Clonmel Junction Arts Festival Lights Up The Town in July

Tipperary's version of the Circus is Coming to Town. Clonmel Junction Arts Festival arrives in Clonmel from July 1^st to 10^th. The Junction Dome, a temporary performance structure for theatre, literature, and more, comes alive. It takes over empty retail spaces; and sparks conversations on how to creatively enhance a regional town through the arts.

For 21 years Clonmel Junction Arts Festival has made places for the arts in Clonmel, constructing festival venues in shops, car parks and halls. This year the festival will use its innovative Junction Dome as a space for live performances in theatre, spoken word, film, and more, bringing audiences and artists together for a 10-day celebration of the arts. Just like the circus coming to town, the dome will arrive to house many spectacular events from the acrobatic dance of the fabulous Cikada Circus to an up-close-and-personal interview with writer Liz Nugent.

Junction is premiering a range of exciting theatre and film co-productions, with Everything Must Go! a new site-specific theatre piece from award-winning Asylum Productions, Pucked by Cathal Ryan with Source Arts Centre, directed by emerging Clonmel director Jack Reardon, and a very special film by Trish McAdam based on Marina Carr's poem iGirl.

The theme for Clonmel Junction Arts Festival 2022 is Hidden Histories. Uncovering stories from the local area with writers, theatre makers and musicians, the festival will showcase emerging authors writing about artefacts in Clonmel's Hidden History Museum and teach young musicians songs that would otherwise be forgotten with Music Generation Tipperary. A major focus of these stories is the past - and future - of the ghost buildings of the town.

Visiting Eco Showboat - the ecological arts project by Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly - moors its Pangolin Pavilion on the river Suir, to host workshops, talks and a solar tea party, sparking much-needed climate action discussions.

Artistic Director Cliona Maher says: "We are really delighted by this year's programme, not only because we will get to see it live and in person but because we are creating so much new work of a high calibre as well as bringing great acts, artists and performers to Clonmel."

These are Clonmel stories past and present, brought to life by local artists and visiting performers - the festival is the junction where they meet.

Clonmel Junction Arts Festival runs from 1 to 10 July in various locations throughout the town. CJAF Box office opens in June 2022.

To post a comment, you must register and login.