Yarn Storytelling Festival returns for the 11th year!

Mermaid Arts Centre presents YARN Storytelling Festival Bray.

YARN brings together our community to share and hear stories.

These storytelling events normally take place throughout the town in classrooms, community groups, libraries, cafés and bars, in Mermaid itself and at lots of other venues.

Rather than cancel YARN Storytelling Festival Bray we have decided to extend it and run it online throughout the level 5 restrictions.

The festival programme includes the crème de la crème of Irish storytellers and international guests including Liz Weir, Jack Lynch, Daniel Morden, John Spillane, Mara Menzies and many more.

The festival stats on Halloween with two spooktacular Hallowe'en online storytelling events!

So put on those Hallowe'en costumes, light the fire, cut the barmbrack and join us for some storytelling magic!

Liz Weir presents Spooky Stories for Kids at 4pm (ages 3-7 years) and Daniel Morden presents Hallowe'en Tales at 7pm (ages 8 to adults). Tickets cost €5 per household and the events take place via Zoom.

There are 14 storytelling events in total taking place online over the coming few weeks and in addition to these events we are thrilled to launch our Portraits & Poetry exhibition virtually as part of YARN.

Portraits & Poetry Exhibition

During lockdown in spring/early summer Mermaid Arts Centre invited children from all over County Wicklow to submit pictures of and poems about their grandparents that they couldn’t get to see during this difficult period. As the pandemic continued, Paul Timoney, Mermaid’s Storyteller in Residence for 2020 (kindly supported by the Arts Council), facilitated a series of creativity workshops both in Mermaid Arts Centre and online with children in schools, encouraging them to express their feelings about special people or things they greatly missed or are still missing. All of these works are on display in Mermaid’s gallery but as that is closed currently to visitors, we have moved the entire exhibition online to our website.

YARN Storytelling Events

Kicking off on Saturday 31 October, there are 14 storytelling events in total. Spooky Tales with Liz Weir will kick off the festival at 4pm on Halloween, followed by Hallowe’en Tales with Welsh storytelling master Daniel Morden at 7pm.

On Sunday 8 November parents, grandparents and carers will have the opportunity to partake in a masterclass workshop with Liz Weir on how to tell stories to children. That evening we are thrilled to welcome First Nations storyteller Dovie Thomason to share some Native American stories. Dovie is Lakota/Kiowa Apache and it is one of the positive sides of having to move the festival online that we can share in her stories although she is many miles away.

Brian White from Bray Cualann Historical Society will present Bray 50 Years Ago via a Zoom webinar on Tuesday 12 November and Wicklow Libraries in Blessington are hosting tales with Liz Weir on Thursday 12 November.

We are also livestreaming events from the stage in Mermaid. On Friday 13th November we have Eamonn Cagney presenting Young Conall of Howth, along with Niwel Tsumbu and Darragh O’Kelly. On 14th November John Spillane will livestream his songs and stories straight into our living rooms. On Sunday 15th Philip Byrne will host a fun, participatory workshop using six word stories to ask “What Happened Next”?

Dublin storytelling master Jack Lynch will livestream The Green Hill Opened: A Punnet of Irish Folktales on Saturday 21 November and on Sunday 22 November Candlelit Tales and Fonsheen transport us away with their Storytelling and Soundbath Zoom performance.

The final weekend of YARN is jam packed with three great storytelling events – On Friday 27 November Senem Mohan Donaten takes us on a storytelling journey east with her Tales from the Orient. On Saturday Cork storyteller Paddy O’Brien offers his tales for the whole family entitled Ghosts, Geese and Global Warming and wrapping up the festival on Sunday 29 November we travel virtually across the water to Scotland where Kenyan born Scottish teller Mara Menzies has some storytelling magic in store.

All event details are on www.mermaidartscentre.ie

Full programme can be found here: Yarn Storytelling Festival