Poets Anthony Cronin, Paul Durcan, Paula Meehan and Theo Dorgan were among those present at a reception in Merrion Square this week to welcome newly-elected Aosdána members to this most exalted and rarefied of circles.
Seven new members, who were elected at the Aosdána general assembly in February, were welcomed into the organisation - an affiliation of creative artists established in 1983 to honour those who have made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland, and to enable them to devote themselves fully to their work. Those resident in Ireland receive €11,070 per annum for five years, renewable at the discretion of the Arts Council. There are now 194 members of Aosdána, which has a ceiling membership of 200. This is the highest number to date.
The new members present included jazz musician and composer Ronan Guilfoyle, classical composer Stephen Gardner, poet and publisher Peter Fallon, playwright Gerard Mannix Flynn, writer Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and poet Julie O'Callaghan. Film-maker Pat Murphy, who was unable to attend, is also a new member.
Among the guests who came to wish the newcomers well was composer James Wilson and artists Michael Kane and Brian Maguire.
Paul Durcan, recently returned from the Seán Dunne Literary Festival in Waterford, was singing the praises of that city, and of festival organiser Margaret Durand for the smooth-running organisation of the event. Anthony Cronin, chatting to Arts Council chairman Patrick Murphy, was pleased to be reminded that he has just been elected by his Aosdána peers to the status of Saoi, which is the highest rank in Aosdána. Cronin now joins Seamus Heaney and Louis Le Brocquy as a saoi. Later this year, all nine volumes of Cronin's poetry, dating back to 1957, will be published by New Island Books.
Those with plans for the summer included Ronan Guilfoyle, who attended the party with is wife, Maeve, and is off to Athens at the end of this month to play at the European Jazz Festival.
Gerard Mannix Flynn is currently viewing a number of gallery spaces in Dublin, where he hopes to stage his play James X, which has just finished at Project.
Attending the celebration with her husband, Prof Bo Almqvist, Ní Dhuibhne has just had a new children's book published by Poolbeg, The Sparkling Rain, (under her pseudonym Elizabeth O'Hara), while an Irish novel, Cailíní Beaga Gleann na mBláth, is due out shortly from Cois Life, she says.
This weekend, for lovers of poetry, Julie O'Callaghan, whose book No Can Do was published by Bloodaxe in 2000, will be reading some of her work at the Strokestown Poetry Festival in Co Roscommon, along with other poets including her husband, Dennis O'Driscoll.