Kinvara: A Spirit of Place
Series: Worlds of Difference
From: Homelands Productions
Length: 00:10:36
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Piece Description
For much of the 20th century, the town of Kinvara, on Ireland's west coast, was rich in charm but poor in just about everything else. Then the Celtic Tiger awoke. Today, Ireland is one of the richest countries in the world, and Kinvara is crawling with developers and speculators. As Frank Browning discovers, the boom has forced the townsfolk to ask tough questions about where they want their community to go.
Broadcast History
Aired 12/04/04 on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday
Timing and Cues
INTRO: As late as the 1980s, many of Ireland's high school graduates had to emigrate in order to survive.
Today, the Emerald Isle ranks among the 10 richest countries in the world, and towns like Kinvara, on Galway Bay, are booming.
Prosperity has brought a new set of challenges. But as Frank Browning reports, a resurgence of the region?s traditional music is a sign of the townsfolk?s efforts to carry the past with them into the future.
OUTRO: That piece was produced by Frank Browning for Homelands Productions. It is part of the Worlds of Difference series on global cultural change.
Related Website
John Biewen
Posted on August 20, 2006 at 08:27 AM | Permalink
Review of Kinvara: A Spirit of Place
What's not to like? It's an important and almost universal story: a community with a rich past wrestles with how to choose its future in the face of new wealth and development. The story is told in the beautifully-recorded voices of Irish villagers and through Frank Brownings always smart and engaging writing. For all its familiarity in the abstract, this story is filled with details and twists that make it absolutely fresh: the woman with the thatched-roof cottage, the fiddle music, the Persian Jewish "blow-in" violin maker. A town faced with the choice of becoming a "dormitory town" or a "Disneyland of Irishness" instead chooses music. A lovely story, musically told. Highly recommended.