Conor McPherson among seven elected to Aosdána

SEVEN ARTISTS including playwright Conor McPherson and poet Vona Groarke were elected to Aosdána yesterday.

The new members of Aosdána, the affiliation of creative artists in Ireland, were elected at its annual general assembly at the Armagh City Hotel, the first time the gathering has been held in Northern Ireland.

It brings the current Aosdána membership, which is limited to 250 living artists, to 236. Four of the newly elected artists are women.

Aosdána was established by the Arts Council in 1981 to honour artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland.

The literary world figures strongly among the new members. The writers elected were:

Poet, playwright and fiction writer Francis Harvey. Octogenarian Harvey began writing poetry, plays and short stories during the 1970s while employed in a bank.

He took early retirement in 1979 and his stories and poems have appeared in leading literary magazines. Born in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, he has lived in Co Donegal for the past 60 years.

Poet Vona Groarke, whose poetry collections include Shale, Other People’s Houses and Flight, which won the Michael Hartnett Award.

Playwright and director Conor McPherson. The Lime Tree Bowerand The Weirare among his most acclaimed plays. Nominated three times for Tony awards, his plays have been produced in the West End and on Broadway. His film The Eclipserecently won best film at the Irish Film Television Awards.

Two composers were elected:

Gráinne Mulvey is a Dubliner who in 1994 won the composers’ class of the RTÉ Musician of the Future Competition.

Four years later she was awarded the Macaulay Fellowship administered by the Arts Council. Her music has been broadcast by RTÉ and performed in Ireland, Britain and internationally. She teaches composition at DIT’s Conservatory of Music and Drama.

Kevin Volans moved to Ireland in 1986 and his work, principally in the field of chamber and orchestral music, has been regularly performed worldwide.

In the mid-1970s his work was associated with the beginnings of postmodernism in Germany. In recent years he has begun writing for orchestra and collaborating with visual artists.

Born in South Africa he is now an Irish citizen.

Two architects were elected:

UCD graduate Sheila O’Donnell, who established O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects in 1988. The work of her practice has won several awards nationally and internationally and has been widely published and exhibited. She is a studio lecturer in UCD and a visiting teacher in various schools of architecture in Europe and America.

Yvonne Farrell from Tullamore, Co Offaly, set up Grafton Architects in 1977 with Shay Cleary, Frank Hall, Tony Murphy and Shelley McNamara.

The UCD graduate was elected a fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland for achievement of excellence in design. She is teaching at the Accademia di architettura Mendrisio in Switzerland.

Membership of Aosdána is by peer nomination and election and was opened to architects and choreographers in recent years.

If their income is below a certain threshold, Aosdána members living in Ireland may be eligible for an annuity or cnuasof €17,180.