MythFest: Children of Lir

This June saw the arrival of Trinity College Dublin's first Irish Mythology Festival, aptly named 'MythFest'.
I was so excited to be part of this festival after the fabulous time I had acting in last years Shakespeare Festival.
Originally, I wanted to direct a completely movement-based/art piece using the theme of fariries and the tale of 'Children of Lir' combined.
However, I had the brilliant assistance of Alex Christle and stage management skills of Jack O'Donoghue to help me make 'Children of Lir' into our own little piece of outdoor drama and movement.
As with the majority of student theatre productions, the budget is usually low or non-existent. Although this can obviously limit our ability to make our production how we want it to be, it also forced me and the others to think more creatively about sourcing costume or prop pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Many of the costumes were sourced from the basement in Player's Theatre (thanks Ellen!) and from our amazing cast members! We were telling the mythical Irish story of four children who are changed into swans by their stepmother, therefore, our costumes and set pieces had to transform.

 

 

 

 

Sea of Moyle

Transformation into Swans

 Fabric was the name of the game for us. The children change into swans so wings were needed, which came in the form of gauze drapes! Their white costumes doubled as their swan outfits and their wings lay on their backs as cloaks for the majority of the piece. The fabulous flower crowns worn by the cast were made by Alex and they completed the mythical look.

Beautiful Cast - Grainne, Ellie, Alice, Sean, Emily, Hazel, Grace, Matti, and Kat

 The three faery storytellers wore dresses in block colours to contrast with the black and white look of the swans and the earthy green tones of Lir and Aoifa their stepmother. The faeires used their 'magic' fabric and gauze along with wider sheets to create the atmosphere of the show and highlight the movement. We like to improvise!
Lir's jacket was painted by myself with celtic designs and he wore some fantastic velvet trousers provided by Players. Aoifa's dress was provided by the wonderful Emily herself. 

 

All in all I had a fantastic time creating this piece of theatre and loved working with all these amazing people. 

Proud Directors with Cast

Roots Festival '14

 Ah Kilkenny.
Home of Ms Alex Christle and the Kilkenny Rhythm and Roots Festival.

Since we have spoken incessantly about last years experience, we naturally made it down for this years event. Unfortunately, our lost companion Marie was not in attendance but we drank to her and the amazing work she was doing in South America teaching Shakespeare to young adults.

Although, we only spent a whole day at the festival, costume changes were needed.
By day, we rocked a decidedly more light/blue/white theme. Lots of pattern was on show with my top and polka-dot skirt from Penneys and Alex's fabulous Forever21 jumpsuit.



 Myself, Alex and Aidan attended 'My Darling Clementine's gig at 3pm after dolling ourselves up. The chemistry between the couple was fantastic with little jabs being thrown at each other every so often! Their music may have been too honky-tonky country western for me but it was an enjoyable experience!

My Darling Clementine

Medieval gig surroundings

Belle wants to drive

Belle's BFF

 After the 'My Darling Clementine' gig we headed back for some dinner and to get ready for the night of grooving ahead.
Our clothes took more of a nighttime tone with black being our colour coupled with some colour pops in the form of Alex's denim high-waisted shorts and the red with white polka-dot shorts that I borrowed from Alex. Add little bags to the equation and we were ready to rock and roll or really rhythm and roots!
 We sipped some Smithicks, partied in some pubs, and bopped to some bands!
 

The Eskies - fantastic performance!

Funky Foot Fashion

Whiskey and orange in Marie's honour

All in all, a great time was had this year. Although, we didn't have another rock'n'roll encounter, the craic was mighty in Kilkenny.

Roll on Roots'15!

The Clash

Exams are over and summer is here! And what better a time to go crazy with your style. 

A big thing in the world of fashion seems to be what 'goes' with what. I reject this and love clashing patterns together. It always kind of works...kind of...

If that's a bit too much, try mixing a really bright or crazily decorated garment with a plainer, neutral piece. Even wearing the same overall colour can look good when you mix up the textures of the separate elements of your look. 

I am off to the Kilkenny Rhythm and Roots festival again this year with Alex and shall have some posts up about it very soon! 

Easter Time

Of course what better time to revive my blog than to start posting again during exam season...

During the last couple of days over the Easter weekend printed trousers have definitely been the highlight of my colourful looks. Sure when else can you get away with flowery pants and a bright yellow blouse other than Easter?

My mother and I braved the shops on Easter Saturday and I picked up a very lovely summer fedora hat. Due to my big head, I got this beauty in the men's section of Penneys. But it can be quite handy getting a bigger size anyway as your hat hair will be minimised and less crushed during the summer months. This shall definitely work during Electric Picnic (woo!) as anything to conceal three days of unwashed hair is a good thing.
My shopping clothes consisted of my shiny patterned pants from Penneys, leather jacket from America, yellow jumper and white shirt, presumably also from Penneys. I'm very predictable when it comes to brands sometimes...
Also got new stronger lenses in my glasses which is the reason for my weird-I'm-slightly-dizzy facial expression.

Easter Sunday. A time of religious festivities and chocolate.

On account of this joyous day, curls were in order for my hair. You know it's going to be a splendid day when you do something with your hair. Trust me, this is coming from this messy mane.
I felt my flowery pants and yellow blouse perfectly went with the cutsie nature of spring time and my Nanny said that I looked 'cute'. Mission accomplished.

Naturally, your household decorations must be in the spirit of your dress sense and these adorable eggs and Milka chocolate bunnies provided a lovely element of colour to our house. Also throw in my chocolate and orange cake and it's fair to say we had a great Easter time.

A Midsummer Night's Costumes

In light of the upcoming summer festival season, I have decided to post this long over-due piece on our 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' costumes from last years Trinity Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Molly O'Cathain and Stage Manged by Sophie Cairns, the festival took place at the start of June, 2013.

All the cutie cast - Conor, Aoife, James, Jack, Colm, Ellie, Colm, Honi, Kate, Alex, Mollie, and Sean

Our costume designer was the excellent Emily Collins, who I had the pleasure of working with also on our recent second year show The Machinewreckers. Among Emily's and the cast's clothes, a colourful collection arose that was the perfect look for our show to tour around primary schools.

The Fairies - Honi, Colm, Mollie, Kate, and Alex

The fairies were especially cool in my mind (not biased at all) as we had wings! Although we look sugary sweet, I loved the funky undertones in our dark dresses like in Queen Titania's (Mollie's) gothic goddess dress.                                                                                                                                                     The Peter Pan-like look of Puck

Puck - Honi 

Fairy Girlos - Alex, Mollie, and Kate

had the sense of taking  a modern look and using the simple but effective idea of the fairy wings to bring this magical world to an audience.

The Lovers - Ellie, Aoife, Conor, and Colm 

The Lovers were typical stereotypes of the awkward teen years. Hermia, The Princess and Helena, The Geek were said to portray Shakespeare's own daughters and they show how appearance was still very much an issue in the Elizabethan times. Let's face it, no girl wants to be 'ugly like a bear' or to be called an acorn! The boys showed the battle of Abercrombie Boy vs. Rocker/TooCoolForSchool Guy, often with explosive consequences.

The Mechanicals were the builders in the bunch so our clothes consisted of lots of high-vis gear and flannel. As Alex and I were double-roling, a lot of hilarious and frantic costume-changing between scenes occurred...it was usually just me who fell over though.

Mechnicals - Jack, James, Alex, Kate, and Sean

James - the beautiful Thisbe

In the tragic play-within-the play 'Pyramus and Thisbe' performed by the Mechanicals at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jack (Bottom) and James (Flute) performed the two lovers.

This involved the beautiful transformation from worker Flute to terrific Thisbe.
This dress was definitely one of the fashion highlights of our production!

Sealing it with a Kiss - Jack and James

We also put on a production entitled 'Dirrty Midsummers' during the week which was enjoyed by all but found to be a truly harrowing experience...

'Parting is such sweet sorrow'
All in all we had a glorious time generally just having the craic with each other during rehearsals and travelling around bringing our own bit of silly Shakespeare to the masses.

Photos from Du Players 

Bits 'n' Bobs from the End of 2013

Hello all.

I am in fact alive. Contrary to evidence of neglect here...

To start off the new year I thought I'd give a little look back over outfits of mine that I particularly liked or ones that I forgot to post!

Cindy Crawford and Kurt Cobain 

 The '90s were certainly kept alive with my friend Honi's themed birthday party! It's tough finding a good excuse to dress up (or down really) as a grungey rocker with a preference for shooting himself in the head...luckily that was left out of the costume. Alex, as you can see was cutsie-ing it up as marvelous model Cindy. I like we made a hot couple.

What the Folk? 

Myself and the infamous Jack-Loobster-Looby decided to embark on becoming DJs. And no, we didn't stay up til all hours, cranking out deep house tunes in sweaty clubs...we decided instead to have our own radio slot as part of TrinityFM, cranking out folky classic ballads instead!

Happy Laugh-y DJs

Hopefully, we'll be back on air soon so keep your eyes (or ears rather) peeled to www.trinityfm.com or check out their Facebook page or ours: 'Second Hand Strings'.

Proud Family

It was indeed a proud moment when we accompanied my Dad when he graduated with his Masters degree from Trinity. It was also a good excuse to bring my vintage floral dress Om Diva out for the day too. Win-win situation all round. 

(Bant)ry Babes

As my Grandad hit a big birthday milestone, my whole mother's side of the family headed to Bantry, Cork together. The bants were indeed had! A lovely dinner which required a lovely outfit equaled my Mom and I running around a nearby shopping centre, desperate for some stylin' dinner wear! Luckily, I found this patterned dress from A/Wear and black platform heels from Zara just in the nick of time! The dress is especially handy for nights out as it has zippy pockets which means no money or phone being left in some random club cloakroom, woohoo! My cousin Sorcha is looking stunning in her dress from Urban Outfitters. Nice to see how well we coordinated on pattern! 

Oh Christmas Tree!

Even though my brain was slightly fried from working around the clock during the Christmas season, I still had a beautiful family time. Lots of relatives and wine and turkey sandwich equals heaven! I was also kept very comfy yet festively stylish (in my opinion) with my red velvet dress from Clery's. Christmas Day is definitely the day you want that bit of extra room and this number cleverly concealed my small several sandwiches-away belly with a wrap-around dress effect. Also, what's more festive than red velvet? 

Hope you all had a fab 2013 and have an even better year in 2014!

Spirit of Folk 2013

Spirit of Folk 2013: what a beautiful time! Dunderry Park in Co. Meath became a Mecca for all things folksie and hippe-esque last Saturday, 21st September. Travelling there with fellow bohemian girls certainly got us some strange glances on the bus there with one man even heard to remark: "They're hippie girls, son!" (which we were both humoured and delighted by) as we indeed took the folk-festival fashion-vibe to heart. 

Hippie girlos

This event called for laid back/chilled hippie clothes and we were only too happy to oblige. Tie-dye, floral patterns, wellies, flower power, scarves...we had it all. We were also blessed with a sunshine-filled day, therefore, the good vibes were indeed reflected in our summery clothes. 

Our friends in the band 'No Bread' felt slightly left out in the fashion ranks, therefore, took the matter into their own hands and adorned themselves in bohemian garb. We thought the end result was pretty groovy, even if we do say so ourselves! 

No Bread fashionistas

Along with enjoying the musical talents on show, we were able to experience various folksie activities such as storytelling, hoolahooping, bike jousting, and viewing/desperately yearning to purchase all of the handmade jewelry and clothes goods.

Hoolahooping workshop

festival flare and handmade hoodies

Festivals (or 'Feastivals') are an excuse to unleash your hidden facepaint/glitter ambitions. Hazel, Aoibheann, Cait and I enjoyed painting the boys' faces but also relished in the opportunity to show off our own festival faces (and backs!)

After the day of live music, we were treated to a tent disco! Familiar tunes were given the folk treatment and we all quite literally danced the night away in our wellies.                                    
                                                   

devil's in the detail

After camping the night and packing up the next morning, what better way to rap up the weekend than with bubbles! A fabulously folkie time was had and I look forward to next years feastival with great excitement. 

Peace & love.