From art exhibitions and talks to a children’s workshop and bakery bonanza, there is something for everyone!
Clare Museum, supported by Creative Ireland, will host a Festival of Polish Culture in the coming weeks.
Running from Tuesday, May 6, to Sunday, May 18, the festival will include a wide variety of events. From art exhibitions and talks to a children’s workshop and bakery bonanza, there is something for everyone!
The initiative will be launched by Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy at Clare Museum on Tuesday, May 6 at 6.30pm.
During this event, three art exhibitions will also be unveiled. These include ‘Remember the Gardens, It’s Where we Came From’ by Clare-based Polish artists Anna Podlewska and Anna Kacprzak, ‘Growing with Art’, an exhibition project curated by Anna Kacprzak and arts and crafts works created during workshops at the museum in the run up to the festival, facilitated by Liliana Bozena Lacka.
Events kick off in the museum on Wednesday, May 7 at 7.30pm with a talk by Jakub Kacprzak on the life story of a Polish Native American, Stanislaw Suplatowicz or ‘Sat-Okh’, as he was widely known.
Jakub will also present two other talks during the festival. One will be as part of the museum’s ongoing lecture series, taking place on Wednesday, May 14 at 7.30pm, and is titled ‘The Life and Legacy of Edmund Strzelecki.' A lunchtime talk from 1-2pm on Tuesday, May 13 will discuss ‘Bronislaw Pilsudski, Ethnologist and Patriot’.
On Wednesday, May 8, at 11am, there will be a film screening of the 2010 film ‘The Way Back’. This film tells the story of survival, inspired by the memoir of former Polish prisoner of war Slawomir Rawicz, who escaped from a Soviet Gulag and walked 4,000 miles to freedom in World War II.
As an introduction to the film, Jakub Kacprzak will give a short talk about his family history, whereby four members were imprisoned and deported to labour camps and gulags in the former Soviet Union; only one came back alive.
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A second film screening will take place on Thursday, May 15 at 3.30pm in the museum. ‘Lokis’ (1970) is a poetic horror film written and directed by Janusz Majewski and is based on the 1869 Prosper Mérimée horror novel of the same name.
Then on Friday, May 9, the Temple Gate Hotel is the venue for an evening of music, dance and entertainment, featuring DJ Mad Luke and singer Wiktoria Antczak. This event is suitable for adults and teenagers 16+ (accompanied by an adult).
The penultimate event of the festival is a Polish bakery bonanza on Saturday, May 17 from 2-4pm in the Clare Museum.
A show of delicious sweet treats and healthy traditional Polish bread will be freshly baked and delivered especially for the event by three renowned Polish bakeries: Healthy Bread by Lukas; Andrew's Family Bakery Ltd and Staropolska Bakery.
The festival will close with a Polish Mass in the Ennis Cathedral on Sunday, May 18 at 6.30pm. Polish music and song will be provided by Cantate Deo Choir, led by Anna Banko.
Curator of Clare Museum, John Rattigan, said, “We are trying to encourage the settled Polish community to view the museum as a resource for them, and to help with their integration and social inclusion. We hope to have events for other communities in Clare in the future. If any Polish people in Clare have any artefacts that tell us something about their lives as Polish people in Clare that they would like to donate to the museum for future generations of Polish-Clare people to enjoy, we would be delighted to receive them.”
All events are free of charge, but booking is required for some, and details on how to book can be found here: https://claremuseum.ie/2025/04/festival-of-polish-culture/
Details of all festival events can also be found at this link, or by picking up a brochure from Clare Museum or De Valera Library in Ennis.
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