Flowerfield to host One Mountain: Sold, Cherry Smyth’s poetic call to save the Sperrins

Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart is delighted to host One Mountain: Sold, a poetic sequence written by Irish poet, Cherry Smyth, on Friday, March 28.

The poem is a response to a proposed gold mine in the Sperrin Mountains, County Tyrone, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The performance will also include improvised and composed singing by acclaimed Irish vocalist Lauren Kinsella and renowned musician Dan Nicholls.

Cherry Smyth has a long track record of socially engaged work that explores the complexities of human relationships, primarily the dislocations and contradictions with each other, and with the environment. Her previous collection, Famished (Pindrop Press, 2019) explored the legacy of the Irish Famine and the role of British colonialism in the death or migration of nearly half of Ireland's 8 million people.

One Mountain: Sold uses the words of local people who have protested the highly toxic use of cyanide in the gold mining process and the construction of a seventeen-storey building on the mountainside to contain toxic waste.

Smyth's poem delivers a poignant narrative that, through evocative imagery and lyrical storytelling, paints a picture of the mountain's silent plea for preservation, echoing the voices of past generations who have fought against exploitation. It vividly portrays the devastating ecological consequences of mining on the mountain's delicate ecosystem, highlighting the irrevocable damage caused by unchecked extractivism.

This performance calls us to recognise that our future survival is bound to a global struggle that relies on the interconnectedness of environmental, social, cultural, economic and ethical values.

One Mountain: Sold will be published in book-length form in Spring 2025 by Arlen House Press

Tickets for One Mountain: Sold are available from Flowerfield.org or by calling Reception on 028 70831 400. Tickets are £12 full, £10 Concession and this event is cabaret style and BYOB.