Peter Costello
The poet Fr Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, from a contemporary photograph, from the Victorian Web. The Gerard Manley Hopkins International Festival, at Newbridge, Co. Kildare, will be opened tomorrow evening (Friday, July 24) at 7.30pm in the theatre of Newbridge College by His Excellency David Gill, the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany.
As Hopkins is one of the most important literary figures in late Victorian times, the festival has a large area of literature and culture as its domain.
The events will run through the weekend and into next week. Remarkably, this will be the 38th edition of the festival founded and still organised by the eminent Athlone-born poet and critic Desmond Egan. He and his network of friends, neighbours and supporters here and abroad deserve immense credit for this generational achievement. They have kept going when other literary festivals have faded.
Also on show will be the Group Art Exhibition, again an annual event of the festival which features a great many talents both mature and emerging.
Special
But for many people one of the really special events will be the appearance of Barry McGovern in “A Samuel Beckett Hour”, to be presented in O’Rourkes Lounge on the Main Street of Newbridge. McGovern is one of the select few Irish interpreters of Beckett’s often bleak visions who have enjoyed international success both onstage, in film and television.
The full programme of lectures, presentations and excursions can be found online at the Festival site. The interest of the festival has always been wide: poetry, of course, but also debate and conversation. In recent years Desmond Egan has been keen to emphasise an idea of “the happy Hopkins”, in contrast to the doomed and agonised view of the poet that prevails in the minds of many. He tries to recall us to the idea of a Hopkins saved by grace.
The importance of the Hopkins Festival is that it unites both poetry and religion, art and philosophy – subjects in which both Newman and Hopkins were deeply engaged”
The association of Hopkins with St John Henry Newman through the old University College on St Stephen’s Green beside the much admired University Church, which Newman inspired, and which Joyce and many other important figures in the first thirty years of the 20th century in Ireland.
(We should bear in mind, too, that the Catholic University School in Leeson Street, Dublin, belongs also to Newman’s days – another long-lived institution carrying on his good work in education.)
The annual concert performance by Hans Pålsson, the preeminent pianist from Sweden, is also looked forward to with great anticipation. But there are also to be presentations on Desmond Egan’s own poetry. All together then a very full programme, which also finds room for creative writing classes and a youth group.
Importance
The importance of the Hopkins Festival is that it unites both poetry and religion, art and philosophy – subjects in which both Newman and Hopkins were deeply engaged. It is both the variety and the depth of what is covered that brings students and academics from not just America but Asia, Africa, and the Antipodes. The enjoyment of one year brings people back year after year. It is always a deep breath of fresh Irish air, giving poetry a relevance to the present day which is important.
Festival tickets can be booked through Eventbrite; additional information on all aspects of the festival from abbottviv@gmail.com.