Ledwidge Day celebrations see change of venue this year

Slane"s annual 'Ledwidge Day" celebrations, which take place this year in Townley Hall on Sunday 31st August, promises to be a wonderful afternoon of poetry, music, song and drama. 'Robin in Townley Hall" is the theme of Ledwidge Day, which has a new venue and date this year. Traditionally, the Ledwidge Day celebrations took place in the grounds of the cottage at Janeville, Slane, where the poet Francis Ledwidge grew up, but rain proved a problem on many an occasion and it was decided to move venue this year. The commemoration takes place this year in the magnificent Georgian mansion of Townley Hall, which is situated on the Slane road close to the Battle of the Boyne site and the recently-opened Oldbridge House. It is being held as part of Heritage Week 2008 - the theme of which is 'Yesterday"s Tomorrow Today." 'What better venue in which to celebrate the work of one of Ireland"s finest poets than this 200-year-old Francis Johnston architectural masterpiece,' says Rosemary Yore of the Slane Ledwidge Committee. The title of the event, 'Robin in Townley Hall", is taken from one of Ledwidge"s early poems. The event begins at 3pm and will celebrate the poet"s life in drama, poetry and song. Susan McKay, renowned author and journalist, whose most recent book 'Bear In Mind These Dead" was published this summer by Faber & Faber, will be the special guest on the day. Other guests include the tenor, David Eager, The McDonagh Sisters, Ruairi Gough, Frances Mulley, Paul and Aebh Kelly, Anne Marie Tully, Avril Molloy, Kevin Barry and Angela Powderly. There will also be a dramatisation of the life of Ledwidge through his poetry and letters. There will be refreshments for everyone at the end of the evening with a glass of wine, tea/coffee and cakes. 'What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon in this dreary summer weather than to relax in the opulence of this wonderful house and be entertained by a host of excellent performers,' said Ms Yore. Tickets are available at the museum or you can pay at the door and there of plenty of parking spaces available. Ledwidge Day is organised by the Ledwidge Museum Committee, who has been running the Ledwidge Museum in the poet"s old home at Janeville for many years. The committee has plans to develop the museum by converting the adjoining cottage into a reception area and audio visual centre and restoring the cottage - the poet"s birthplace - to it"s original state when Ledwidge lived there. Meath County Council, the owners of the adjoining cottage, is in the process of transferring it to the Museum Committee and a fund of €170,000 has been set aside for the work with the money coming from Meath County Council under the Community Grants Scheme. Negoitiations are also currently taking place with a view to securing parking facilities as no development can take place without it. The museum is an important tourist attraction and the poet is growing in popularity all the time. In recent times, David Hone R.H.A. donated original Ledwidge letters written by the poet to the publishers Maunsel & Co. Original poems have also been received from the relatives of Molly Carter - the little girl whom Ledwidge and his friend Bob Christie befriended whilst stationed in Basingstoke. Rosemary Yore points out that Ledwidge and Slane deserve this development and she hoped that those in the position to make it happen would do so. The Ledwidge Cottage is a perfect example of a 19th-Century farm labourer"s cottage and was purchased and restored by the Francis Ledwidge Museum Committee in 1981. The Museum is open seven days a week from 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 5.30pm. Tours can be booked in advance and there are special rates for schools and teachers. The cottage"s tour guide may seem familiar but it is actually comedienne Deirdre O"Kane"s sister Eimear who enlightens guests" understanding of Ledwidge"s life. Francis Ledwidge was the eighth of nine children born to Patrick and Anne Ledwidge on 19th August 1887. He was the first child born in the family"s new home, a labourers cottage just outside the village. The fledgling poet knew hardship at an early age as his father died when he was just four-years-old and only three months after the birth of his youngest brother Joseph. Further tragedy was to befall the Ledwidge family when the eldest son Patrick returned from his bookkeeping job in Dublin with tuberculosis and died four years later. Despite the initial hardship, his literary talents flourished from an early age. Described as an 'erratic genius' by his schoolmaster, Mr Thomas Madden, Francis joined a literary society for juveniles and his first poem of note came when Francis was aged fifteen. When he left school, the young poet went to work as a grocer"s apprentice in Rathfarnham, hated his time there, and after just a week, he stole away in the middle of the night and walked the 35 miles home to Slane. He then undertook a variety of jobs in the Slane area, including farmhand, roadworker and miner. He continued to write poetry and had many of his poems published in local newspapers. He acquired a patron in the form of a local aristocrat, Lord Dunsany, who ensured that the poetry of Ledwidge would find a wider audience as his poems began to be published in the literary magazine Saturday Review. Dunsany also facilitated the introduction of the young poet to the Irish literary circle which included AE (George Russell), Thomas MacDonagh, Katherine Tynan and James Stephens amongst others. The poet was also a keen political activist. While employed in Beauparc copper mines Frank, organised a strike for tolerable working conditions. He was a founder member of the Slane branch of the Meath Labour Union and held the position of the General Secretary of the Meath Labour Union Approved Society for a year. However, when war broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Inniskillen Fusiliers at Richmond Barracks in Dublin and his first introduction to the war was at Gallipoli. He also served in Serbia but died on 31st July 1917 at Boezinghe, northwest of Ieper (now Ypres), in Belgium.