Fund-raising has become such a competitive business that it is becoming difficult to come up with a new, enticing formula to woo peoples' pounds from their pockets. So here! here! to the Shanty Educational Project which has come up with plans for an intriguing evening to raise money for its new centre in Tallaght by organising a reading by some of our best writers and a film premiere, both in a Georgian house setting to take place on Saturday, February 7th.
Viv and Kieran Guinness have donated the use of their home - Knockmaroon House in Castleknock - for the event, and author John Banville has rounded up a number of writers to kick off the evening. Colm Toibin, Clare Boylan, and Neil Jordan, as well as poet Paula Meehan, have volunteered to read from their work. Roddy Doyle was going to read too, but his wife is expecting a baby that week so he felt it would be safer to allow his new television film, Hell For Leather, to be previewed on the night. Gemma Cra- ven and Barbara Brennan are among the actors and the film was directed by Kieron J. Walsh.
The Shanty Project was started 11 years ago by Dr Anne Louise Gilligan and Catherine Zappone who is now the chief executive of the National Council for Women. They decided that the Tallaght west community needed a centre that would provide education, enterprise and childcare and as they couldn't find a premises, started to bring people into their own homes.
The project, which is currently run from a centre called The Muse in Brittas, three miles from Tallaght, offers an array of accredited educational courses and highquality childcare, as well as a hugely successful handcraft enterprise, Weaving Dreams. So good is the work of Weaving Dreams, which is staffed by local people who have received quality training, that they have recently received a huge order from the large American mail-order catalogue company, Lands End.
Now the Shanty Project desperately needs a new centre, and while they have been provided with land by the South Dublin County Council, they are looking for building funds. They plan to call the centre An Cosan, or "The Path", and it would provide greatly improved facilities for what has already proved to be a vital and practical project. So why not give the Shanty Project a hand and go to a fundraiser that would appear to be guaranteed yawn-free? Tickets are priced at £100 per person and the evening includes the readings, dinner, drinks, the film and chatter. Ring 01-8394430 for details.