Through this unique programme, glór aims to support professional artists – a key strategy in its development as an arts centre – in fostering and nurturing creativity; to encourage connections between artists, audiences and communities throughout Clare, and to facilitate the creation of new work inspired by Clare’s unique culture and landscape.
Initiated in 2017 to develop meaningful ongoing relationships and support for a series of artists, glór’s current Associate Artists are composer/musician Dave Flynn, musician/theatre maker Catherine Ireton, and playwright/performer Jacinta Sheerin.
Generally these partnerships last for approximately 2 years, and artists are selected and invited by glór based on their merit, their fit with glór and our ability to support them. glór provides support through providing research and development time and resources, opportunities to present their work at glór, space to plan, meet and develop ideas, and mentorship. In exchange, the artists bring creativity, ideas and their expertise to glór.
See more information about our current Associate Artists below:
Dave Flynn
Dave Flynn has been described as a ‘Genre-Jumping Genius’ (Tradreview.com) and praised in the New York Times for the ‘power and grittiness’ of his music. This multi-award winning composer ‘occupies a unique place in the world of music.’ (Martin Hayes – The Gloaming)
Flynn has redefined the possibilities of orchestral music by creating the cross genre Irish Memory Orchestra, who are the only orchestra in the Western world to perform exclusively by memory. In 2017 Dave marked his 40th birthday year with events around the world including a tour of Japan, the premiere of his Memory Symphony by the Irish Memory Orchestra in Dublin, the release of Genre Jumping on Frisbee Records, and Mel Bay publishing his complete works for guitar. Flynn’s music has been performed in prestigious venues including MoMa, (New York), Moscow Cathedral and Ireland’s National Concert Hall. His compositions have been performed by ensembles including the Prague Chamber Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, New Juilliard Ensemble, Smith Quartet, Vanbrugh Quartet, RTÉ Contempo Quartet, Dublin Guitar Quartet and RTÉ Concert Orchestra. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2016 Eamonn Ceannt Commission, 2004 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Composers’ Award, the 2002 IMRO/Feis Ceoil Composition Award and multiple grants from the Arts Council of Ireland and Culture Ireland. In October 2018 Dave Flynn presented two new compositions written as part of his development with glór, which were premiered at glór with The Irish Memory Orchestra. His music is regularly featured by broadcasters including RTÉ Lyric FM’s Carl Corcoran and WNYC’s John Schaefer, who dedicated a special edition of New Sounds to Flynn’s work in 2009. He has a distinguished career as a music academic, holding a PhD from the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama for his much cited thesis Traditional Irish Music: A Path to New Music, (2011). His writings have been published by The Journal of Music and Na Piobairí Uilleann.
Catherine Ireton
Catherine Ireton specialises in creating a type of intimate theatre that has music, song and stories at its heart. She creates work for site specific locations such as hairdressers and railway stations and has performed all over the UK and Ireland as well as commissions and productions in Seoul, Hong Kong, Macau and Shanghai.
She has recorded seven albums and EPs working with musical collaborators such as with Belle and Sebastian, God Help the Girl and Go Away Birds. Catherine’s work is produced by Farnham Maltings and in July 2017 she performed In Good Hands at a hair salon in Ennis, in partnership with glór and the Ennis Street Arts Festival, and in October she presented For all the fires not yet lit at glór as part of an Irish tour. She is currently working on a new project as part of her Association with glór called The Shape of a Walk.
Jacinta Sheerin
Ennistymon based Jacinta Sheerin started treading the boards as an aspiring young actress in Dublin Youth Theatre and went on to study Theatre Studies at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. She has also completed a course in drama facilitation with Artstrain, and an MA in Dramatherapy at NUI Maynooth. In 2007, Jacinta co- founded the company Wicked Angels and went on to co-write, co-produce and act in the box office hit Waiting for IKEA for the Dublin Fringe Festival. The play went on to tour Ireland and the UK for the next five years, premiering in the First Irish Theatre Festival in New York. I’m not A.D.H.D, I’m B.O.L.D!, co- written by Jacinta, won the Bewley’s Little Gem Award. Jacinta has also worked with TEAM theatre and the REEL DEAL Programme, acting in a forum theatre piece that has toured and continues to tour schools around the country bringing the importance of sexual health to third year and transition year students. She has worked as a Facilitator and Dramatherapist with various groups including young offenders, senior citizens, members of the travelling community and children with special needs, and was one of the artists who participated in glór’s Platforms initiative in April where she performed an excerpt from her work in progress – a play entitled Sweet About Me, inviting feedback from the audience in attendance. The premiere of Sweet About Me was presented at glór in March 2019, before embarking on a short national tour.