Young Gifted and Green Irish Night
YOUNG, GIFTED & GREEN’S IRISH NIGHT, THE LOWRY THEATRE, SALFORD, SATURDAY 8 MARCH 2008
Mr Hennigan writes: Young, Gifted & Green Show at the Lowry
This year’s annual charity Irish concert by the College and Prep School for Francis House Children’s Hospice’ at the Lowry in Salford Quays was a magnificent success.
The show raised close to £10,000 for the charity and we would like to thank our sponsors - Bethel, Chartrange Limited, Chris O’Connor Promotions, Eamonn A.Kennedy Funeral Directors, The Levenshulme Pub Company, Total Plant Hire and the College - for helping us fund the show at such a prestigious venue.
The students worked very hard practising for the show every week since September putting in close to one hundred hours of rehearsal. They even helped pay for their own costumes for the event so that more money could be raised for the charity. Mrs Jones and Mrs Cavanagh were again responsible for training the singers and the Prep choir. Mr Gibson and deputy head boy Kieran Duignan prepared the music and conducted the rehearsals for the musicians.
The dancers were once again trained by former student Louise Keegan from the Keegan Kennedy School of Irish dancing. Louise also brought along some of her own dancers to the event. During the day itself we were very grateful to the staff who gave up their Saturday afternoon and evening to help supervise the show. These included a number of staff from the Prep School along with Headmaster, Mr Hales, and his wife. From the College Mrs Collins, Mrs Earles, Miss Curry and Mr McKeogh were responsible for looking after the performers backstage, while Mr Weiss was in charge of photography and Mrs Meehan took responsibility for the display in the bar.
Special guests on the night included former student, James Keegan the three times world champion and current principal with Lord of the Dance. James has been touring with the world famous show for the last five years and had a two day break in his European schedule, so he decided to fly back to Manchester to open up the show. James was accompanied by two of Manchester’s premier musicians — Mike McGoldrick (BBC instrumentalist of the Year) and Dezi Donnelly (RTE musician of the Year).