PROJECT 2020 VISION
is a visual ethnography of the folk theatre movement that developed in County Kerry in the 1960s and thrived for over three decades.
This project will be developed in partnership with Pat Ahern, the leader of that movement. READ MORE
FOLK: NOTES FROM A PROCESS
CONTRAPUNTI
A film by Ron van der Noll, 2004.
CONTRAPUNTI is a short film of a performance that celebrated the music of Michael Coleman, the acclaimed fiddler who was born in Ballymote, Co Sligo, in the west of Ireland in 1891 and died in New York in 1945.
Ron an der Noll received a commission to create a public artwork commemoratiing Coleman and his music. He produced a remarkable musical instrument that recalled coleman’s roots in rural Ireland. The artwork was installed in The Gallery | Siamsa Tíre in 2004.
Pat Ahern, the founder of Siamsa Tíre, came out of retirement to perform alongside van der Noll on a fiddle that was purchased by Hughie Gillespie for Michael Coleman. Gillespie passed the fiddle to Ahern after Coleman died. Mike O’ Shea accompanied Ahern and all three accompanied Coleman’s 1934 recording on the same fiddle of Tarbolton, The Lonford Collector, and The Sailor’s Bonnet. Jonathan Kelliher performed a dance in the North Kerry style developed by Jerry Munnix and revived by Pat Ahern in collaboration with dancers like Jack Lyons and Paddy White.
Camera:
Mary Moynihan, Noel Keane, Ron van der Noll
Production:
Ciarán Walsh produced.
Ciarán Walsh and Marianne Kennedy curated the performance / installation.
Jenny Haughton curated the public art project under which Ron Van Der Noll created the Coleman piece.
© Ron Van der Noll 32004
PROJECT ARCHIVE
Making Movies
EYEBALL publishing is a web orientated production company that is part of www.curator.ie. The company has worked with Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne (a heritage organisation based in West Kerry) on a series of video that document the language and culture education provided.
Between 2016 and 2018 I set up and managed a video production facility in Kimmage Development Studies Centre in Dublin. It operated as an inhouse production company and I was responsible for documenting special events, recording lectures for streaming on Moodle, and other course related material.
Background
Ciarán Walsh has been involved in film making since his teens. In the 1980s it was very difficult to break into television or film production but Walsh opted for art college instead of a job as a lighting operator with RTE. He joined NCAD in 1980 and specialised in education, concentrating on the role the arts play in social activism and arts animation in communities.
He graduated in 1984 and established BASE 10, Ballymun Community Arts, a key component of which was community documentary making. A short film entitled ‘Ballymun Calling’ was made by the participant but this is now lost. In 1989 he joined the Cork Film festival and develop the first education and outreach programme of the festival. He also worked with festival director Mick Hannigan on a whole range of film projects as part of the education programme of Triskel Arts Centre.
In 1990 he set ‘Frameworks’ with Val Bogan and Eddie Noonan. Established with a grant from the Ireland Funds, ‘Frameworks’ was a production company that supported documentary making by communities who would not have had access to mainstream media – and this was before the internet was rolled out.
As Education Officer in the Arts Coucil, Walsh moved out of production and into policy development and funding, managing the development of film projects in education and youth arts at a national level.
As a member of the Board of General Studies of the National Council for Curriculum and Assesment (NCVA) he was responsible for the development of validation of the first series of film and video orientated post-leaving certificate course, including the criteria and procedure for assessment.
Walsh left the Arts Council in 1995 and worked as Visual Arts Director of the National Folk Theatre, incorporating ‘new media’ or digital video production into a wide ranging and experimental visual arts programme. He was involved in Kerry Film Festival and, for a while, the break away Dingle Film Festival.
In 2010, he left The National Folk theatre and set up www.curator.ie which incorporated a media company called EYEBALL publishing. Later in 2010 he joined the Television and Video Production Course ‘run’ by FÁS in Monavalley, Tralee.
In 2012 / 2013 he produced the award-winning short ‘Táimse Im’ Chodladh,’ directed by Denis Buckley. in 2014 and 2015 he devised a six part series for TG4 and completed extensive research on social documentary photography in Ireland at the end of the 19 C. This was broadcast in 2015.
FOR MORE VIDEOS: Ciarán Walsh / www.curator.ie
