Summers in Ireland are a haven for the festival lovers - there's such a variety it'd make your hair stand up on end in wonder! Whether it be the Arts festival, the Writer's festival, the Literary festival, the Folk/trad festival, the Blues or Rock and so on, there's something for all tastes, to colour the darkest cavern of the mind. But it's the Folk festival, I'm addressing here. In the year '08, I sought out a number of festivals in the country - two in particular, one leads on into the other and they are both in the same county - the Mourne county - county Down. The two festivals take place in late July - the first "Celtic Fusion" is based in Castlewellan with maybe one or two events outside in Newcastle. As that finishes up, the "Fiddler's Green" Festival starts in the deep south of the county - Rostrevor! So what better way to see the beautiful Mourne County than to perambulate both these fine festivals - kill two birds with the one stone!! http://www.maginnsbar.com
The Celtic Fusion is a haven for tradtional and folk music lovers! Pubs like Savages, Mulhollands, Maginns, have live music sessions every evening and in addition to that you have that architecturally stylish pub - The Stables! (The great thing about any of these local community festivals around Ireland is, that it is free entertainment!) On the very penultimate night of the festival I gave an impromptu recitation of my Tara poem - "The Warrior's rallying cry" - about the construction of the M 3 motorway through the Tara/Skyrne complex. As I stood on top of a table to a half full pub, one or two drunken oafs propping up the bar tried to heckle me and shout me down! I decided I'd project and bellow my voice even more to drown them out - it did the trick - they sagged back onto the bar as one who had just been rendered comatose from a very powerful injection! I got a great reaction and applause (it was one of my friends from the Fiddler's Green the previous year who called me to recite in the first place). What made it even better, was that a local couple sitting at the table beside me, I knew from Tara!! A small world aye???
http://www.celticfusion.co.uk
Given Castlewellan is no more than five miles from the majestic Mourne mountains (the landscape that inspired CS Lewis when writing Narnia) it is ideally placed to explore the environs - indeed you can see the resplendent Mournes from the village - with Slieve Donard standing out like a head foreman in the crowd!
In Castlewellan itself, there is the beautiful Castlewellan Forest Park; in which there is a circular walk around an exquisite lake - it'd be an ideal place to camp! About two or three miles outside the village in the parish townland of Maghera, there are some interesting grave stone slabs to be seen........
The final event of the Festival usually takes place in Castlewellan GAA club - either a live concert or a play - which has an admission charge but is still well worth it! So as the Festival had finished, I headed for Rostrevor as the Fiddler's Green Festival was just beginning (I had been to Rostrevor for the Fiddler's Green the previous year - '07 - to sell newspapers -"Tara news" - and try to publicise the protest and disgrace of the M3 motorway - it was then I met a guy called Dave Cunningham and a German man called Norbert, who travels around the country going to festivals, and it was Dave who had called me to recite two days earlier in the just finished Celtic Fusion). This music and arts festival is going since 1986 and is a highly rated international festival, established by the famous musical family of Rostrevor - the Sands Family! For me, the epicentre of the pubs and music is, Ned's Bar and the Kilbroney Bar - the craic is mighty and if one could stack the craic together in a cylinder, it'd reach the Heavens! A feature of the Festival is an historical walking tour of Rostrevor and the not to be missed Ceili on the square - an on the Village Green sort of thing - part of Ireland's heritage and customs of bygone years...... in which young and old take part.
But the event I was heading for was "Ceili House" in the Kilbroney Bar - basically an open session for everyone to sing, recite, play a bit of music, tell a story or whatever. It takes place in the Basement and this year - '08 - it was packed with up to 50/60 people. It was chaired and presented by someone from Downtown Radio, Belfast. So here again, as in Castlewellan, I recited "The Warrior's rallying cry", and spoke afterwards about the situation of the M3. There were people singing traditional Dutch songs, German songs, but for me, hearing a Manx song being sung, was very special. I decided to also throw in a singing contributon, with a rendition of "Raglan Road", which I've been known to do!! All in all, this was a great event - the buzz was fantastic and it's a great lead in, to the rest of the week. http://www.fiddlersgreenfestival.co.uk
Rostrevor Bay was of course described by George Bernard Shaw, as more beautiful than the Bay of Naples - "Nature has smiled kindly upon it". The truth is that it is yet another adornment for the rich tapestry of the Mourne county; Kilbroney park is particularly enchanting and mesmering containing a Fairy Glen, and if you
ascend to the top you'll have a fantastic view of the Mournes to the west, the Cooley Mountains to the east, the aforementioned Bay and directly opposite, the Cooley Peninsula in county Louth. The Park is where all the campers make base but it's perhaps most famous for the Cloch mor (the Big stone); according to tradition, that legendary giant, Fionn Mac Cumhaill, flung it over a great distance before it landed here at this spot! Believe it or not, the tallest man in the world, Patrick Murphy, is buried here!
So there you have it! The two festivals of county Down. There are of course other ones - one of the great things of the communities of Ireland is that each parish or community has their own wee annual event in the sun! One such is the Leitrim Festival (7/8 miles from Castlewellan) - in the tiny hidden village of Leitrim in the hinterland of Slieve Croob, but the ones at the heart of this piece are the ones I have become intimate with - they are earmarked internationally.
So what better way to see the beautiful Mourne county? The county which has two anthems: "The Star of
the county Down" and "The Mountains of Mourne" by Percy French; the county whose very Mourne Mountains inspired the writing of Narnia; the county which has a Bay which GB Shaw regarded in higher esteem than the Bay of Naples; the county which was the first to bring the Sam Maguire Cup (All-Ireland football championship) to the Six Counties in the north of Ireland; the county which has the first summit-level canal in Ireland or Britain - the Newry Canal from 1741; and the county which has the oldest pub in Ireland - Gracie Neills, in Donaghadee in the north of the county. What better way, than by sampling two fine international music and arts festivals which overlap each other in late July!? Oh for Festivals and the County Down....... I'm in a trance!
