Talk/Lecture-recital

Service Description

Dr Susan H. Motherway offers talks and lecture-recitals on Irish traditional music, song, dance and living cultural heritage, with a particular focus on North Kerry, Sliabh Luachra and the relationship between tradition, place, memory and performance. Her presentations combine academic insight, artistic practice and community knowledge, making them suitable for festivals, arts centres, libraries, universities, schools, heritage events and community organisations. Susan’s talks explore how traditions are made, transmitted, adapted and renewed. Topics include North Kerry music and dance, the Molyneaux tradition, folk theatre and the legacy of Siamsa Tíre, women in Irish traditional music, cultural sustainability, local archives, music tourism, oral history, and digital tools for mapping and safeguarding living traditions. She is especially interested in where scholarship meets public practice: how research can help communities understand and activate their own cultural inheritance. Lecture-recitals can include flute, concertina, song, recorded examples, archival material, images and spoken interpretation. These events are engaging and accessible, while retaining depth and authority. Possible themes include “North Kerry as Soundscape: Music, Memory and Place,” “From Kitchen House to Stage: Folk Theatre and the Performance of Tradition,” “The Living Tradition of North Kerry Music,” “Women, Memory and Transmission in Irish Traditional Music,” and “From Archive to Action: Reviving Local Repertoire.” Each talk or lecture-recital is shaped around the needs of the host organisation. It may be delivered as a keynote, public talk, illustrated lecture, workshop, panel contribution, performance lecture, or talk-and-session event. Susan can tailor presentations for different audiences. An event can include stories, listening, performance, discussion and participation. She can facilitate conversations after performances, lead repertoire sessions for musicians, or design events that connect local memories with archival performance. Susan’s approach is warm, rigorous and grounded in lived tradition. Her aim is to help audiences hear tradition not as something fixed in the past, but as a living practice: carried by people, shaped by place, renewed through performance, and made meaningful again in the present.