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Full of festival fare
By Malcolm Rogers
Malcolm Rogers casts his eye over what Ireland has to offer in the way of festivals during 2005.
The Rose of Tralee, the Galway Races, the Ould Lammas Fair. They just trip off the tongue.
World-renowned, these festivals are special to the Irish people — local communities view them with pride, songs are written in their honour, and they are regarded with affection as they mark the passing of the year.
But of course they bring an immediate reward as well. Festivals offer the time-honoured pursuits of music, local colour, and a real slice of Irish life — you can meet the carousers and characters of the community, and sample the craic in its purest form.
From the Kinsale Gourmet Festival in the south of the country, to the Belfast Festival way beyond the Pale, from the Ballinasloe Horse Fair in the west to Puck Fair in deepest Kerry — there’s always a party going on.
Celebrations like the Clarenbridge Oyster Festival or the Banks of the Foyle Halloween Carnival — the biggest Halloween festival in the world, and a knees-up of almost pagan abandon — draw huge international audiences.
Other small local festivals, full of character and charm, are so intimate you’ll soon feel like a local yourself.
Single-issue festivals abound: the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Comedy Festival and the Wexford Opera Festival do exactly what they say on the tin.
And you don’t even have to attend any of the events. You can melt into the background and merely hang out, have a few drinks, partake liberally of the hospitality along with the rest of the locals. I’m a terrific fan of celebrations like these because it’s so nice not to be the laziest, most dissolute person around.
Some festivals are in the ‘active voice’ — in other words you play a major starring role yourself. These include Irish language, poetry, painting, cookery, literature, walking. . .
And just in case you think I’m always dissolute, the satisfyingly alliterative Willie Week in Miltown Malbay has regularly improved my fiddling prowess. Otherwise known as the Willie Clancy Summer School, teachers here specialise in honing your traditional music expertise.
From gags to gigs
Ireland boasts some truly esoteric gatherings come festival season, such as the National Culchie Festival, a sort of Rose of Tralee in reverse.
There’s also the Poc Fada in the Cooley mountains, where you trail after hurlers up hill and down dale, attempting to follow in the footsteps of Cú Chulainn — and this is only the start of the day’s revelry.
In the offbeat category, mention must be made of Bloomsday. This gives James Joyce devotees the chance to enter the world of Ulysses — as if they needed an excuse. Readings, re-enactments, music, theatre, street performances — and breakfasts including “grilled mutton kidneys with a fine tang of scented urine” — are the order of the day. June 16th is celebrated by as many as 2,500 Ulysses pilgrims, most of them kitted out in full Leopold Bloom costume.
Bloomsday is but one single day of celebration. Cork, however, being European Capital of Culture 2005, boasts a whole year of activities — from rock to baroque, from expressionism to experimental theatre, and from drama to all out comedy. And yes, that’s just a local Gaelic football match. (Only joking of course.)
Cork is an inspired choice as Culture Capital 2005. Being a compact sort of place, there’s a real cohesiveness to the events — in March there’s everything from ‘Graffiti as Gaeilge’ to the European Chess Championship (If you’re entering for the latter contest, just remember the winner in chess is the person who makes the second from last mistake).
In April it’s Beckett, bands and Beamish and in May it’s the Cork County Fleadh Ceol. In fact, to employ that very useful cliché — this year in Cork there’s something for everybody.
Village fetes and festivals
No matter what the excuse for an Irish festival — whether it’s the Summer Clam Chowder Festival in Carlingford or Hooker Racing in Kinvara (hookers are sailing boats, lest you make an embarrassing mistake), an Irish festival becomes an integral part of the community.
The festivities are a far more inclusive experience than you’re likely to come across in most other parts of Europe. It’s maybe one reason they seem to get busier every year.
As the song ‘The Galway Races’ says, “There were half a million people there of all denomination, the Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, the Presbyterian.”
The Galway Races may be in the running as just about the most popular festival of all (and that half a million people is probably a conservative estimate), but the Galway International Arts Festival is gaining ground, to use a racing analogy.
The Arts Festival is a cultural honey-pot of drama, film, dance, music, comedy, kids’ entertainment and street theatre. You can lurch from a pub seisiún to a play from Jamaica; or from street theatre to a season of Irish-American movies.
A growing highlight of the event is the Macnas Parade — a torch-lit extravaganza dominated by huge spooky figures (in actual fact made out of papier mache) whose business it is to eat children — don’t worry, the kids are eventually returned, whether the parents want them or not.
Street artists in Galway abound, although there are rumours that the council is trying to clamp down — tough on mime, tough on the causes of mime.
At the other end of the country lies Wexford. It’s said this is the ideal county if you’re a bird-watching opera buff who loves sea food.
The bird-watching out at the Slobs is indeed exemplary, as is the seafood within the ancient town’s precincts. But it is the Opera Festival which has bestowed international importance on the town.
This event is now one of the world’s most glamorous and friendly opera festivals.
If you can’t get tickets for the main events, not to worry — a huge programme of fringe events takes place incorporating everything from traditional sessions to opera-slanted street theatre.
Whether your interests lie in comedy, music, theatre, opera, busking drama, film, food — or merely getting quietly mellow in good company — you’ll find a gathering to suit your taste in Ireland.
The main celebrations get underway from about May onwards, but there’s a substantial amount getting geared up in springtime. And this year, with Cork being the European Capital of Culture, ‘the real capital’ has been buzzing since the start of the year.
Fairs, foodies and fare
Over the last few years you may have noticed a revolution in Irish food — the Tuck of the Irish is unrecognisable from what it was even a couple of decades ago.
25 years ago a fish supper was the only food served anywhere outside Dublin. Then suddenly there was a sea change — maybe it was a Constitutional amendment which I didn’t hear about, but the turnaround in Irish cuisine is astounding.
And now there are even whole festivals dedicated to ‘international fare’.
The Kinsale International Festival of Fine Food gives you every opportunity for gourmet guzzling, with everything from local produce to haute cuisine served. (And for all yez philistines out there, haute cuisine DOESN’T mean hot food).
The Kinsale motto could well be, “There’s no smoke without salmon,” but inexplicably it isn’t.
Ireland has been accused of having many ‘unique’ features, some true, some just a wee bit exaggerated. But the craic — that’s another thing altogether. Conviviality is of a higher order than you’ll find in most other places, and festivals are craic-tastic places to experience it. Plus, you get entertainment thrown in as well!
Everything from major acts to minor chords, from high opera in Wexford to low blue notes at the Cork Jazz Festival. You’re sure to find something to suit your taste.
So, as the President of the Annoying Sayings Society once said to me (in a different context): enjoy!
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