Aibreán is a programme of live outdoor performances and site-specific installations on the grounds of the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life at Turlough Park on Saturday 30th April.

Members from Circus 250 will welcome everyone to the evening’s celebrations and audiences will then pass through the May Arch by Breda Burns on arrival, symbolic of the liminal space between seasons. In the Museum’s Courtyard Cafe, poet/musician Seamus Barra O Suilleabháin in collaboration with the Gaoth Dobhair musician Robert Mulhern will perform newly commissioned work.

Acclaimed folk band Landless will perform their unique blend of the traditional, unaccompanied song.
The audience will be invited to hear a performance of seasonal song to welcome summer by Mayo Youth Choir led by Eriko Uehara Hopkinson. The choir will lead the audience to view newly commissioned works by artist John Conway. John’s work, entitled In with the Old / Out with the New is a neon diptych installed on the lake island in Turlough Park inviting us to consider how we positively embrace new attitudes while reconnecting folkloric and seasonal belief systems.

FOLKLIFE artists in residence Jane Cassidy and Breda Burns in collaboration with Mayo Artsquad have explored ideas of growth, sensuality and mystical energy. Drawing on ancient rituals and preparations for the coming of summer, the team draws on the symbolism of the Goddess Flora and will fill the famous glasshouse on the grounds of the museum with sound, light and animated projections.

The much loved Yew Tree on the grounds of the Museum with its natural canopy will also be filled with meditative sound and light, drawn from the experience of artists Jane Cassidy and Breda Burns working closely with Mayo Artsquad.