TURN THE PAGES AT THE GRAIGUENAMANAGH TOWN OF BOOKS FESTIVAL, SEPTEMBER 16th-18th

BOOKWORMS from all over Ireland will be in heaven in September when the 9th annual Graiguenamanagh Town of Books Festival kicks off with a packed programme of events.

Book lovers and shoppers will be able to follow the book and treasure trail through the charming, medieval, Co Kilkenny town between September 16th and 18th to discover thousands and thousands of special, bargain, rare, and specialist books from booksellers all over Ireland and the UK.

The Town of Books Festival has established itself as one of the premier events of its type in Ireland, with something for everyone, young and old. And it is not all about books, with lots of music, talks, walks, demonstrations, craft and food for the whole family to savour! Full advantage will be taken of the towns idyllic location on the River Barrow.

This year’s programme highlights include:
• A visit by Presidential candidate, Michael D Higgins, author of a new book “New and Selected Poems”. He will do a reading and book signing in the Scout hall and will officially open Silair Wood
• A Booksellers and Book Treasure Trail.
• A talk on his kayaking adventures by journalist and author of The Sea Road kayaking series in the Irish Times Travel magazine, Gary Quinn.
• A cookery demonstration by well known local chef and author of bestselling cook book, “Food To Love”, Edward Hayden – a familiar face on TV3’s Ireland AM programme.
• A talk by Shirley Lanigan, author of ‘100 Best Gardens in Ireland,’ and Mayor of Kilkenny and Tidy Towns expert, David Fitzgerald, followed by a garden visit.
• A secondary schools debate with the theme: “The Paper Book is Dead, Kindle is King”.
• A tweet up for twitter and non-twitter folks
• A local food and craft fair featuring the best of artisan workers from Carlow and Kilkenny, including Helen Finnegan’s award winning Knockadrinna Cheese
• A circus skills workshop for children

On Sunday there will also be rowing races on the river Barrow, and a nature walk along the river and newly opened Silair Woods.

Specialist book dealers visiting the town this year include Maurice Regan of Paulstown Books with lots of volumes on Irish interest and history. One of his most expensive and unusual books is Switzerland and Bavarian Mountains, published in the 19th century and valued at €225.

Wellread Books from Waterford are coming back again this year with antiquarian books of all types. Local ones include Book of the Galtees and the Golden Vale, and a collection of Sinn Fein and war of Independence pamphlets.

Browsers will be able to discover a treasure trove of books in the town covering topics from gardening, to old travel-writing as well as bargain fiction and kid’s volumes.

The Graiguenamanagh Town of Books festival is part of the Kilkenny Community Festivals Network, which comprises six festivals in Co Kilkenny supported by Kilkenny Leader Partnership.

Chairman of the Festival, John O’Shea, said Graiguenamangh will be turned into the Books capital of Ireland over the festival weekend. “There will be a fantastic atmosphere in Graiguenamangagh during the festival when the streets of our town are full with people, young and old, strolling with books in hand nipping in and out of the bookstores. “

He added: “You could not find a more idyllic sight than a book reader sitting by the river Barrow with the autumn sun setting over Brandon Hill as the church bells ring behind from the 13th century Duiske Abbey. Simply Heaven!”

He said the ultimate aim is to make Graiguenamanagh a permanent books town. “There is huge potential to develop Graiguenamangh as a permanent mecca for book lovers everywhere.”

www.booktownireland.com
Follow on Facebook: Ireland’s Town of Books Festival and Twitter: @TownOfBooksFest
Email: info@booktownireland.com

Gúna NUA Theatre Co rounds up the stars for fund-raising lunch
Gúna Nua, one of Ireland’s most innovative independent theatre companies, is hosting ‘Glunch’, a star-filled fundraising lunch, in the Royal College of Physicians on Friday, 2nd September.

The theatre company has secured the support of big name supporters from the worlds of Irish art, theatre and media to host tables at ‘Glunch,’ including playwright Bernard Farrell, comedian Gary Cooke, journalist Fintan O’Toole, actors Geraldine Plunkett, Hilda Fay and Sorcha Furlong, author Deirdre Purcell, broadcaster John Murray, Chairman of the Crafts Council of Ireland, Laura Magahy and playwright and screen director Peter Sheridan.

The event will open with a cocktail reception, followed by a three course lunch with wine. Broadcaster and Gúna Nua board member, John Murray, will MC the event with tickets priced at €100 or €1100 for a table of eleven.

Having toured worldwide in the last year with their hit production of, ‘Little Gem’, by Elaine Murphy, Gúna Nua are now back in Dublin and working on several new projects.

According to Paul Meade, Artistic Director of Gúna Nua, times are tough for small theatre companies and the arts in general.

“Our audiences have been incredibly supportive over the years and we need their help now, more than ever, to help ensure our continued viability.
“Gúna Nua is a registered charity working to create and produce unique theatre in this country. The arts sector has been going through some very tough times and income raised through ‘Glunch, will support the funding of future shows.”

He added: “I hope that companies and people will recognise the unique opportunity this intimate event offers to lunch with some great names from the Irish arts, theatre and media scenes”.

Tickets for ‘Glunch’ in the Royal College of Physicians at 12.30 p.m. on Friday September 2nd (priced at €100 per person or €1100 for a table of eleven) can be booked by emailing Paul Meade at pmeade@gunanua.com or for more information call Gúna Nua on 01 – 675 9921.

For more information please contact:
Paul Meade, 087 9294277 pmeade@gunanua.com Or Miriam Donohoe, 087 2393914 miriam@mdmedia.ie

• Upcycling Academy and Craft Guerrillas confirmed for Europe’s biggest knitting and textiles showcase

TEXTILES and knitting enthusiasts are preparing to have their needles drawn and to spin countless yarns as the countdown begins to the eagerly awaited 2011 ‘Knitting & Stitching Show’ in Dublin’s RDS.

The four day show, which last year drew over 23,000 visitors, runs from November 10th to 13th and the 2011 programme is bursting with exciting new elements with lots for textile enthusiasts of all ages and skills levels.

In these times of austerity knitting and stitching have become chic, soothing and cool, helped in no small way by celebrity enthusiasts such as Madonna, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe. Their passion for the odd bit of plain and purl has boosted visitor numbers to knitting and stitching and craft shows throughout the globe.

This year’s show will attract 130 exhibitors who will showcase everything for the textile enthusiast from the professional, the passionate or simply the beginner who wants to get started. The latest innovations in knitting and stitching supplies, from specialist equipment, craft kits of all levels, yarns, threads, along with, felt making, quilting, jewellery making, card making and much more. There will be over 100 workshops covering many subjects.
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Brand new this year will be:

• An Upcycling Academy where you will learn how to recycle and customise your wardrobe. School Groups and individuals will be invited to bring an existing T-shirt, redesign and rebrand it, and then model on a virtual catwalk!

• The First Steps Lounge and its highly creative Craft Guerrillas who will introduce and teach visitors how to get started in knitting, stitching and handcrafting. Visitors will be able to choose from 10 funky kits and projects to get started.

• A series of galleries including the Beryl Dean Gallery of ecclesiastical embroidery

• A special Patchwork and Quilting Zone with over 100 Quilts from the Irish Patchwork Society’s Branch Out Exhibition

• The first ever Children’s Quilting Classes

• A Seascapes Gallery from the Crafts Council of Ireland marking Year of Craft 2011

• A chance to “test drive” all the latest sewing machines

Once again Innocent Drinks will partner the Knitting and Stitching Show and lead with the Big Knit Campaign for Age Action Ireland when they plan to achieve last year’s results when a whopping 80,000 little hats were knit by generous people all over Ireland, raising €20,000 and much needed awareness for Age Action Ireland. With such a harsh winter last year, the funds were put to great use to ensure that older people in Ireland stayed well and warm. For every woolly hat wearing smoothie sold, innocent will give 25 cent to Age Action Ireland which will go towards the “Stay well, stay warm” campaign for winter 2011.

“Ireland has a wealth of craft and designer talent and the growing interest in knitting and stitching is evident every year,” says Andrew Stanley of the Knitting and Stitching Show. “There is always huge excitement at the show with buyers travelling from all four corners of the country to see the latest techniques in knitting and stitching , test drive the latest sewing or knitting machine and buy their craft kits and supplies.”

“There’s somewhat of a revolutionary return to creative crafts,” he added “this year we’ve introduced lots of new workshops for adults and schools to capture and nurture the growing interest in creative crafts for future generations”.

The Knitting and Stitching show is the definitive event for anyone with a love or an interest in knitting, stitching and creative crafts. It will run from 10th to the 13th November 2011.

For further information and advance visitor bookings, log on to www.twistedthread.com

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Media contact:

Noreen D’Arcy, D’Arcy Marketing & PR
Tel: 086 – 8227556
Email: noreen@darcymarketingandpr.ie

Neans Mc Sweeney, MD Media
Tel: 086 – 2620355
Email: neans@mdmedia.ie

Tickets for Rockwell College feast selling fast
Food lovers will be singing during supper at the Tipperary Food Producers eagerly awaited Long Table Dinner at Rockwell College outside Cashel when they are serenaded by the award-winning Singing Waiters.

Great food is best accompanied by music and song and the opera-singing waiters will add an extra ‘wow factor’ to the banquet on Wednesday, August 24th which brings together 300 guests for a menu which is a veritable culinary tour of Tipperary.

The special menu of seasonal products is sourced exclusively from the 30 members of the Tipperary Food Producers network and tickets for the gala event are selling up fast, the organisers say.

As well as a sumptuous meal, the ticket price covers as much local craft beer as you can drink and wine.

Tipperary Food Producers founder and banquet organiser, butcher Pat Whelan from Clonmel, said The Singing Waiters will add extra colour, excitement and fun to the evening, tickets for which are booking up fast.

“The Long Table Feast has always provided us with a great opportunity to showcase the very best of our produce and reinforce the importance of supporting local producers to a local and national audience.

“We’re delighted to confirm that The Singing Waiters will be entertaining on the night. It will really add to the magical ambiance and fun atmosphere at this year’s gathering, guaranteeing it will be a feast for all the senses – not just the taste buds,” Mr Whelan said.

Members of the Tipperary Food Producers network include a host of well known brands such as Cashel Blue Cheese, Cooleeny Cheese in Thurles, The Scullery, Crowes Farm, Hickeys Bakery, The Cookie Jar, and James Whelan Butchers in Clonmel.

Other members include: The Apple Farm in Cahir, Seymour Organic Farm in Borrisokane, Barbara Russell catering, Red Nose Wine in Clonmel, Inch House, and many more. (For a full list go to www.tipperaryfoodproducers.com)

The Tipperary Food Producers Network includes producers of meat, beverages and bread, soup, sweets, pastry, catering, dairy, cheese, farm shops, preserves and condiments, jams, fruit and vegetables.

Tickets for this year’s event cost €75 and are available at James Whelan Butchers, Oakville Shopping Centre, Clonmel on (052) 6182477 OR from any member of the Tipperary Food Producers network at www.tipperaryfoodproducers.com

- Ticket holders are asked to be at the Rockwell College by 7.00pm sharp as the meal will commence at 7.30 p.m. Tickets are required for entry to the long table dinner event.

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For more detail contact:

Pat Whelan – 087 2433100

Or

Miriam Donohoe, MD Media – 087 2393914

Editor’s Note:

The Tipperary Food Producers is a network of businesses working in the Food Sector in County Tipperary. Its objective is to represent, promote and showcase the best of Tipperary Food. All members work to extremely high quality standards, with many of our members involved in Specialty Foods and Organic Foods. Key characteristics include quality, tastiness and distinctiveness, all produced in Tipperary.

Everyone has their own take on Food. The network urges consumers to simply consider buying food produced in Tipperary; visiting your local baker, butcher, farm shops, cheesemonger, retailers and farmers market. With the natural linkages the food sector has with the social, economic, tourism and cultural aspects of life in Tipperary, the network wishes to develop further into a regional brand that will highlight what Tipperary Food has to offer.

LookupPoint retrieves data from SAP® in an instant, saving both time and money
Dublin, August 17th 2011: SAP specialists, Minola Technology, have partnered with Spanish Point Technologies, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, to develop cutting edge technology which will save businesses time and money.
The companies have launched LookupPoint™, a revolutionary new productivity tool which brings information from business systems such as SAP straight into Microsoft Office, bridging the gap between these two separate virtual environments.
Until now users of both the industry leading SAP business system and Microsoft Office applications – including Outlook, Word and Excel – have generally spent a significant amount of time switching between these systems. With LookupPoint users can select a business item in any email, document or spread sheet and the associated information from SAP will be displayed instantly in the same screen without having to leave the Microsoft office environment.
According to Microsoft, a typical office worker spends over 70% of their time working in Microsoft Office applications.
“Instead of having to leave what they are doing in Microsoft Office and log into other applications such as SAP, users will be able to find the information they are looking for in an instant with LookupPoint,” says Robert Campbell of Minola Technology.
Dublin-based medical supplies company, Fannin, which has a portfolio of over 40,000 products selling to hundreds of customers across the UK and Ireland, has described Lookup Point as an exceptional office tool.
“Complex and constantly changing pricing arrangements means that customers submit a high number of invoice queries to us, often in Excel, or Word via email,” according to Head of IT at Fannin, Conor O’Shea.
“Navigating through the different databases to collate the various pieces of information is a time consuming process. But LookupPoint has streamlined and simplified this process. It also means our response time to customer queries is quicker.”
SAP is one of the most widely used business systems in the world. It is used by a wide range of leading Irish organisations across many industries.
“A low cost, simple to use tool which helps productivity should be attractive to any firm hoping to stay competitive in today’s economic environment.” said Robert Campbell.
Minola is not standing still and is now planning the development of LookupPoint for use with IBM iSeries based applications in addition to SAP.
LookupPoint was one of six products selected by Microsoft before the release of Microsoft Office 2010 to be demonstrated at the Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference which was attended by over 12,000 delegates.
LookupPoint has also been accepted to exhibit at the Gartner Symposium / IT Expo 2011 as part of the Emerging Technologies pavilion this coming October in Orlando, Florida.
www.mintech.eu
www.spanishpoint.ie
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Caption:
“Helping business save time: Donal Cullen of Spanish Point Technologies and Robert Campbell of Minola Technology who have launched LookupPoint™ a revolutionary new cutting edge software programme that will save businesses time and money. Web: www.mintech.eu www.spanishpoint.ie” (Photo: www.okeeffephotography.com)

For more information contact:
Robert Campbell
Minola Technology
087 2425593
or
Miriam Donohoe
MD Media
087 2393914
miriam@mdmedia.ie

Minola Technology:
Minola Technology (www.mintech.eu) is an Irish software company specializing in SAP. While it is headquartered in Dublin its customers are located in many countries across Europe. Founded in 2006 the company has established itself as both a software development company and as a provider of SAP related services. Software development projects include an add-on to SAP for the management of import duties, web portal development as well as customer specific developments on different versions of SAP.
Recent SAP services projects include an upgrade to version ECC6 and a Business Warehouse (BW) implementation. Minola’s team of SAP consultants have experience of SAP dating back to version 3.1I in 1994 and have worked with all major versions released since then.
Minola has experience in the IBM iSeries range of computers and will shortly be announcing LookupPoint availability to users of iSeries based applications.

Spanish Point:
LookupPoint™ was created by Spanish Point Technologies Ltd. an innovative software company working with Microsoft technologies to provide business systems which remove complexity, increase productivity and connect users to critical business information. It employs technologies such as SharePoint, Microsoft Office, BizTalk, SQL Server and now LookupPoint to build great solutions.
Spanish Point is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and in 2007 was awarded the prestigious Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year Award.
Headquartered in the heart of Dublin City’s IFSC district, Spanish Point provides consulting and solution build services on Microsoft’s core information worker and related technologies. Its software architects work with clients to vision, architect and design custom solutions using Microsoft server products such as BizTalk, Sharepoint Portal Server, Commerce Server and SQL Server. These it combines with its .net development skills.
Spanish Point has an On-Shore / Off-Shore development model allowing its customers to benefit from design and technology excellence coupled with efficient, competitive development capabilities.
www.spanishpoint.ie