Apr
25
Posted by Paul Malone
info@newrytimes.com
Friday, April 25th, 2014
Community
The theatre in the Ti Chulainn Cultural Centre was the setting recently for a cultural evening involving St. Mary’s Primary School, An Mullach Ban, Cuimhneamh and visitors from Galicia, Bilbao and Valencia.
The occasion was the launch of two films which were the work of Xela Cunarro Otero, a Comenius student from the town of Cangas in Galicia.
She has been working with the children and staff of St. Mary’s Primary School and the local community since last October on two pieces of literature -‘Adios rios, adios fontes’(‘Goodbye rivers, goodbye springs’) by the Galician poet, Rosalie de Castro, and ‘Fugitive’, a short story by Michael J. Murphy.
Both pieces deal with emigration,which is a common curse in both South Armagh and Galicia.
There was a large attendance, including parents, children, staff, community representatives, the Mayor of Newry and Mourne, Cuimhneamh chairperson councillor Anthony Flynn, the Irish Officer of Newry and Mourne Council and people from the general South Armagh area.
Xela was joined by her aunt Maria Otero Rodriguez (who flew in from Galicia for the event) and her friends Karmele Pereda Abad from Bilbao and Lorena Rivera Leon from Valencia.
After the launch, where proceedings were chaired by Ciara Crawley of St. Mary’s, everyone was treated to some traditional Irish and Galician cuisine.
This is a very important cultural link where three languages are used; Galician, Irish and English and it is essential that the young people of South Armagh will have further opportunities to learn from other cultures and to identify with their own ‘sense of place’.
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