A NIGHT of music will be held in North Belfast next week featuring the work of actor, singer and writer Richard Hayward.
Taking place in the Duncairn Centre for Culture and Arts on the Antrim Road on Friday, July 28 at 8pm, it is part of the annual Belfast Tradfest.
Local folk-singers Maurice Leyden and Jane Cassidy will team up with Hayward’s biographer Paul Clements to present a show celebrating Richard Hayward’s fascinating career and contribution to the cultural life of Ireland, through anecdote and folk-song.
The performance will be enhanced by archive photos and clips, bringing Hayward alive for today’s audience, making the evening a delightful trip down memory lane.
Paul, Jane and Maurice Leyden have put together a show featuring 22 traditional Irish songs which Hayward collected, while the narrative of his life is interspersed through a slideshow.
Hayward was born in Southport, Lancashire, but the family moved to Ireland in the 1890s when he was very young and settled initially in Larne as his father wanted to be near Belfast Lough for yachting and boating.
He spent most of his later life on the Antrim Road and there is a blue plaque to him on his house there which was unveiled by the Ulster History Circle in 2013.
His musical career ran for 40 years from the early 1920's up until his sudden death in a car crash near Ballymena in October 1964.
He was highly respected in music circles in both Ireland and Britain and was a renowned collector of songs that were in danger of dying out.
Hayward remarried in a Presbyterian church in 1962 – the now Duncairn Centre where the event will take place.
'Richard Hayward: Romancing Ireland' will take place at the Duncairn on Friday, July 28 at 8pm.
Tickets are priced at £20 and available here.
