Munster Express Online

As part of the WYA 25th anniversary celebrations they have organised a creative look at these years and the wide selection will trigger memories and emotions for different generations.

Niall Larkin looked at some of the correspondence such as Ted O’Regan’s handwritten 1993 letter to the then Minister for the Arts Michael D.Higgins (Dear Michael D.) and a letter to WYD from Edward McBride of Morriss’s granting a fine sum of IR£800 to a fledgling organisation.

Mark Roper and Jane Keen contributed a tasty haiku Workshop and Carol Yelverton had a glorious flowering of a pot and plant where the leaves were the names of productions. Robert Jackson caught the multi-aspect of theatre as mask and masque in Inside , Outside. Anthony Mackey had an excellent study in graphite on paper of Ollie Breslin. Barry Fitzgerald had an amazingly surreal study of figures in a ritual or play. Clare Scott’s The Ancient Mariner brought me back to Jim O’Meara, Keith Dunphy and the old seating arrangement at Garter Lane.

Jill Boucher in 54 circles Quilt was a beautiful fabric study using some discarded costumes and bric-a-brac and it is a powerful memory quilt of those glorious times.

David Brazil also plundered the attic with paint, banners, posters, drapes, masks that would evoke memories. Margaret O’Brien Moran had a fine study on a similar aspect.

Ann Genevieve Hanway depicted the importance of memories to any organisation with Talisman and it was good to reflect on Maria Cullen from the office and Nick Kavanagh who joined as a kid and came back as an actor/tutor. That continuity is a powerful talisman.

Kate Bradley Klose is remembered for a seminal period of moving into film and video with a wonderful video – Faces.

Cormac Leane with his house installation – Nothing Happens Unless First a Dream and this reminded me of my dreams for WYD and my days there and the great sense of passing through and going on and of carrying more than memories – the skill to create more memories.