A FREE afternoon event at the Belltable in Limerick on Saturday June 20, 2026 will mark the conclusion of Memory of a Free Festival, an exhibition at Ormston House conceived in response to the Carnsore Point anti-nuclear festivals held in Wexford between 1978 and 1981.
The 2:30pm event, presented by Ormston House, combines film, discussion and sound performance to reflect on a defining moment in Irish civic history, when thousands gathered in opposition to what would have been Ireland’s first nuclear power plant.
The afternoon opens with a chaired discussion between performer Susie Kennedy and folk musician Luka Bloom, both of whom contributed to the original festivals. The conversation will be accompanied by a screening of footage from the 1978 festival, filmed by Ken Lynam.
Luka Bloom, born Barry Moore in County Kildare, began his music career in 1969 supporting his brother Christy Moore on tour in the UK. He performed at all four large anti-nuclear rallies at Carnsore Point and recorded several anti-nuclear singles, which are currently on display at Ormston House.
Susie Kennedy, an actor, jazz singer and humanist celebrant, performed in the play Drink the Mercury at the first Carnsore Point festival in August 1978. She also took part in the Anti-Nuclear Roadshow, which toured across Ireland, North and South, later that year.
The second part of the event features a contribution from artist Alanna O’Kelly, whose work features in the touring exhibition currently showing at Ormston House, Wexford Arts Centre and Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre. The event will include a sound screening of O’Kelly’s seminal work Chantdown Greenham Common. O’Kelly, who trained at the National College of Art and Design and the Slade School of Art in London, attended the Greenham Common protest in 1983, where between 30,000 and 50,000 women surrounded the perimeter fence of the military base.