The annual Columbanus Cultural and Heritage Summer Festival is due to take place on Saturday 2nd September 2023 in Clonard, Co Meath.
This is the third year of the festival which is aimed at empowering local communities to take responsibility for the promotion, development and celebration of the Columban Way in their area.
The objective of this year’s event is to:
– Highlight the importance of Clonard as a key historical location for Early Irish medieval monasticism.
– Promote the cultural and musical heritage of Clonard and its hinterland as part of the legacy of St Columbanus and St Finnian.
– Promote Clonard as a key location along the Columban Way
– Set up a permanent St Columbanus and St Finnian working group to lead the development of the Columban Way in their area.
The day consists of events between 11am and 4pm. (See flyer)
The guest Speaker this year is Dr Niamh Wycherley of the Department of Early Irish in NUI Maynooth. She is a medieval historian, specialising in the early Irish Church.
Dr Wycherley previously held IRC and NUI postdoctoral fellowships in UCD and NUI Galway. She won the NUI Publication Prize in History in 2017 for her first monograph, ‘The Cult of Relics in Early Medieval Ireland’. She is the Principal Investigator of the four-year SFI-IRC Pathway project ‘Power and Patronage in Medieval Ireland: Clonard from the sixth to twelfth centuries’.
She contributes regularly to RTÉ Brainstorm and television programmes such as the RTÉ Television documentary, ‘Finding Brigid’.
Organisers of the annual Columbanus Cultural and Heritage Summer Festival are hoping to create an appreciation and consciousness among people in the local community of the tremendous historical, cultural and musical heritage they have, as well as putting Clonard on the map as a hub for visitors and walkers.
The goals of the festival are to get as many people as possible from the local community involved; to explore and celebrate the cultural, musical and heritage resources in the area; and to create a platform for these local groups to be proactive in setting up a permanent local Columbanus and Finnian Committee.