"STATE of Emergency in Hungary," The Irish Times declared on October 25th, 1956. "Tanks out to quell riots." Forty years later, the Hungarian ambassador to Ireland, Mr Laszlo Mohai, has organised a week long festival to commemorate the uprising.
The celebrations begin on Sunday with a concert in the National Concert Hall by the Savaria Symphony Orchestra from Szombathely, Hungary, under the baton of its principal conductor, Robert Houlihan.
The concert features three soloists: the soprano Suzanne Murphy, the violinist Gwendolyn Masin, who is of Hungarian descent; and Finghin Collins, who will play a piano concert by Brent Parker, a composer, pianist and lecturer at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama in Dublin. The concerto pits the soloist, representing a student composer pianist in Budapest in 1956, against the authoritarian force of the orchestra.
The Savaria Symphony Orchestra performs at Siamsa Tire, Tralee, on October 29th, in Limerick on October 30th, and in Waterford on November 1st.
The Fire Flower dance group from Hungary appears in Tralee on Sunday, then in Galway on the 28th, the National Concert Hall, Dublin, on the 29th (where they will be joined by Rinceoiri Ui She), Kilkenny on the 30th, and Limerick on the 31st.