Lake School Home Page

Summer Holiday in an Irish coastal village during the Irish winter.

Join the Lake Schoolies in Koroit for the craic, the music, and the surf!

The 14th the Lake School will be held in Koroit 2-7 January 2013. The launch of the program will be held at Harvester Moon Winery (near Portarlington) on Saturday August 25 2012 (bookings essential - felix@bushwahzee.com) when Ade Kelly will be inducted as a Legend of the Lake by Jamie McKew (Port Fairy Folk Festival Director)

New in 2013 Kim Thorpe - Art Exhibition Launch, Blues Night at Alex's Pizza &Wok, Lake School Concert Night Friday January 5, Lake School soloist award (The Star of the Lake ) for a young singer and a young instrumentalist, Spud Poets Dinner Jan 3 at Micky Bourke's Hotel, Launch of Dennis O'Keeffe's book - Waltzing Matilda, The Secret Story of Australia's Favourite Song, James Joyce readers - The Great Gatsby, Irish History Exhibition

People wishing to book at the Koroit Tower Hill Caravan Park Please Note changed Booking details

Contact Bob and or Rhonda 9 am to 7.30pm (leave message if neccesary) on 03-55 657 926

Koroit welcomes the Lake Schoolies for the best of Ireland and Australia in one holiday destination - historic hotel and great pub culture, great sessions and the craic, summer weather with a cool breeze, beautiful surf beaches, antique shops, kid and family friendly atmosphere, koalas and emus at the inspriing old volcano Tower Hill. Clean air, clean water and clean fun - for everything you could want come to Koroit in January 2013 for the Lake School!

Ticket prices for 2013

Adults $185 Children under 16 $110 Family ticket $495 (two adults and five children)

Prices include GST

Co-ordinator

Felix Meagher

Contact details: 0413-801294 (Mob)

or email felix@bushwahzee.com

alternative email bwz@alphalink.com.au

Correspondence for the Lake School can be addressed to Felix Meagher PO Box 22 Mitcham 3132

Cheques should be made out to the Lake School and sent to Margie Brophy PO Box 601 Croydon 3136

NB Please note this is an event that welcomes families and children. However, with the exception of the Kids Program

which runs from 9.30am to 1pm every day, children under 16 may only attend programmed Lake School classes when

accompanied and supervised by one of their parents, or a nominated supervising adult.

For the Kids Program children need to be signed in and out, bring a drink and a snack, and refrain from leisure use of

mobile phones.

About the Lake School -

Learn to play Irish Music! Learn Irish dance steps and Celtic songs. (Contact felix@bushwahzee.com

0413-801294). Learn from tutors - outstanding musicians, singers and dancers from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Geelong, Ballarat and Warrnambool! Learn to play irish flute, fiddle, tin whistle, uilleann pipes, bodhran (irish drum), guitar, banjo, harp and songwriting. Play in a ceilidhe band. Join a hot young celtic band! Play, session and sing with hundreds of musicians from all around Australia. Have a wonderful family holiday in an Irish Village in Victoria's celtic south -west that is just a hop step and a jump from Australia's famous Great Ocean Road, and the home of Australia's internationally famous Port Fairy Folk Festival! Wonderful nights sessioning and singing one hundred strong in the warm summer air outside Micky Bourke's Hotel! For the very best in Irish and Celtic music atmosphere other wise known as the craic! For contacts with the best players, musicians, sean nos styles, for contacts with other other celtic musicians and the most amazing energetic and toe tapping irish and celtic bands, soloists, duos and trios! Come to the Lake School in Koroit! Every January join the Legends of the Lake and Legends of Irish music like Paddy Fitzgerald on the accordion, Ewen Baker on the fiddle, vocalists Maria Forde and Vince Brophy, Peter Daffy on ukelele, Tommy Carty in the session and Dennis O'Keeffe's remarkable class of songwriters! Come to Koroit for the Lake School! For a truly amazing experience for the whole family - Kids Program, Youth Program, Art Exhibition Launch), Animations, workshop and slow sessions of all kinds for the young, the old, beginners, advanced and all in between.

Review of the 13 th Lake School

Lake School January 2-7 2012 - It was fun!

About 180 students and their families descended on Koroit for the 13th Lake School. Very hot weather on the first two days may have deterred some people from making the trip and numbers were slightly down on 2011, although the smooth running of the event continued where it left off the previous year. The space created in the program for socialising in particular boosted the time available for dancing and the ceilidhe dancing was a highlight of this year's event with many people commenting - "we loved the dancing, it was fun."

Other highlights from the week included the Op Shop Ball at Crossley and the Concert with the Simon Bradley Trio (Scottish touring group) and Six At the Crossroads (Paddy O'Neill Award group), Brian Mooney's Art Exhibition Launch, Fiona McAlinden's Irish Breadmaking class, The Zombie Movie made by Ray and Lewis Argall with the Lake School Youth, Vince Brophy's Pub Band, and the Spud Poet's Night which featured the launch of Bill Clohesy's poems, Just A Bit of Craic. Once the breeze from the South West kicked in and the weather cooled the sessions under verandah at Mickey Bourke's Pub took off, and every night featured great sessions lead by Paddy Fitzgerald, Tommy Carty, Jack Brennan, Nicky Kramer, Maria Forde and the like. The Songwriters Concert on the final night showcased 18 songwriters including a song by Katy Addis (about raising her son) that had the audience in tears. The Big Tune this year was Waltzing Matilda, chosen to co-incide with the release of songwriting tutor, Dennis O'Keeffe's ) book on the subject in April, and the photo below was taken just after the final chorus was sung. The Mogyum Award was given to Peter Daffy (Guitar Basics tutor)and Rachel Donovan who turned back from Panmure to look for Ewen Baker (fiddle tutor) who was mistakenly believed to have had car troubles in the heat at Berrybank!

Students of the 13th Lake School - photo by Brenda Osborne

Review of 12th Lake School below

Lake School January 2-7 2011 - "The Best Yet...yes!"

Record numbers of music lovers – fiddlers, flautists, tin whistlers, pipers, guitarists, harpists, singers, dancers and poets to mention a few - all in all 200 students plus their families and friends, turned up to Koroit for the twelfth Lake School of Celtic Music Song and Dance and dubbed it "the best Lake School yet!"

As well as the regular events - the Songwriters Concert, the Blackboard Concert, the Billy Moran Memorial Session and the Paddy O'Neill Young Celtic Band Concert (this year the band was Fianna), the 2011 program included a number of new highlights - the Guitar Basics and ukelele class lead by Peter Daffy, Mark McDonnell’s House Party at Kirkstall, the Big Tune and Big Song lead by Maria Forde, Animations with Lucinda Clutterbuck and a revamped format for the Grand Ceilidhe, which for the first time ever ran to a timetable and finished at a reasonable hour. The Grand Ceilidhe itself had some new features - A Welcome to Country by Lenny and Brett Clarke, a toast in Irish by Chris Mooney and splendid choral renditions of the Australian and Irish national anthems with trumpet flourishes by Bernie Hickey.

Other highlights included the return to Illowa for the Tuesday night ceildhe, Jeremy Meagher's James Joyce Readers Group which performed…yes! a three minute version of Ulysses, Mary Bourke's address (The Queen's Speech) for the opening of Therese Supple's Exhibition of paintings depicting life and holidays as a child in Killarney, and Seamus Foley's win with the The Hills of Lurg in the Spud Poets Award at Crossley Hall.

Students commented on the "great feeling throughout the week," and the sessions reached a new high co-inciding with the visit from Athlone of Mick Byrne, a singer, fiddler and mandolin player who found the Lake School after an internet search, and dropped in for the week. The success of the sessions was even more of a surprise given that Session Master, Paddy Fitzgerald, was at the last minute unable to attend due to illness in his family.

Fiddle player, Nicki Kramer, who has sat beside Paddy for the last few years learning his tunes, was able to step up to lead Paddy's classes and was given the Mogyum Award (a bottle of Jameson's Irish Whisky) for her efforts.

The Lake School was once again blessed with mild weather, and the success of the event was in no small part due to the "happy campers" at the Koroit and Tower Hill Caravan Park which for the first time in its history had a "No Vacancy" sign up at the gate.

Everyone was sad to hear the news that the managers of Caravan Park, Vicki Thorpe (current Chairman of the Lake School Committee) and her partner Georg Diegmann will be leaving Koroit in June for greener pastures in Penola SA. It was announced at the Songwriters Concert that Vicki and Georg would be inducted as Life Members of the Lake School at the launch of the thirteenth Lake School in July later this year.

Photos and collage by Vince Brophy

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Shane Howard inducts Ewen Baker as a Legend of the Lake July 2010

The Lake School 2009 photo below was provided by James Byron.

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Reveiw of Lake School 11 January 2010

If its possible to say the weather was perfect - one might be inclined to say it was for Lake School Number Eleven in Koroit earlier this month. Cool and cloudy days, with patches of bright blue in the sky as you looked over Tower Hill to the Southern Ocean, or across the dairy and spud farms to Killarney and Port Fairy. And when the sun did come out in the late afternoon, raising the temperature to a mild mid twenties, the a blessed breeze from the south west blew just gently enough to lift the froth off the pints of Guinness that were beginning to flow outside Micky Bourke's Hotel.

In the evening the stars came out, but perhaps they didn't quite shine as brightly as the dancers and the players and at the Illowa Hall which was the featured venue for the Tuesday night Ceildhe. Marie Brouder, the dance tutor at her first Lake School, had fifty or sixty strong dancing the Seige of Ennis and The Walls of Limerick, to a band of thirty or forty lead by the legendary Paddy Fitzgerald on the accordion (impromptu Illowa Ceildhe Band below). It was the Lake School's first foray out to Illowa, and the locals voted with their feet and came out in force.

The Koroit Tower Hill Caravan park was the place to be during the week. A myriad of sessions, rehearsals and impromptu performances, while musicians in between classes strummed and relaxed in the shade of the exotic trees of the Koroit Botanical Gardens. For the seventeen strong Belfrage family, dinner was a show in itself. A line of tent shades, a collection of camp chairs, children sitting in a circle humming the tunes of the day and an impressive buffet of pastas, curries and salads...A brief respite and coming together before joining the throng to rush off to the next session, ceildhe or concert.

Mary Bourke has likened Koroit during Lake School to Vienna. Music coming form every shop and residence and hordes of people hurrying around with violin cases, guitars and flutes. In place of the trucks of Koroit driving a load of bellowing milkers down a deserted streetscape in winter, the summer brings music and musicians and a colourful energy to "the Stroit." Gary Rose's song "The Trucks of Koroit" has renamed Commercial Rd "the Stroit" and they were the most requested lyrics of the week.

An open day at Crossley Hall attracted about thirty people keen to be introduced to the irish Language, by Lake School tutor, Chris Mooney. Chris, also a first timer to Lake School - stepping in for Mossie Scanlon, noticed the energy and the youthful interest in the old language. Perhaps enough interest to drive regular local classes in Irish language and a weekend workshop schedule for July 2-4. The Youth Concert, later in the day at Crossley Hall attracted over a hundred people, and Teresa O'Brien reported "that we raised enough from donations to make our first mortgage payment on the St Brigids Church and Hall."
Further in to the evening fifteen poets competed in the Spud Poets Award. The Award was won by last year's winner Clare Milesi. Her poem "Bless Me Father" about a priest who dies while hearing a confession and the confusion his death causes, was judged unanimously a winner, and was clearly popular with the audience.

The new Lake School Art Exhibition featured the work of Brenda Grimshaw, who hung her very finely crafted copies of The Book of Kells at the Crater Gallery, and gave all a chance to mooch around, nibble on the cheese and drink the champagne on offer. New also this year were the harp, mandolin and banjo class that played at the Grand Ceildhe, along with the usual fiddles, whistles, pipes, guitars, flutes and bodhrans.

A somewhat warmer day on Friday, the last day, saw a Tutors Concert, the launching of yet another amazing Paddy O'Neill Award band - this year called Shanachie, and an epic Songwriters Concert to "finish us all off. "
Those who weren't quite finished off lounged around in directors chairs for another day before refreshing themselves, and cleaning out the effects of innumerable Guinness, in the waves of Eastern Beach or Potato Soup.

Record numbers came to the Lake School this year and they gloried in the beautiful music, the soulful singing, the energetic dancing, the congenial atmosphere and the warm friendships. Hopefully the weather will hold out for next year.

Photos from 2010 Lake School by Brenda Osborne (Illowa Ceilidhe and Lake School Choir above)

The photos below from the 10th Lake School provided by Brenda Osborne

Paddy Fitz and Nick Martin at Micky Bourke's Jim Lawrenson and Garry Rose at Songwriters Brigid Glaisher member of Paddy O'Neill

Pub session concert Award band - Dram!

Are these your agile fingers Mary? Slow session lead by Mark McDonnell Ted Egan - one of Australia's National Living

Treasures

Sile Coleman at Singers Night Jenny McKechnie - Dram!! Ewen Baker - fiddle tutor

Mark McDonnell leading the Slow Session players at the Grand Ceilidhe January 6 2008

Photo courtesy Dale Hanson

Also thanks to our sponsors and supporters Port Fairy Folk Festival, Moyne Shire, Yelp Studios, Ausmed Publications, Ade Kelly, Bushwahzee,

Quinlan's Quality Meats, Emerald Travel, Upwey/Belgrave RSL and the estate of Maity Swallow, Embassy of Ireland, Daly's Koroit IGA, Dave Birch, Koroit and District Primary School, St Patrick's Primary School, The Quiet Man, Eileen Moran, Koroit Country Bakehouse, Bill Clohesy, National Celtic Festival

Lake School Honour Roll

Legends of the Lake

2003 Billy Moran inducted by Irish Ambassador Declan Kelly

2004 Fay and Morgan McAlinden inducted by Martha McEvoy (Embassy of Ireland)

2005 Dennis O'Keeffe inducted by Val Noone (Tain Magazine)

2006 Maria Forde inducted Marion O'Hagan (Irish Welfare Bureau)

2007 Vince Brophy inducted by Martha McEvoy

2008 Tommy Carty inducted by Ted Egan

2009 Paddy Fitzgerald indcuted by Mary Fiorini-Lowell (Mary Bourke)

2010 Ewen Baker inducted by Shane Howard

2011 Mark and Lisa McDonnell inducted by Chris Atwell (Co-ordinator Tamar Valley Festival, TAS)

Paddy O'Neill Band Award Winners

2007 Beltane

2008 Rant

2009 Dram

2010 Shanachie

2011 Fianna

2012 Six At The Crossroads

Spud Poet Awards Winners

2006 Chris Healy (Mas-cav-enger)

2007 Harry Reed (Spud Train)

2008 Francis Duggan (Old Casey)

2009 Clare Milesi (Soda Scones)

2010 Clare Milesi (Bless me Father...)

2011 Seamus Foley (The Hills of Lurg)

2012 No competition - Evening MC Bill Clohesy launching his book of poetry Just A Bit Of Craic

Maity Swallow Scholarship

2008 Mischa Herman

2009 Jenny Mckechnie

Life Members

2007 Eileen Moran

2009 Dennis Taberner, Margie Brophy, Christine Meagher

2010 Leamon Chambers

Foundation Award

Felix Meagher

Mogyum Award

(an ocassional award made for people whose help behind the scenes

may have gone unnoticed - named after Barb Argall's unique and yummy chocolate cookies)

2006 Vicki Thorpe and Georg Diegmann

2007 Lillian O'Donnell

2008 Ray Argall

2009 Alan Birchmore

2010 John "Ozzie" Osborne, Joan Wooff

2011 Nicki Kramer

2012 Peter Daffy and Rachel Donovan

Six At The Crossroads - 2012 Paddy O'Neill Award Group

PADDY O'NEILL AWARD - 2011

The Paddy O'Neill Award was first held by the Lake School in January 2007, and

resulted in the creation of the amazing young celtic band - Beltane. After working for a week in January

in Koroit under the guidance of tutors Ade Kelly and Geoff McArthur, Beltane went on to record a

demo CD "The First Summer," and to play at the Port Fairy Festival, the Koroit Irish Festival

and the National Celtic Festival in Portarlington. Their photo is featured on the 2008 Lake School

flyer/application form.

The program was repeated in January 2008, 2009 2010 andwhen Rant, Dram, Shanachie and Fianna were formed, and they have gone on to have similar success to Beltane

Applicants are urged to think about the logistics of rehearsing and playing in a band, particularly if they are

under 18 and don't have a Driver's Licence.

The award was named after Paddy O'Neill, an Irish musician who lived in Melbourne and taught tunes

to young players for many years.

The Paddy O'Neill Award is being offered again at the Lake School in 2021.

For further enquiries contact Felix Meagher email felix@bushwahzee.com or mob 0413-801294

or Ade Kelly 03-52413749 email adenmyra@bigpond.com.au

The Award is open to musicians aged 16-25 who are keen to play in a musically competent celtic style group/band.

2011 Paddy O'Neill Award Winners - FIANNA

2010 Paddy O'Neill Award Winners - SHANACHIE

2011 Application form

Photos of 2009 Launch

Dram Paddy Fitz plays accompanied by Nicki and Geoff Life Members - Dennis, Christine, Margie

Jenny McKechnie - Maity Swallow Scholarship winner 2009