I NEVER did go on the ‘rip on the Trip to Tipp’. The festival is immortalised in the More Power to Your Elbow song of the same title. The song was always a favourite because it contained a few suggestive lines. Nothing to do with the festival.
I was too young to go to the Trip to Tipp in the early 90s, and I always felt that I had missed something special.
My first experience of a festival was Benburb Sunday when I was a teenager. Benburb Sunday happens in June every year. A board on the roadside at the bottom of the M1 let us know the exact date of the festival from year to year. (This might still be the case.)
Music, a burger van, candy floss, even sunshine, on the very odd occasion – all these denoted a day of community and strangely, a sense of freedom. And then, that was about it. Nothing much until Benburb Sunday came around again the next year.
I couldn’t have imagined how big a role festivals would play in my life. In a way, my life revolves around them. Through folk and traditional music, the year begins with Celtic Connections in Glasgow, which leads on to Imbolc in Derry in February, March is a month-long festival... and so it continues, year in, year out.
I was thrown into festival culture at university. I arrived in Galway in July 1996 in the middle of the Galway Arts Festival. I had never been to Galway and had never heard of the festival. There is no escaping the Film Fleadh or the Arts Festival If you happen to be in the city of the tribes during July. Art, music, drama and culture spill on to the streets and in a way, remain there. It’s a special place.
What I didn’t understand during that first visit to Galway was that festivals were equally a big part of the university culture and I embraced the opportunity to be involved in curating, planning, organising, and selling such events.
Locally, I think that festival culture has really developed here in recent years, especially since the ceasefires. We’re beginning to embrace and celebrate festivals, understand their benefits and not fear them anymore.
Some believe that the market is saturated. Festivals are popping up in the most obscure places and for any number of reasons. Take Clonmany in Co Donegal, for example. What’s not to love about the idea of a sleepy country town turning into a country music mecca and being invaded by jivers for a week each summer? That’s exactly what happens!
In terms of traditional music, beginning tomorrow, Castlewellan, Co Down, hosts the Ulster Fleadh, Rostrevor hosts Fiddler’s Green for the 32nd year and the Earagail Arts festival finishes up next weekend with The Swell Festival on Aran Mór island. To these areas, and many like them, the ‘festival’ is the main focus and highlight of the year for that area.
Summer festivals in particular have become big business and enhance the season with creativity, music, travel, adventure, literature, debate, even health and wellbeing. It also gives the local community a chance to showcase their little part of the world in all its glory. For the attendee, an opportunity to sample this.
One of my favourite local festivals will finish its sixth year in style this weekend. Castlewellan is a country town which has suffered from lack of investment, emigration and unemployment in recent times. In an effort to give the town a focus, and new energy, a group of locals got together and started the Soma festival. It’s brilliant.
Already this week, Paul Brady and Damien Dempsey have played there, there’s lots more to come tonight and tomorrow, and there will be a local market in the town centre today, yoga classes, talks and of course, plenty of music.
Festival curators often manage to attract a wealth of talent on minimal budget. They need support to survive. If you haven’t been to a festival in a while, or ever, maybe now’s the time to plan a trip. You might end up not too far from home.
I seem to have a never-ending festival bucket list. Still on my Irish list are The Swell Festival in Aran Mór, the Cork Jazz festival, Body and Soul, the Achill harp festival and All Together Now in Waterford. I’ll stop now.
If time and money were no object, wouldn’t a ‘professional festival goer’ sound like the perfect job?
