MONDAY 18TH MAY
PRESENTER BLÁTHNAID NÍ CHOFAIGH
FASHION AND DESIGN
On this evening’s Nationwide the team are in the Mid-West to meet a woman who is well known for her work in the fashion business throughout the country. Celia Holman Lee has been an icon of fashion and style for six decades – discovered and launched as a model at the tender age of fifteen, she went on to found what has become Ireland’s longest family-run model agency at just 22.
To mark her 75th birthday, she’s written a book chronicling the highs and lows of her life in fashion. Glamour & Grit is a personal account tracing her journey from the 1950s to today and including style tips for women of all ages. Reporter Marian Malone meets her in her beloved native city of Limerick, as she visits places that resonate with her colourful past.
Presenter Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh also looks at the wider fashion scene in Limerick visiting the internationally renowned Limerick School of Art & Design, where she meets the new crop of upcoming designers as they put the final touches to their graduate collections. Bláthnaid also explores exciting plans to create a fashion incubator hub and design factory in Limerick’s medieval quarter – and a Heuston, Texas connection – combining a focus for creativity in design and fashion with urban rejuvenation at historic locations in the heart of the city.
WEDNESDAY 20TH MAY
PRESENTER ANNE CASSIN
KERRY STORIES
This evening’s Nationwide programme comes from South County Kerry as the team meets an award-winning photographer who has spent her career capturing the flora and fauna of her native county. Valerie O’Sullivan fell in love with photography the moment she captured her first image, as a teenager. What began as curiosity, became a lifelong passion and profession, starting with local newspapers, and later as a press photographer. Valerie’s real passion lies in wildlife photography, and with Killarney National Park on her doorstep, she’s never been short of subjects to capture. Over the years, she has built a strong relationship with the Park’s rangers, working alongside them on a variety of projects.
Presenter Anne Cassin meets Valerie to hear all about her work, and she also meets just a few of the Kerry people whom Valerie has photographed over the years, all with very different stories to tell.
FRIDAY 22ND MAY
PRESENTER BLÁTHNAID NÍ CHOFAIGH
TEMPLE BAR 35 YEARS
Dublin’s Temple Bar is celebrating 35 years in operation. It has become a prime tourist destination and cultural centre, but it could have all turned out much differently as CIE had planned to turn much of the area into a bus station.
Today Temple Bar has an annual footfall of more than 24 million people, and it is known around the world. But along with the bars and restaurants, the area has a thriving cultural industry, the biggest in the country.
To mark the 35th anniversary, reporter John Kilraine has been looking at the history of this unique space.
