Tag: mediaeval

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Ancient Connections Film Screening Night

NEWS

Ancient Connections Film Screening Night

Wednesday 12th July 7.30 – 9.30 pm, Theatr Gwaun

Free event, everyone welcome

As Ancient Connections draws to a close after four years of events and activity in Pembrokeshire and Wexford, join us to view some of the wonderful films that have emerged from the project on the big screen. These include The Tales Between Us, an animation film created by children from both sides of the Irish Sea; Pererin Wyf, exploring diaspora identity and the songs that call you home and Creative Camino, a documentary that tracks four artists who joined the trailblazing first guided walk on the new pilgrim route, the Wexford-Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way.

The event is free but please book via Theatr Gwaun to reserve a space or call 01348 873421.
 
 
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Archive News

Ferns St Aidan’s Monastery Open Day

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Ferns St Aidan's Monastery Open Day

June 29th starting at St Mogue’s cottage 1 pm and 6 pm

Join us as we celebrate Fern’s medieval heritage through Fuinseog Woodland Crafts, customized guides, Battle re-enactments, Archaeological excavations, Camps for kids and loads more!
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Archive News

Book series and Album launch Holy Wells

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Book series and album launch Holy Wells at Theatr Gwaun

Thursday 22nd June 7.30 pm, Theatr Gwaun

Join us to celebrate the launch of Holy Wells of Wexford and Pembrokeshire, a trilingual series of chapbooks commissioned by Ancient Connections and published by Parthian. Each book approaches wells from a different perspective and includes essays, poems and short stories alongside photographs and prints by contributors from Wales and Ireland. There will be readings from Michelle Dooley Mahon, Diana Powell and Phil Cope and Q&A with Caitriona Dunnet, one of the contributing artists.
 
After the interval, Jo MacGregor and Dan Messore along with musicians from both sides of the Irish Sea will perform songs from their new album Voice of the Wells, inspired by their visits to holy wells in Wexford and Pembrokeshire and the people they met along the way.
 
The event is free but please book via Theatr Gwaun to reserve a space or call 01348 873421.
 
You can purchase the Holy Wells books at the event. They are £6 each and £25 for the series of 5 books. CASH SALES ONLY
 
Or if you can’t make the event, you can purchase the books via Parthian’s website 
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Archive News

Festival of Ferns June 5th 2023 – everyone welcome!

NEWS

Festival of Ferns June 4th -5th 2023 - everyone welcome!

Festival of Ferns on June 4th and 5th

This event is set to be a real community celebration, marking the culmination of the Ancient Connection project as it draws to an end this summer.

Ancient Connection’s inspiration was the friendship between St Aidan and St David. The Festival of Ferns takes this theme and the many shared myths and legends and brings it to spectacular life with a parade of giant puppets, music, medieval enactments, local talent and more.

There will be a concert in St. Edan’s Cathedral from 7.30pm, featuring The Allabair Trio and Ferns’s very own Chord On Blues choir. Book tickets here

Expect to see a 12 foot St David puppet visiting from Pembrokeshire; a sea monster representing the crossing by St. Aidan to Wales and a giant beehive and a swarm of bees representing  St. Aidan departing Wales with David’s blessings and the founding of the monastery in Ferns by St. Aidan.  Expect all this and more in the Festival of Ferns Parade at 12 noon and weaving its way to the castle for a celebratory event.

The Horsemen of Éire will accompany the parade on horseback and dressed in
medieval costumes, setting the tone for the festivities to follow in the castle. Leading the parade will be Bloco Garman, a local Celtic drumming band. 

Want to get involved? Join in the workshops with artist Caoimhe Dunn. 

Find out more about this and what else is happening for the Festival of Ferns on Facebook 

or at Ferns Village Website

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Archive News Pilgrimage

Mini Creative Caminos in Pembrokeshire

NEWS

Mini Creative Caminos in Pembrokeshire

Saturday 20th May and 10th June

Two bite sized artistic dives into the essence of pilgrimage along the Wexford-Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way with Ailsa Richardson and Suzi MacGregor

 

Saturday 20th May
(based at St Nicholas Village Hall)

landing your (wild)feet with Ailsa

paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and an open heart
(Robin Wall Kimmerer)

Ailsa will offer simple practices from her wildfeet toolkit to enhance presence, mindfulness and imagination. These practices draw attention to the many voices and multitudes of wisdom available to us in the environment/living world, and can be ‘taken home’ to enhance your own experience of walking and pilgrimage. This often means putting some of our habitual ways of responding aside to allow our kinship with nature and each other to arise more fully. We will playfully and seriously explore walking and writing, including different ways of paying attention, and including Ailsa’s particular approach to ‘walking with a question’.

Contact Ailsa ailsajr@btinternet.com

 

Saturday 10th June
(based at Llanrhian Village Hall)

Vocal Discovery and Song with Suzi

“Your voice is the soul, the self personified. We can manipulate it at will: soft whispers, seductive croaks, piercing, loud, demanding, loving, sweet, singing. But…the voice can become like a false smile: stuck and uncomfortable. So slowly, surely, stretch and challenge and explore your voice – it has the potential to encompass every expression.”

Using her vocal training, musicality and improvisation experience, Suzi invites you to begin an intimate enquiry into ‘voice’ – in response to our land and the essence of pilgrimage/camino. Camino translates as “the path” or “the way”, and Suzi has often found that the voice, and singing particularly, has been a path or a way to discover and deepen a relationship with yourself, with others, and your surroundings. This is a fun and inclusive workshop, for ALL voices. You can expect embodied vocal exercises, imaginative explorations of vocal texture and tone, sharing circles, some fun improvisation games, and singing heart-warming harmonies together in the wild! 

Contact Suzi suzinaomi@gmail.com

Cost – payment is on a sliding scale for each day £45-£90
or both workshops £80-£170, and please still contact us if the cost is unaffordable for you.
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Archive News Pilgrimage

Ffair Pererinion / Pilgrim Fayre at Bishop’s Palace St Davids

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Ffair Pererinion / Pilgrim Fayre at The Bishops Palace, St Davids

Monday 29th May – Pilgrim Fayre The Bishop’s Palace, St Davids 

FREE and a warm welcome to all!
 
The Pilgrim Fayre promises to be a special occasion on 29 May in the Bishop’s Palace, St Davids from 11am-6pm with a programme of performance, song, guided walks, a medieval marketplace, traditional skills demos and film screenings. It marks the achievements of the Ancient Connections project in Wales and the launch of Wexford Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way, with a celebration of communities past and present and the historic and future links between North Wexford and North Pembrokeshire.
 
The Pilgrim Fayre day begins with St Davids Cathedral and Wexford-Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way joining forces to lead a guided walk linking Saint Aidan and Saint David. The group starts with a musical send off by Côr Pawb and the Pererin Wyf / I am a pilgrim project, continuing along a path to the coast path and visiting St Non’s holy well. If you miss the morning walk, there will be chances to join micro pilgrimages around St Davids Cathedral throughout the day. Book your place on a walk
 
Span Arts’ choir Côr Pawb invites you to Y Canu Mawr / The Big Sing, a short programme of pilgrimage-related song performed in St Davids Cathedral. The event is part of the Pererin Wyf / Is Oilithreach Mé / I am a Pilgrim project and will culminate in a massed A Capella singing of the hymn ‘Pererin Wyf’ by William Williams, Pantycelyn. The concert will be live-streamed by the Cathedral. For more information about how to join in please click here
 
Small World Theatre is delighted to return with the giant puppet of Saint David and a new 6m-long sea monster in a procession with musicians and pupils from Ysgol Penrhyn. Join the merriment at 2pm in a Pilgrim Parade from the Cross Square into the grounds of St Davids Cathedral. Saint David will visit the giant bee skeps ‘Do the Little Things’ artwork by Bedwyr Williams, on his way to the festivities at the Fayre. Find out more about the skeps here 
 
A lively medieval marketplace hosts an array of exciting stalls showcasing some of the finest wares the area has to offer. There’ll be stalls selling delicious, award-winning food and drink too, made from locally sourced ingredients. There’ll be mischief makers, meandering minstrels and holy relic sellers and surprise pop-up performances. Details about the medieval marketplace and what’s on offer coming soon.
 
Experience traditional crafts and skills used to build the Bishop’s Palace and St Davids Cathedral. Join Tywi Centre crafts people in their marque as they share their knowledge of historic buildings and demonstrate decorative plasterwork, carving stone, thatching, traditional window making amongst other things. Find out more here tywicentre.org.uk
 
Enjoy the impact of the Ancient Connections project through a programme of films screened in the vaults of the Palace. The films feature artists’ and community commissions from Wales and Ireland. A list of film screenings and film makers coming soon.
 
Finally, gather round for open-air concerts with ancient music from Wales and the Celtic nations performed by renowned folk musicians Julie Murphy, Ceri Rhys Matthews and Jess Ward. A perfect musical accompaniment to a magnificent celebration in the impressive, historic setting of the ruined Palace.
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Archive Arts

Artists Commissions

Arts Project

Artists Commissions

Ancient Connections has commissioned four new artists’ commissions, exploring some interlinked themes that are at the heart of the project including: pilgrimage, connecting with the Celtic diaspora of Ireland and Wales and our relationships to sacred places such as holy wells, chapels and ancient sites.

The artists will produce new artworks over the next two years, inspired by their own research as well as the findings uncovered by the Ancient Connections teams of story gatherers, community researchers and archaeologists. Each artist is expected to create work that can be shared online, in order to engage with both local audiences and with people much further afield such as Australia and North America, where there are significant communities of people with Irish and Welsh ancestry. The artists will also present their work in a final public showing in both Wexford and Pembrokeshire in 2022.

The four artists are Seán Vicary and Linda Norris, who are both visual artists based in West Wales, and artist/archaeologist John Sunderland and writer Sylvia Cullen, based in Ireland’s south-east.

Linda Norris

‘Williams Leatham Plate’ from Cân yr Oer Wynt series, ceramic decal on vintage china

Linda Norris proposes to use ‘sherds’ or found pottery fragments as the starting point for her project, encouraging people to send sherds to her and locate them on an online map. She says:

“Far from the glamour of precious metal hordes or celebrated monuments, sherds speak of anonymous domestic stories and link us with the people who lived in our homes in the past. I propose to initiate a ‘citizen archaeology’ project in Pembrokeshire and Wexford, and extending into the Celtic Diaspora. I will be researching people who emigrated from these regions to the Diaspora in the 19th century and trying to trace their descendants.”

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Seán Vicary

'Field Notes RAF St Davids'

Multi-media artist Seán Vicary recently discovered that his great-grandmother was born in 1874, just 3.5 miles from Ferns in Camolin, and he seeks to:

“Understand the forces that shaped me living here across the water from my great grandmother’s home. By excavating my own past, I’ll undertake a process that mirrors the archaeological and historical research underway in both communities”.

He will be discovering ‘hidden narratives’ in the landscape and creatively working them into an engaging personal travelogue that moves back and forth between Pembrokeshire and Wexford.

“Voice, text, music, film and animation will combine to evoke these places in an exciting, contemporary way; building a deeper sense of identity through sharing experiences of reconnection”.

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John Sunderland

'The Shooting Hut' (Site 1, Visit 9) from the project 'Touching Darkness' (2019)

Trained archaeologist and visual artist John Sunderland will be undertaking a pilgrimage from Whitesands to Ferns and excavating found objects along the route for the creation of a reliquary alongside pinhole photographic work. Rather than approaching this like an analytical contemporary archaeologist, he hopes to examine his discoveries with a mediaeval mindset, paying attention to “the supernatural or the sacred, to questions of good and evil, signs or portents”.

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Sylvia Cullen

Cover of Sylvia Cullen’s play The Thaw, commissioned by the Arts Council of Ireland, produced by the Courthouse Arts Centre in Tinahely, published by New Island Books, inspired by the people of North Wexford, South Wicklow and East Carlow.

Writer Sylvia Cullen proposes to create a bespoke new series of short stories for podcasts or livestreaming, drawing on “dramatic tales of piracy and bootlegging along the Welsh and Irish coastlines” and haunting tales of sacred places or a longing for home. She will also run creative writing workshops in both communities.

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Watching these projects evolve separately and then ultimately weave together in a final presentation will be a journey of discovery for both the project team and our audiences.

Date: August 2020 – December 2022

Funded by: Ancient Connections

Categories
Archive Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage overview – rationale for a new route

Arts Project

Pilgrimage overview - rationale for a new route

Pilgrimage is an ancient concept; stretching back through history across cultural and religious boundaries, historical and economic spectrums, regardless of race or gender. It has been argued that pilgrimage fulfils a basic human need to reconnect to oneself through the simple process of putting one foot in front of another on the destination to a sacred or special place.

Ancient Connections is rediscovering historic links and ancient stories that connect the communities and culture of North Pembrokeshire with their counterparts on the East coast of Wexford. In particular, it is exploring the link between the city of Saint Davids and the village of Ferns, two significant sites associated with the early Celtic church. St Aidan studied in Wales with St David and after this he journeyed to Wexford where he set up his own monastery in Ferns.

St Davids has been a place of pilgrimage since the middle ages and still is. People are drawn to the area for many reasons for refreshment of body, mind and soul. It is recognised as a special place, a ‘thin’ place in Celtic terms, a place where hearts are opened and emotions are touched.

Modern day pilgrimage isn’t necessarily religious or even spiritual but an opportunity for reflection, connection and discovery; perhaps finding a new sense of purpose, direction and wellbeing. Pilgrimage in modern times is becoming increasingly popular with TV programmes such as Pilgrimage; The Road to Rome and The Road to Santiago. The Santiago de Compostella pilgrim trail, which was boosted through EU funding in 1987, has been a major success story with numbers increasing from under 3,000 per year to over 300,000 now.

A New Route - Wexford Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way

2023 will commemorate 900 years since Pope Callixtus II declared two pilgrimages to St Davids equal to one to Rome. This date and the Ancient Connections project are a launch pad from which to start building a pilgrimage route on both sides of the Irish Sea. Could pilgrimage/transformational tourism be as successful in Wexford and Pembrokeshire as it has been in Northern Spain?

Ancient Connections is working with the British Pilgrimage Trust to create the new route. In May 2022, the trailblazing Creative Camino pilgrimage took place, an experimental journey led by guides from Journeying based in Pembrokeshire and Wexford Trails. Traveling with them were a group of artists and community pilgrims, who responded creatively to the experience. 

The route has now been mapped and will be open to the public in 2023 for guided and self-guided tours. Currently, there are opportunities to trial the route on day trips led by experienced guides. Visit the website for more information on the route and how you can get involved

Wexford Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way

Date: Ongoing