Roaming down to County Hall

An exhibition featuring the artwork of 10 Cork artists based on the lyrics of a John Spillane song will open in Cork County Hall today, Thursday.

The free exhibition, entitled ‘Roaring’, is located in the Library Headquarters Gallery at County Hall and features works by artists Mary Bowen Galvin, Colm Brady, Jaclyn Hargreaves, Catherina Hearne, Diane Magee, Sean McGuill, Noël O´Callaghan, Cliodhna O’Riordan, Latisha Reihill, and Ben Reilly.

Each artist was invited to create artwork in response to lyrics from John Spillane’s song ‘The Long Way Home’: “And if you take the long way, if you take the long way homenb - Down where the magicians and the dreamers roam - Through the mountains of morning, through the valleys of night - Searching for the island of your hearts delight”.

The exhibition will be opened at 6pm today, Thursday, by John Spillane and will run until 24 March. The gallery is open Monday to Friday from 9am-5.30pm.

Welcoming the exhibition was Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Danny Collins who encouraged everyone who can to come and visit.

“This exhibition showcases the incredible talent our Cork artists and highlights the importance of art in our community,” said Mayor Collins.

“It was especially interesting to see how the unique interpretations of each artist developed into a range of varied, magnificent artwork. The songs, stories and poems of John Spillane encapsulate what it means to be from Cork, so it seemed very fitting to use his lyrics as a prompt for this exhibition of Cork based artists,” he added.

John Spillane is a musician, songwriter, performer, recording artist, storyteller, and poet known for his unique and passionate descriptions of his native Cork, which he often describes as “the centre of the universe”. John’s music is inspired by Irish traditional music in its contemporary form.