Culture Night at Strokestown Park 2023

On Friday, 22^nd September we will celebrate the culture of Ukraine and Ireland through art, music, and food.

Our Ukrainian and Irish volunteers will be serving up traditional home-baked treats in our beautiful Vaulted Stables Event Space.

The center-piece of the event will be the opening of an exhibition of paintings created by our Strokestown Park, Artist in Residence, Olena Kovalevych. Olena works in the traditional Petrykivka painting style of her native province of Dnipropetrovsk in Eastern Ukraine. She will also exhibit work from students who attended her workshops during the summer and a piece she has specially created for Culture Night for Strokestown Women’s Shed. To find out more about Olena and her art here.

Musical entertainment will be provided by both Irish and Ukrainian traditional musicians. Musicians will include Timur Selimshah, a Crimean-Tatarian folk singer, whose traditional style of music is rarely heard outside of the Crimean Peninsula. He will be joined by Kateryna Babarik who will be performing popular Ukrainian songs. Irish music will be performed by Joanna Sweeney on whistle, bodhran and singing, Gerry Harrington on fiddle and Liam Stapleton on pipes and flute. This is an open session, so you’re welcome to bring along your instrument and lend your singing voice to the night.

Finally in the former grain store above the Stables, we have fittingly installed a panel exhibition from the Ukrainian Embassy, focusing on the Holodomor. The Holodomor was a man-made famine endured by the Ukrainian people in the early 1930s. Alongside this exhibition will be artistic pieces reflecting on the Holodomor created by Olena Kovalevych and Alia Shadrova.

This is a free event, suitable for all ages. 7 pm to 9 pm. Vaulted Stables and Stable Courtyard,Strokestown Park House. No booking is necessary.

The full culture night schedule for Roscommon is available here

Strokestown Park Artist in Residence Programme 2023 is supported by the Roscommon County Council Creative Ireland Programme, an all-of-government five-year initiative, from 2017 to 2022, which places creativity at the centre of public policy.

Our Culture Night event has received support from the Arts Council through Roscommon Co Co, Arts Office.