Athy invited to share Dreamland memories
The famous Dreamland Ballroom Athy has been the venue for many memories for the people of Kildare
THE PEOPLE of Athy are being invited to share their memories from yesteryear of the Dreamland Ballroom as part of an upcoming community art project.
Athy’s artist in residence Ali Clarke, who runs Art House Athy on Leinster Street, is developing a project around memories of the iconic venue on the Kilkenny Road which once played host to the likes of Johnny Cash and Thin Lizzy.
The artist is collecting stories from locals and others connected with venue who have memories that they would be interested in sharing.
Ali told the Kildare Nationalist that the aim “is to capture the histories, like the individual personal histories of Dreamland. I think there's a lot of stories there. There's a lot of extremely meaningful experiences there that like it'd be great to have them captured to be able to share with kind of either people coming into Athy who haven't lived there in the past or you know the young people in the future who will have that kind of ghost of dreamland there”.
Ali intends on collecting the stories into a publication including photos from Dreamland’s heyday as well as posters. Inspiration for the project came from locals Sinéad Hearns, Carmel Day and Colm Walsh, who was behind the Made of Athy project.
Ali plans to involve as many people as possible - including young musicians, with the help of Carmel.
There will be open evenings every Tuesday between 6 and 7.30pm “where people can come in, have a cup of tea, share their story, or just sit and listen, sit and be around with me. And then we'll do a big closing event, yet to be seen what it will be, but it will be the 4th of July.
The artist has also issued a call out to local artists to submit artworks related to dreamland.
Those with memories that they’d like to share can drop into Art House between 10am and 1pm any weekday or contact the Art House through its Facebook page or WhatsApp at 085 867 9369.
