A new hart connection and a lovely heart of gold
The Heart of Ireland team welcomed the Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation to Mullingar last week.
The committee also took delivery of the Heart of Gold Sculpture which will be given to the winner of the inaugural Heart of Ireland competition at the final on July 12.
Josephine Hart established her eponymous poetry foundation before her death in 2011.
One aspect of their work is to show children how to express themselves on paper, giving them a tool to deal with the stresses of everyday life.
Eleanor Carter is director of the Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation: “Wanting to show as much as possible of the greater Mullingar area to Eleanor on her first visit to Ireland, we headed straight from the airport to Belvedere, where we were dinner guests of Kevin Byrne at CaToCa Fine Food Restaurant,” said Maria Bourke, founder of the Heart of Ireland Festival.
The project in Mullingar is being run in collaboration with the Heart of Ireland’s charity partners, Good2Talk.
Eleanor visited four local schools on Tuesday and Wednesday, facilitating three poetry workshops with groups of four to five students in each.
In phase two students from the same schools will be given art themes, and the poetry and art will be collated into a book that will be launched as a fundraiser for Good2Talk during the Hi Festival in July.
Eleanor and the Hi Team, accompanied by storyteller Paul Timoney, also visited Mullingar Library to see the Tree of Modern Ireland (where Josephine Hart’s photo now hangs) and to discuss the plans for the book with county librarian, Paula O’Dornan.
The Heart of Ireland team offered thanks to those organised and co-ordinated the visits:
Presentation Senior School, principal, Michael Tunney, Ms Gately and Mrs Kirwan; Mullingar Community College, principal, Collette Dunning, Mary Hughes; Rochfortbridge Secondary School, principal Eileen Alford; CBS Secondary School, Georgina Hourican, TY co-ordinator.
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