He thought it had been about ten years since he had gone to Kenny's Bookshop, which had moved to a new location. In cross-examination, Mutch questioned the garda about whether he had made enquiries in Galway into the unnamed bric-a-brac stall mentioned by her client. He replied that he did not because Ladak did not have a receipt, and he did not think he could find the stall. The stolen books had since been returned to Kenny's Bookshop and were sold. The garda agreed he did not have the actual originals in court. The second witness, Tomás Kenny, of Kenny's Bookshop, said the store was the country's biggest dealer of rare books. He recalled being contacted by Temple Bar books about the edition Ladak had brought into them. Kenny said only 125 copies were printed. He described that edition as 'extraordinarily rare', having been signed to poet Gerard Fanning, and he added that publisher Peter Fallon had autographed the other book. They had previously gone missing from his bookstore. In defence submission, the defence barrister highlighted the use of hearsay evidence in the running of the prosecution case, which, she argued, affected her client's right to a fair trial. She stressed that the books had not been brought to the hearing and seemed to now be in other people's hands, and the photocopy images of the books, tendered as evidence, did not show the inscriptions described by Kenny. Judge Harris accepted the points raised by the barrister and acquitted Ladak, who was not required to testify during the hearing. He was also found not guilty of unlawful possession of a knife he had on the date of his arrest.
RTÉ News
09-06-2025
- RTÉ News
Book dealer cleared of selling rare stolen Heaney books
A book dealer who claimed he bought two missing and "extraordinarily rare" Seamus Heaney first editions worth €2,000 at a bric-a-brac stall has walked free from court. Seventy-year-old Alan Ladak of Fahy Gardens, Loughrea, Co Galway, admitted he was reckless in buying the books for about €40 each, hoping to sell them for a profit. However, he pleaded not guilty at Dublin District Court to possessing stolen property, two books by the Nobel Prize-winning Derry poet, The Tollund Man worth €1,250, and Shivers valued at €750 last year. The books previously disappeared from Kenny's Bookshop in Galway. However, they were located after Mr Ladak later went to sell them to the Temple Bar Bookshop in Dublin between 1 May and 30 June and on 6 October 2024. Granting a dismissal, Judge Adrian Harris accepted legal submissions from defence counsel Aoife Mutch, which focused on the lack of evidence presented in court, as the two books, after being returned, were re-sold before the trial. Garda Alan Cawley questioned Mr Ladak, originally from England, who brought Shivers to the Temple Bar Bookshop on 6 October and returned four days later to complete the sale. During the interview, Mr Ladak maintained that he had previously sold WB Yeats and Samuel Beckett books three or four times to the shop. His statement recorded that he was offered €200 for Shivers on 6 October. In his interview, he recalled selling The Tollund Man for €250 from May to June, the court heard. However, the pensioner maintained that he bought each edition for about €40 from an anonymous bric-a-brac stall in the centre of Galway city. He denied knowing they were stolen, but he agreed he had been reckless and was not diligent in establishing where the books came from, the court heard. Mr Ladak admitted in his interview, "I thought they were cheap at the time, and I hoped to make money," but explained that it was difficult to say what they were worth, and he hoped to make €200 for each edition. Asked why he came to Dublin to sell them, he told the garda that he had free travel, and it was a day out, and there were more shops there. He thought it had been about ten years since he had gone to Kenny's Bookshop, which had moved to a new location. In cross-examination, Ms Mutch questioned the garda about whether he had made enquiries in Galway into the unnamed bric-a-brac stall mentioned by her client. He replied that he did not because Mr Ladak did not have a receipt, and he did not think he could find the stall. The stolen books had since been returned to Kenny's Bookshop and were sold. The garda agreed he did not have the actual originals in court. The second witness, Tomás Kenny, of Kenny's Bookshop, said the store was the country's biggest dealer of rare books. He recalled being contacted by Temple Bar books about the edition Mr Ladak had brought into them. Mr Kenny said only 125 copies were printed. He described that edition as "extraordinarily rare", having been signed to poet Gerard Fanning, and he added that publisher Peter Fallon had autographed the other book. They had previously gone missing from his bookstore. In defence submission, the defence barrister highlighted the use of hearsay evidence in the running of the prosecution case, which, she argued, affected her client's right to a fair trial. She stressed that the books had not been brought to the hearing and seemed to now be in other people's hands, and the photocopy images of the books, tendered as evidence, did not show the inscriptions described by Mr Kenny. Judge Harris accepted the points raised by the barrister and acquitted Mr Ladak, who was not required to testify during the hearing. He was also found not guilty of unlawful possession of a knife he had on the date of his arrest.
BreakingNews.ie
09-06-2025
- BreakingNews.ie
Book dealer cleared of selling stolen 'extraordinarily rare' €2,000 Heaney editions
A book dealer who claimed he bought two missing and "extraordinarily rare" Seamus Heaney first editions worth €2,000 at a bric-a-brac stall has walked free from court. Alan Ladak (70), of Fahy Gardens, Loughrea, Co Galway, admitted he was reckless in buying the books for about €40 each, hoping to sell them for a profit. Advertisement However, he pleaded not guilty at Dublin District Court to possessing stolen property, two books by the Nobel Prize-winning Derry poet, The Tollund Man, worth €1,250 and Shivers valued at €750 last year. The books previously disappeared from Kenny's Books in Galway. However, they were located after Mr Ladak later went to sell them to the Temple Bar Bookshop in Dublin between May 1st and June 30th and on October 6th, 2024. Granting a dismissal, Judge Adrian Harris accepted legal submissions from defence counsel Aoife Mutch, which focused on the lack of evidence presented in court, as the two books, after being returned, were re-sold before the trial. Advertisement Garda Alan Cawley questioned Mr Ladak, originally from England, who brought Shivers to the Temple Bar Bookshop on October 6th and returned four days later to complete the sale. During the interview, Mr Ladak maintained that he had previously sold WB Yeats and Samuel Beckett books three or four times to the shop. His statement recorded that he was offered €200 for Shivers on October 6th. In his interview, he recalled selling The Tollund Man for €250 from May to June, the court heard. However, the pensioner maintained that he bought each edition for about €40 from an anonymous bric-a-brac stall in the centre of Galway city. Advertisement He denied knowing they were stolen, but he agreed he had been reckless and was not diligent in establishing where the books came from, the court heard. Mr Ladak admitted in his interview, "I thought they were cheap at the time, and I hoped to make money," but explained that it was difficult to say what they were worth, and he hoped to make €200 for each edition. Asked why he came to Dublin to sell them, he told the Garda that he had free travel, and it was a day out, and there were more shops there. He thought it had been about 10 years since he had gone to Kenny's Bookshop, which had moved to a new location. Advertisement In cross-examination, Ms Mutch questioned the Garda about whether he had made enquiries in Galway into the unnamed bric-a-brac stall mentioned by her client. He replied that he did not because Mr Ladak did not have a receipt, and he did not think he could find the stall. The stolen books had since been returned to Kenny's Bookshop and were sold. The Garda agreed he did not have the actual originals in court. Advertisement The second witness, Tomás Kenny, of Kenny's Bookshop, said the store was the country's biggest dealer of rare books. He recalled being contacted by Temple Bar books about the edition Mr Ladak had brought into them. Mr Kenny said only 125 copies were printed. 'Extraordinarily rare' He described that edition as "extraordinarily rare", having been signed to poet Gerard Fanning, and he added that publisher Peter Fallon had autographed the other book. They had previously gone missing from his bookstore. Ireland 50th anniversary of Seamus Heaney's landmark colle... Read More In defence submission, the defence barrister highlighted the use of hearsay evidence in the running of the prosecution case, which, she argued, affected her client's right to a fair trial. She stressed that the books had not been brought to the hearing and seemed to now be in other people's hands, and the photocopy images of the books, tendered as evidence, did not show the inscriptions described by Mr Kenny. Judge Harris accepted the points raised by the barrister and acquitted Mr Ladak, who was not required to testify during the hearing. He was also found not guilty of unlawful possession of a knife he had on the date of his arrest.
Irish Examiner
09-06-2025
- Irish Examiner
Book dealer cleared of selling stolen 'extraordinarily rare' €2,000 Seamus Heaney first editions
A book dealer who claimed he bought two missing and "extraordinarily rare" Seamus Heaney first editions worth €2,000 at a bric-a-brac stall has walked free from court. Alan Ladak, aged 70, of Fahy Gardens, Loughrea, Co Galway, admitted he was reckless in buying the books for about €40 each, hoping to sell them for a profit. However, he pleaded not guilty at Dublin District Court to possessing stolen property, two books by the Nobel Prize-winning Derry poet, The Tollund Man, worth €1,250 and Shivers valued at €750 last year. The books previously disappeared from Kenny's Books in Galway. However, they were located after Mr Ladak later went to sell them to the Temple Bar Bookshop in Dublin between May 1 and June 30 and on October 6, 2024. Granting a dismissal, Judge Adrian Harris accepted legal submissions from defence counsel Aoife Mutch, which focused on the lack of evidence presented in court, as the two books, after being returned, were re-sold before the trial. Case background Garda Alan Cawley questioned Mr Ladak, originally from England, who brought Shivers to the Temple Bar Bookshop on October 6 and returned four days later to complete the sale. During the interview, Mr Ladak maintained that he had previously sold WB Yeats and Samuel Beckett books three or four times to the shop. His statement recorded that he was offered €200 for Shivers on October 6. In his interview, he recalled selling The Tollund Man for €250 from May to June, the court heard. However, the pensioner maintained that he bought each edition for about €40 from an anonymous bric-a-brac stall in the centre of Galway city. He denied knowing they were stolen, but he agreed he had been reckless and was not diligent in establishing where the books came from, the court heard. Mr Ladak admitted in his interview: "I thought they were cheap at the time, and I hoped to make money." He said it was difficult to say what they were worth, and he hoped to make €200 for each edition. Asked why he came to Dublin to sell them, he told the garda that he had free travel, and it was a day out, and there were more shops there. He thought it had been about 10 years since he had gone to Kenny's Bookshop, which had moved to a new location. Witness testimonies In cross-examination, Ms Mutch questioned the garda about whether he had made enquiries in Galway into the unnamed bric-a-brac stall mentioned by her client. He replied that he did not because Mr Ladak did not have a receipt, and he did not think he could find the stall. The stolen books had since been returned to Kenny's Bookshop and were sold. The garda agreed he did not have the actual originals in court. The second witness, Tomás Kenny, of Kenny's Bookshop, recalled being contacted by Temple Bar books about the edition Mr Ladak had brought into them. Mr Kenny said only 125 copies were printed. He described that edition as "extraordinarily rare", having been signed to poet Gerard Fanning, and he added that publisher Peter Fallon had autographed the other book. They had previously gone missing from his bookstore. In defence submission, the defence barrister highlighted the use of hearsay evidence in the running of the prosecution case, which, she argued, affected her client's right to a fair trial. She stressed that the books had not been brought to the hearing and seemed to now be in other people's hands, and the photocopy images of the books, tendered as evidence, did not show the inscriptions described by Mr Kenny. Judge Harris accepted the points raised by the barrister and acquitted Mr Ladak, who was not required to testify during the hearing. He was also found not guilty of unlawful possession of a knife he had on the date of his arrest.
