CQAF2026 - Tuesday 5 May Archives

Philip Hoare – William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love

Posted on 25th March 202626th March 2026 by site_admin

Join us for an illuminating lecture by author Philip Hoare, for William Blake: The Age of Romantic Fantasy. No one can agree about him. William Blake was England’s greatest Romantic artist. Or was he Irish, as W.B. Yeats insisted?

Some thought he was a madman living in Bedlam. It took a long time for his genius to come through. The pre-Raphaelites, the surrealists, the modernists, the hippies, the punks, the new agers all laid claim to him. The fact is Blake is countercultural everything.

In his illuminated lecture, Philip Hoare draws on his new book, William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love (4th Estate) to discern the meaning of Blake’s monstrously beautiful imagining. How the natural and supernatural world combined in his art in protest against slavery tyranny and the abuse of animals, how he invented the fanzine, how he took issue with a patriarchal God, but walked the seashore with Jesus Christ, Mohammed, and John Milton. How his fantastical Tyger is in fact the fearsome spirit of revolution, how he was haunted by sea monsters, how his sensual pictures threatened to pervert Gerard Manley Hopkins and how Joyce’s Ulysses would have been nothing without Blake or his wife and co-artist, Catherine.
This is a portrait of the artist as a 269 year-old man, a Dr Who travelling in time and space, about to land in the National Gallery of Ireland in 2026.

Philip Hoare is the author of ten works of sort of non-fiction. His book, Leviathan, or The Whale, won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. He swims every day in the sea.

The Turbulent Tale of Typhoid Mary, by Brenda Winter Palmer

Posted on 17th March 202631st March 2026 by site_admin

Written by Brenda Winter Palmer

This performed reading takes place in the magnificently transformed ‘A-Wing’ at the former Crumlin Road Gaol, now the home of the Belfast-born whisky.

In this historic site of incarceration, we tell the story of Mary Mallon, allegedly from Cookstown. In 1905 Mary was working as a high society cook in New York. What her employers did not know was that Cookie Mary was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid who had infected 57 people in high class kitchens from Oyster Bay to Fifth Avenue.

She was ordered to stop cooking. But this unruly, uncontrollable ‘microbe denier’ was not going down easy.

To fortify you before the performances McConnell’s offers you a ‘wee drap’ of their award-winning Irish Whisky.

Seón Simpson’s on a Tangent

Posted on 23rd January 202626th March 2026 by site_admin

Ever re-read your teenage diary? Posted song lyrics as a cry for help? Had a secret poetry blog? Seón Simpson did – and she’s turned it into stand-up gold. There’s only one problem. She’s run out of material. That’s what happens when you use up all your love poems and all that’s left are poems about self-harm and suicide.

“Being a funny c**t is a trauma response,” Seón Simpson sagely suggests in this crowd-pleasing hybrid show. We expected no less. Few theatre-makers are navigating the intersection of form, comic provocation and mental health with her audacity.

An award-winning writer and director from who with Gina Donnelly makes up the boundary-pushing creative duo SkelpieLimmer, Simpson has steadily built a reputation with Two Fingers Up, the winner of a Lustrum award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Simpson’s touching, hilarious, deconstructed suicide monologue mines the rich seam of her teenage poetry blog – from DeviantArt, of course – for stand-up gold. Sample teen-poem line: “Chestnuts, his eyes.”

As a former unrepentantly horny and devout Church of Ireland adolescent, she has endless sexual misadventures and darkroom fumbles to explore. Bible camp, much like band camp in the American Pie movies, is compared to a swingers’ meet.

A liaison with the minister’s son results in explicit action in the back of the family’s seven-seater. A favoured Christian nightclub in Coleraine forbids alcohol, but you can easily acquire cocaine in the lavatories.

Seón Simpson’s on a Tangent, at Dublin Fringe, is a touching, audacious navigation of the intersection of form, comic provocation and mental health- The Irish Times

London African Gospel Choir Celebrate 40 Years of Paul Simon’s Graceland

Posted on 9th January 202620th April 2026 by site_admin

The internationally acclaimed London African Gospel Choir will bring their celebrated reimagining of Paul Simon’s Graceland to the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival as part of a world tour marking the album’s 40th anniversary.

Since debuting their interpretation in 2016, the choir has sold out major venues across the UK, Europe and beyond, winning praise for their joyous and authentic performances.

Their concerts restore African voices to the heart of one of the most influential albums of the 20th century, combining soaring harmonies, pulsating rhythms and powerful stage presence.

Each performance will begin with a specially curated first set showcasing the choir’s own repertoire — a vibrant journey through African gospel music that spans traditional hymns and contemporary Pan-African compositions.

The second half of the evening sees the choir perform Graceland in full, breathing new life into classics such as Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, Homeless and You Can Call Me Al.

The choice to celebrate Graceland at 40 is particularly resonant. Released in 1986 at the height of apartheid, the album introduced South African sounds to a worldwide audience while raising questions of ownership and recognition.

For the London African Gospel Choir — a collective of musicians and singers from across Africa and its diaspora — the project is both a tribute and an act of reclamation, placing African artistry centre stage.

This event takes place in a licensed venue; therefore, admission to the performance is limited to guests aged 18+.

This is a mostly seated event. For accessibility information and access requests, please visit the Mandela Hall website. https://www.mandelahall.com/accessibility

Ailbhe Reddy

Posted on 14th November 202526th March 2026 by site_admin

Ailbhe Reddy has a knack for writing alt-folk songs that hit you right in the chest. On her debut album Personal History – which snagged a nod for the RTÉ Choice Music Prize – she moved effortlessly between the deeply personal and the strangely universal.

Her slacker-pop follow-up, Endless Affair, dropped in 2023 and was followed by tours of Europe and North America. Her third album is already on the horizon for 2026, which she debuted at this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, TX.

“A songwriter of real emotional depth.” – Uncut Magazine

“Personal History constantly confronts us with emotional honesty, pressing on bruises that feel all too familiar.” –Pitchfork

“More like a work of art than an album. It’s such a strong debut. Her vulnerability is awe-inspiring and relatable.” – Clash Magazine

Kwok Tsui: Many Moons Ago

Posted on 22nd March 202628th March 2026 by site_admin

Kwok Tsui’s quiet, process-driven paintings express belonging and liminality through materiality rather than overt narrative. His subtractive method — removing rather than adding paint — becomes a metaphor for diaspora identity, where absence, erasure, and memory coexist.