{"id":4234,"date":"2026-07-24T17:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T16:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tocharwetlands.ie\/?p=4234"},"modified":"2026-07-24T17:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T16:09:27","slug":"tochar-brings-luke-casserlys-distillation-show-to-the-fiesta-hall-kilcormac-co-offaly-august-15th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tocharwetlands.ie\/ga\/community-stories\/tochar-brings-luke-casserlys-distillation-show-to-the-fiesta-hall-kilcormac-co-offaly-august-15th\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u00f3char brings Luke Casserly\u2019s Distillation show to the Fiesta Hall, Kilcormac, Co. Offaly, August 15th"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Helen Shaw<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If part of our work in T\u00f3char Stories<\/a> is about mapping people\u2019s changing relationship with the bogland then Luke Casserly<\/a>\u2019s theatre performance show Distillation<\/a>  is an ideal partner. The show, a Luke Casserly, Abbey Theatre and Solas Nua production, is currently on a nationwide tour with dates across arts festivals from June to September and is described as \u2018a multi-sensory performance that transports audiences to the Irish bog landscape through scent\u2019. But perhaps it is more appropriate to say that Distillation taps into our memory and our imagination, our sense of place and belonging, through all our senses, from touch to smell, evoking curiosity and storytelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke has been a collaborative artist with T\u00f3char Stories across the last two years, working with us and communities in Carbury, Co Kildare <\/a>and back in his home town of Lanesborough, Co. Longford.<\/a>  From the beginning we hoped to partner with him to bring Distillation to communities who had direct experience of a culture of turf cutting, of in many ways came like Luke from a Bord na M\u00f3na family tradition and who knew well the impact of the cessation of the peat industry. For Luke, Distillation is a direct response, a conversation with that change, and a dialogue of hope for the shared future of our peatlands communities and our broken landscape. His show presents the bog as an imaginatory portal, allowing us to see it, hear it and even smell it anew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo: : Distillation Project Image – Landscape. Credit: Fergal Styles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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On August 15th we partner with the Offaly Local Development Company <\/a>(OLDC) and the Fiesta Hall in Kilcormac<\/a>, Co Offaly to host Distillation and we\u2019re offering local communities a gift seat at the table to experience Luke\u2019s work in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo: The iconic flying swans sculpture in Kilcormac, in front of the restored Fiesta Hall during a T\u00f3char Stories community storytelling walk (@T\u00f3char Stories)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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The Fiesta Hall itself is a building of stories. It was once the hive of social life in the region when it was the local \u2018ballroom of romance\u2019 with big bands playing and with a Canadian maple wood floor that people from across Kilcormac\u2019s neighbouring villages of Pollagh, Ferbane and Kinnity tell tales about. It later became a cinema and a bingo hall but more recently lay derelict until local visionaries involved in the Trench Trust, a philanthropic fund, and Green Offaly<\/a> saw the potential for a new environmentally designed building offering a social, enterprise and cultural hub. The Fiesta Hall was bought by OLDC with support from the Just Transition Fund <\/a>and the Trench Trust<\/a> and a major renovation began. What is remarkable about the building refurbishment is how it has sought to reuse the materials from the old hall, like that maple floor and the old cinema seats, and to meet the exacting criteria of a green building in design and operation. For us, Luke\u2019s work is a beautiful way to celebrate the newly reimagined Fiesta Hall, a building full of people\u2019s memories and stories, once discarded, now repurposed for a new generation. Distillation is, in many ways, the essence of regeneration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would you like to be there on August 15th?<\/em>
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