Imagine Day 5: Booze, Blaas and Banter—What Better Way to Start Your Day!

We’re on the second last day of what has been an epic festival and it’s a jam packed schedule this Saturday. Start the day in Jordan’s for the annual booze, blaas and banter…always guaranteed to be a bit of craic. Then add in a bit of art, poetry, music and more…and that’s your Saturday sorted!

Saturday October 29, 2022

Performance:

  • What: Booze, Blaas and Banter
  • Where: Jordan’s bar
  • When: 9 a.m.

Don’t miss the early morning annual Jordan’s Jamboree, that’s held in Waterford every October Bank Holiday Weekend, as part of the Imagine Festival.

The event is an homage to the bonhomie and craic that were the early hours Dockers Taverns of yore, where dockers gathered to “clear the wrinkles outa their nuts” as they used to say, following the previous night’s drinking, before starting work along the quays. They would often be joined by workers finishing their late-night shifts in local factories, railway workers, as well as an oddball mix of night owls, dandies, dossers and ladies of the night.

This local maritime, labour and social history event has established itself as one of the highlights of the Imagine Festival over the years, and if you’ve never been along, pencil it in this year and get your Bank Holiday Weekend off to a flying start. Jordan’s is fully licensed for singing and dancing, etc.

Complimentary Blaa’s with fillings, along with coffee and tea are provided throughout the morning by chefs Peter and Noel Atkins. Alcoholic beverages can be purchased from Jordan’s genial host’s Andy and Cathy Jordan and their wonderful staff.

Jordans bar

Literature:

  • What: Jessica Traynor—Poetry Masterclass
  • Where: Waterford Gallery of Art
  • When: 11 a.m.

Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist and librettist, and poetry editor at Banshee.

Her debut poetry collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times poetry choice. Awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary and Hennessy New Writer of the Year.

Operas include Paper Boata commissioned from Irish National Opera and Music for Galway, and The Wanderer, commissioned by Irish Modern Dance Theatre. Residencies include Yeats Society Sligo, Seamus Heaney Home Place and the DLR LexIcon. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

JessicaTraynor IMG 3749 portrait 1 scaled

Visual Arts:

  • What: Waterford Walls tours
  • Where: Various locations in the city centre
  • When: 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and 3.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.

Waterford Walls began as a grassroots community-focused festival in 2015 after the financial crisis when Waterford was still reeling from the economic crash. Businesses remained closed, unemployment was high and empty shopfronts and derelict building facades dominated the cityscape. With a supportive hand from Waterford Council, the festival team set out to enhance and regenerate forlorn buildings and facades with large scale mural art, and to bring some joy, colour and life back into the city.

Jump forward seven years and Waterford Walls has professionalised and become a major annual event on the international street art scene, with artists from all five continents bringing their talents to bear on our city in 2022. The city collection now stands at over 150 murals, and through the Mentoring Programme, Waterford Walls has been working to train in the next generation of artists. Community impacts remain at the heart of the festival’s work, and this year for the first time a Festival Hub at the company’s HQ at the Forum connected the community and artists with jam walls, music and live entertainment, creating togetherness and emanating good festival vibes.

In the streets of the inner city festival and Ballybeg, art united the community again with neighbours coming out of their houses to chat to each other, and artists welcomed with cakes and cups of tea. The legacy of the festival and the murals surpass the 10 days in August. The artworks and their meanings continue to be a part of the daily lives of the locals and enhance their sense of community price. People vary their route to work specifically to view the new murals. A new wave of young artists and innovators will be inspired to follow in the footsteps of the artists and fulfill their own passions.

Waterford Walls 1

Heritage and history:

What: The Bonnet Project Exhibition—Waterford Women’s Centre

Where: The Granville Hotel

When: 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The Bonnet Project combines community education programmes and local history to enable participants to be part of an international art project “Roses from the Heart”.

The Bonnet Project is funded by the Waterford/Wexford Education and Training Board and delivered by the Waterford Women’s Centre.

The Roses from the Heart Project is an international project, remembering 25,566 women who were sentenced to transportation as convicts from Ireland and UK to Australia and Tasmania (formerly named Van Diemen’s Land) between 1788 and 1853.

Approximately 300 of the women were from Waterford. The story of these women is important not just because of its historic relevance but also because it was deliberately obscured from history. Roses from the Heart founder, Christina Henri chose a cloth bonnet, taken from an original 1860s servant’s bonnet, to name and remember each of the women who were forgotten.

The Waterford Women’s Centre identified with the story of the women convicts and the universal social injustice committed by the treatment they received. The Women’s Centre mission is to challenge barriers to facilitate women to participate at all levels of civil society. These convict women experienced multiple barriers, and many were transported simply for being poor. However, when given opportunities in Tasmania or Australia, many flourished and contributed to the growth of these emerging nations.

The exhibition of the Bonnets and the process of making the bonnets is a wonderful exercise in shifting perspectives and highlighting the experience of these impoverished women through the eyes of women today. Along with practical skills, the Bonnet Project facilitates discussion and analysis of history, gender and class through discovering the life stories of these women. The focus of the project, from inception, has been remembering and keeping to the forefront of Irish society memory of these wronged forgotten women.

The Bonnet Project

Literature:

  • What: Manderley Press reprint (Fatti Burke & Megan Nolan) Book Launch
  • Where: Waterford Gallery of Art
  • When: 1 p.m.

The Fly on the Wheel was written by re-discovered Irish author Katherine Cecil Thurston, and published three years before she died, aged 36 (very possibly murdered by her fiancé who got her to change her will before she died, and then drugged her with laudanum).  

The Fly on the Wheel was written in her summer house in Ardmore (which still exists today) and is partly set in the Irish town of Waterford—where Megan Nolan and the book’s illustrator Fatti Burke were also both born and grew up.

It became an instant bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic when it was first published in 1908.  

The book is a moving story of illicit love set in turn-of-the-century Ireland with an ending that is resonant of Anna Karenina, and is just as gripping, relevant and heart-breaking today as it was when it was first published. It also offers plenty to ruminate on in terms of women’s rights, toxic relationships, opportunities and options—or lack thereof—in 19th-century society.  

A highlight of the festival, join Megan Nolan, Fatti Burke, Rebeka Russell and Eimear Cheasty to discuss the re-issue of this book whose roots are firmly set in Waterford.

MP TheFlyonTheWheel Cover

Visual Arts:

  • What: Life Drawing Workshop with Una Sealy
  • Where: Waterford Gallery of Art
  • When: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

In this workshop, Una Sealy will lead the participants, step by step, through the elements of drawing the figure, from basic anatomy, structures and composition.

Una will demonstrate the principles of how to start a drawing by using gesture, negative space, gravity lines and measuring. The participants will follow this process, with individual guidance. The workshop is suitable for all levels, but some life drawing experience will be helpful.

Una Sealy image

Literature:

  • What: Aingeala Flannery
  • Where: Waterford Gallery of Art
  • When: 3 p.m.

Join Aingeala and festival curator Eimear Cheasty as they discuss her acclaimed debut The Amusements.

Aingeala Flannery is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist. She has completed an MFA in Creative Writing at University College Dublin.

Her short story ‘Visiting Hours’ was the winner of the 2019 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition. In 2020, she was awarded a literary bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland, and her work has appeared in The Bath Anthology and been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One.

She lives in Dublin. The Amusements is her first book.

aingeala flannery credit Brid ODonovan scaled

Literature:

  • What: Waterford Whispers News Book Launch
  • Where: The Book Centre
  • When: 4 p.m.

Coinciding with the new Waterford Whispers News book launch, the landlord everyone loves to hate: Bill Badbody brings his new TED talk on the ups and downs of a landlord in Ireland in 2022.

WWN Live 1

Music:

  • What: Concert: John Palmer, Celebrating 35 Years
  • Where: St. Patrick’s Gateway
  • When: 7 p.m.

35 years ago, John Palmer started supplying musical instruments, equipment and advice to the people of Waterford, and he’s still smiling. John’s celebrating this milestone by hosting a night of music and fun at St. Patrick’s Gateway. There will be surprise performances by friends, family, colleagues and customers with a lot of musical talent on display, and endless respect for a local hero and friend of the arts.

John Palmer banner

Music:

  • What: South! Always South—Ernest Shackleton Story
  • Where: Christ Church Cathedral
  • When: 7.30 p.m.

This concert celebrates the death, 100 years ago, of the explorer Ernest Shackleton.

A native of Kilkea, County Kildare, Shackleton led the Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition on board the ship ‘Endurance’ in 1914. The ship was trapped by ice-floes in the Weddell Sea and sank.

Suddenly, what started as a great Antarctic adventure turned into a dramatic 18-month rescue mission, forever cementing Shackleton’s reputation as an exceptional leader.

Fellow Kildare native Brian Hughes composed the music. In addition, he plays uilleann pipes and whistles, accompanied by the County Kildare Orchestra (conductor Lorcan Daly).

The narration, written and performed by John MacKenna, another County Kildare man, introduces the eight movements depicting different aspects of the voyage. Dramatic original photos set the atmosphere. The fusion of uilleann pipes and whistles with the full range of orchestral instruments produces a breath-taking and evocative evening of music.

Publicity Slide Imagine landscape brochure 1
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