1. Carrick-on- Shannon Ireland CHERISHING OUR CULTURES Sunday, July 26th to Saturday, August 1st, 2015

2. Location

3. Leitrim Leitrim makes an asset of its peacefulness, beguiling visitors with tranquil landscapes and a slower pace of life. Located on Europe’s longest inland navigable waterway, this county is famous for cruising. It also has a great reputation for angling thanks to its pristine lakes and rivers. Friendly pubs with impromptu music sessions in lively riverside towns like Carrick-on-Shannon, Dromod and Kinlough complete the picture. Adrenaline junkies will enjoy windsurfing, white-water kayaking, archery and mountain biking in and around Lough Allen. And Leitrim’s tiny coastline boasts some of the West’s best surf breaks. If you’d prefer to get your fresh air in a more relaxed manner, what about a round of golf at Carrick-on-Shannon. The course offers spectacular views of the Boyle River and Drumharlow Lake. The 48km Sli Liatroma hiking trail is another great way to get a lungful of oxygen. Leitrim’s colourful history is also worth exploring. Parke’s Castle, the 17th Century manor house on the shores of Lough Gill, Drumkeerin Heritage Centre and the Kinlough Folk Museum help to paint a vivid picture of days gone by. The Costello Chapel, the smallest church in Europe, and Glencar Waterfall, which inspired Yeats’s poem ‘The Stolen Child’ should also be added to the must-see list. And if you reckon a festival could add sparkle to your break, check out An Tostal Festival. Expect a weekend of live trad music workshops. Meanwhile, Drumshambo’s Sliabh an Iarann Music and Arts Festival offers a mix of traditional and modern sounds, child-friendly fun and night-time madness.

4. Landmark Hotel

5. Accommodation

6. Carrick-on-Shannon Education Centre http://www.carrickedcentre.ie/ Carrick on Shannon Education Centre is located in Marymount. St. Brigid's or the Red Brick Building as it was familiarly known was built in 1940/1941 and was used as a Novitiate for the Marist Sisters. The Novitiate continued in Carrick on Shannon until 1975 when it was transferred to England. The Building was then used as an extension to Marymount Secondary School. The Building continued to be used for this purpose until 1994 when the Community School came into existence. It was acquired by the Department of Education for adoption as an Education Centre in 1996. Carrick on Shannon Education Centre serves the primary and post primary schools in Leitrim and Longford and a majority of the schools in Roscommon. The remainder of the Roscommon schools are served by Athlone Education Centre. The centre provides training, development and support for teachers and the wider school community.

7. Moon River Cruise

8. Cycling - Leitrim Village

9. Strokestown House Famine Museum The Great Irish famine of the 1840 ′ s is now regarded as the single greatest social disaster of 19th century Europe. Between 1845 and 1850, when blight devastated the potato crop, in excess of two million people – almost one-quarter of the entire population – either died or emigrated. The Famine Museum is located in the original Stable Yards of Strokestown Park House. It was designed to commemorate the history of the famine of Ireland and in some way to balance the history of the 'Big House'. Whereas the landlord class had the resources to leave an indelible mark on the landscape, the Irish tenants lived in poverty and nothing of a physical nature has survived to commemorate their lives. The Famine Museum uses the unique documents that were discovered in the estate office, dealing with the administration of the estate during the tenure of the Mahon family. This collection includes many haunting pleas from starving tenants on the estate and the response they received.

10. Corlea Trackway Interpretive Centre The centre interprets an Iron Age bog road that was built in the year 148 B.C. across the boglands of Longford, close to the River Shannon. The oak road is the largest of its kind to have been uncovered in Europe and was excavated by Professor Barry Raftery of University College Dublin. Inside the interpretive centre, an eighteen-metre stretch of the preserved trackway is on permanent display in a hall specially designed to preserve the ancient wooden structure. Bord na Móna and the Office of Public Works have carried out conservation work on the surrounding bog to ensure that it remains wet and that the buried road remains preserved.

11. St. Mel’s Cathedral, Longford St. Mel’s Cathedral, Longford was burned down on Christmas Day, 2009. It is due to re-open for Christmas 2014

12. New Interior in St. Mel’s

13. Kilronan Castle

14. Lough Rynn Castle

15. William Butler Yeats Summer School Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

16. John McGahern Patrick Kavanagh ‘O stony grey soil of Monaghan You burgled my bank of youth!’ ‘Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.’

17. Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney is one of the world's best-known poets. His work also includes literary criticism and translation, and he held prestigious teaching positions in the UK and the USA throughout his lifetime. His poetry is uniquely popular, creating in the words of the Nobel Academy "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past".

18. Other Possibilities New Irish – Speaker African Irish – Speaker Irish Travellers – Speaker North-South Links (Post Good Friday) Other speakers lined up but not confirmed