RTÉ lyric fm's award winning arts and culture documentary series The Lyric Feature (Sundays 6 pm on RTÉ lyric fm and on RTÉ Listen) returns on October 4th with more engaging stories of our past, present and future.
What is the Lyric Feature?
The Lyric Feature is a place where creative audio makers use the full range of the audible spectrum to tell stories that tickle your brain. It’s a place that regards Irish culture and traditions as something fluid and living, as an inexhaustible source of stories that can be told and retold. It’s a place where unexpected questions are asked and unexpected answers are offered.
Here’s some of what’s in store for the Autumn series:
Flashes from the Dark
What was the first collection of poems written by a black poet published in Ireland? What was it like to be a free-spirited girl in Holy Catholic Ireland in the 1930s and 40s? How did the Irish harp break free from the confines of the parlour to become an instrument integral to traditional music sessions in your local pub? What kind of music do you get when you pair an Irish hand drum master with a Congelese guitar player?
The Jamaican poet Ferdinand Levy arrived in Dublin in the 1940s to study medicine at Trinity College. He brought with him the rhythms and language of the Harlem renaissance and a sensibility shaped by racism and colonialism but also a fresh pair of eyes to the grey streets of Dublin and a playful of the possibilities offered by his new home. In Flashes from the Dark (11th of October) Emma Dabiri tells the story of his contribution to Irish literature.
In the Deeps
In the same era another poet, Eithne Strong was also making a break for Dublin. The County Limerick writer fled her home at the age of 19, married an Englishman and settled for a time in Dun Laoghaire's nascent psychoanalytic community. In In the Deeps, Joanna Marsden goes on the trail of a neglected writer who, seeking a freer life, questioned social norms and dared to write from the edges of Irish society.
From Parlour to Pub
Another unlikely journey is explored by harpist Niamh O’ Brien in From Parlour to Pub (Oct 18th) where she traces the evolution of the Irish harp from the Anglo Irish drawing room to the session in your local pub and in doing so she tells the story of how what seems like a fixed symbol of Irish Culture is actually the opposite.
Dancing to a Different Drum
The following week in Dancing to a Different Drum we hear a parallel story of how new instruments are arriving into contemporary Irish music when we meet musician Éamonn Cagney whose immersion in the Irish tradition is complemented by his studies of hand-drums such as the Djembe, the Conga, the Hand-Pan and the Shaker in Ghana and Australia. We’ll hear how Éamonn’s outward looking take on our tradition has led to collaborations which reimagine Irish music such as his work with the Congolese born Irish guitarist Niwel Tsumbu.
These are just a few of the new documentaries you can expect in the new season of the Lyric Feature but we’ll kick it all off on October 4th when we revisit an old one.
Vocal Chords
The musician Glen Hansard died tragically in July of this year and we open our season with a broadcast of a programme from our 2017 series. In Vocal Chords Glen Hansard discusses singing and what it means to him with the sean nós singer Iarla O Lionáird.
Lyric Feature begins its new season on Sunday the 4th of October, 6pm to 7pm
On RTÉ lyric fm and on RTÉ Listen - download the app now