Allingham Festival audiences of the last few years have regularly enjoyed interviews conducted by Sinead Crowley. We are delighted that Sinead has kindly agreed to host a number of events again this year. One of these will be a little different to anything she experienced in her former life as Media Correspondent of RTE.
It seems that somehow William and Helen Allingham will contrive to return to Ballyshannon for one night only to mark this very special Bicentenary Festival. They will talk to Sinead about William’s early days in Ballyshannon and his love of music, Helen’s significant achievements as a watercolourist and the many famous people they mixed with from Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens to Alfred Lord Tennyson, Hans Christian Andersen and the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. They may even be persuaded to say a word or two about how Ballyshannon has changed since they were last here.
Most of what will be said will be their own words from diaries, letters and other writings. The chat show format will be enhanced with a slideshow (or Magic Lantern in their words) and there will be a couple of musical interludes involving pieces associated with William. It may be that in some Allingham festival of the distant future a similar event will be organised using artificial intelligence and avatars in the style of those used for Abba in a current London production. For now, William and Helen will be played by local actors Michael McMullin and Patricia Keane.
The event will take place in the Abbey Arts Centre on Saturday, November 9 at 6 PM and will be finished in plenty of time for those going on to the Muireann Bradley concert in St Anne’s at 8.