The Hills are Alive – Club Fifty

The Hills Are Alive! brings together Wexford Art Centre and The Duncairn (Belfast) to cultivate creativity and connect communities from Cave Hill to Vinegar Hill.  As part of the project, The Duncairn will presents Club Fifty in Wexford Arts Centre – an intimate music, arts and activism event for 50 guests to come together and discuss pressing and current themes. This edition will take inspiration from the current exhibition in Wexford Arts Centre, Memory of a Free Festival, and features guest speakers John Barry and Mary Reynolds alongside musical and poetry interludes by The Duncairn Creative Collective with very special Wexford artists:  Sammy Copley | Brendan Kerr & Ciara Maguire | Deirdre Kelly | Rúa | Basciville | The Ocelots | Stephen James Smith  Book now!BIOGRAPHIES Guest Speakers John Barry is a father, a recovering politician, Professor of Green Political Economy at Queens University Belfast. He is also co-chair of the Belfast Climate Commission. What keeps him awake at night is the life opportunities and future wellbeing of his children in this age of the planetary crisis and why it is easier for most people to believe in the end of the world than the end of capitalism and economic growth. His areas of academic research include post-growth and heterodox political economy; the politics, policy and political economy of climate breakdown and climate resilience; socio-technical analyses of low carbon just energy and sustainability transitions; and the overlap between conflict transformation and these sustainability and energy transitions. His last book was The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate-Changed, Carbon-Constrained World (2012, Oxford University Press).Mary Reynolds is a reformed landscape designer who launched her career by winning a gold medal at the Chelsea flower show in London in 2002 – a story later told in the movie, “Dare to be Wild”. Ark landscape designer, bestselling author, activist, speaker, writer, columnist and occasional television presenter. She is the founder of the global movement “We are the ARK – Acts of Restorative Kindness to the Earth”.Artists From the Duncairn Creative CollectiveThe Duncairn Creative Collective The Creative Collective was born out of a desire to give young and emerging artists the opportunity to collaborate and create, to teach and learn from each other, to make new friends across different backgrounds and artforms, to encourage and support each other and to innovate and challenge themselves. Every February since 2022, 30+ young artists, musicians and singers gather from every corner of Ireland in the Duncairn, Belfast to collaborate, play, write, sing and sometimes laugh their way through a creative process that is peer-led and driven. Ciara Maguire + Brendan KerrCiara is a fiddle player and classical violinist from Castlewellan, Co. Down. After participatig in numerous fleadh cheoil Ciara joined the Comhaltas National Folk Orchestra and performed in Michael Rooney’s Osmos na n-Ultach. She has toured Europe with dance shows and Comhaltas tours, Macalla na hÉireann (2019), and Echoes of Erin (2020). Now based in Belfast, she is one of the most talented and popular teachers and performers on the fiddle in the city.Brendan Kerr is a multi-instrumentalist hailing from North Belfast. Starting out as an Irish dancer, competing up to world championship level, he turned to music in his late teens, picking up tin whistle, guitar and bodhrán along the way.In the process of recording his first album, Brendan’s influences flicker between lively trad, sad folk, and ambient instrumental music, weaving tin whistle and guitar throughout. In 2022 Brendan was a recipient of the prestigious Gradam Ceoil Bursary Award, allowing him to pursue his passion for traditional music. Since then, he has opened for the likes of Brian Finnegan, The Breath, and John SpillaneDeirdre Kelly Deirdre Anna Rose Kelly writes stories and sometimes reads them onstage. She is a member of the Duncairn Arts Centre’s Creative Collective and has had her work featured on BBC Radio Four's Short Works and BBC Radio Ulster's Tell Tales . She contributed a short comic to the 2025 anthology Low Intensity.  She is interested in the Irish language, and playing football very badly with Friendly St FC. Deirdre is from Letterkenny and is based in BelfastRuáRUÁ (Rebecca Mulhern) is a multi-instrumentalist and alternative-experimental folk artist from Derry, Northern Ireland. Known for her genre-bending sound, she blends traditional Irish textures, spoken word, and cinematic soundscapes Sammy Copley Sammy Copley is a singer-songwriter and aspiring cowboy from Dublin. With a sound inspired by the likes of John Denver and Joni Mitchell, his writing tackles themes of loss, queer identity, and growing up. He has released two EPs and a full-length album, and played sold-out shows in Dublin and London. Also a life-long theatre kid, Sammy completed a degree in Drama and Theatre Studies in 2024. He is especially interested in sound design and composition; he was nominated for best sound design at the 2023 ISDAs festival, for his work on Orbit.The OcelotsThe Ocelots are twin brothers Ashley and Brandon Watson from Wexford, now residing in Leipzig, Germany. Building on the folk-rock essence of their debut, the duo are excited to announce the release of their highly anticipated second album, Everything, When Said Slowly, set for February 2025. This album unveils a richer, more expansive sound, masterfully produced by long-time collaborators Cillian and Lorcan Byrne (Ailbhe Reddy, Susan O’Neill). The narrative woven throughout the album explores themes of Irish migration, the perception of time, love, and the simple joys of cycling.Basciville Basciville are acclaimed Irish indie-folk/rock duo from Wexford, made up of brothers Cillian and Lorcan Byrne. Beyond their solo releases, Basciville have also worked as writers, producers and collaborators with notable Irish artists and bands, including Susan O’Neill, The Ocelots, Stephan James Smith and Colm Mac Con Iomaire, and are known for their dynamic live performances across Ireland and Europe.Stephen James Smith  Stephen James Smith, born in Dublin, is an Irish poet, writer, performer, playwright, and educator, living in Wexford. Their short poetry films have captivated millions, earning them the opportunity to perform alongside notable names like Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), Patti Smith, Bono (U2), Imelda May, and Glen Hansard. With close to 1,000 gigs worldwide over the past 20 years in locations from Ballydehob to Bangkok, and significant performances at venues like Glastonbury, the Radio City Music Hall, and the Nuyorican Poetry Café (New York), the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris), and the Barbican and Palladium (London)