Stella Xenopoulou, head of the Hellenic Community in Dublin, Ireland, spoke on Voice of Greece and the program Our Global Voice with Dimitris Kontogiannis about a special event held on Sunday, April 6. For the first time, the community combined the celebration of the Greek School’s March 25th commemoration with the Greek Business & Arts Festival.
Ms. Xenopoulou highlighted that this year’s Greek Independence Day celebration—introduced by the Greek Ambassador—was dedicated to the National Anthem and featured tributes to Greece’s national poet, Dionysios Solomos. The children, who are learning Greek, were fascinated to learn that Solomos himself only began learning the language later in life.
Poems by Rigas Feraios and others were recited, while the adult choir performed well-known poems by Seferis and Elytis set to music. As Ms. Xenopoulou explained, Ireland places great emphasis on its Nobel laureates, and the goal was to show the children—and the wider audience—that Greece, too, has its own Nobel-winning poets.
She also spoke about the Business & Arts Festival, which returned after a four-year hiatus. The festival opened with a speech by nine-year-old William Alexander, who has started his own toy-making business in collaboration with an older girl. It concluded with nine-year-old Myrto, who aspires to become a writer and read some of her own poems—one of which imagined the Furies not pursuing Agamemnon for the sacrifice of his daughter. After the event, Myrto signed autographs featuring her short poems.