Imagine arts festival aims to transform Waterford city

An industrial school and a Magdalene laundry in Waterford city, and the people who lived in them, will be commemorated in word and performance as part of this year’s Imagine Arts Festival next month.

Details of the 15th Imagine event which takes place from October 20th to 30th were announced at Waterford City Hall.

Festival director Ollie Breslin said the streets and venues would be transformed “by a creative collision of the arts”.

The programme was launched by broadcaster and writer Manchán Magan who described it as “a roll-call of the best of what Ireland is becoming – a socially inclusive, outward-looking society, keen to learn about local heritage and nature, to widen our horizons towards an international future and to let our hair down and party from time to time”.

Organisers said Waterford’s main industrial school and the Magdalene laundry would be “potently commemorated by the Waterford Memories Project through performance, talks and first-person accounts”.

A morning hootenanny on Waterford’s quays will explore the city’s maritime labour and social history.

Highlights include a new opera, The Green One, by Eric Sweeney and Mark Roper; US band Richmond Fontaine; a 1916 traditional music concert; and the unveiling of a visual art exhibition curated by artist Colin Martin.