A Musical Week

Take The Floor finale

From  Eileen's performance in "Take the Floor", the Fleadh music festival in Cavan to the pubs of Galway, it certainly has been a week of great "craic" (the Irish term for fun).
Firstly to" Take the Floor"- the lighting, costumes, music by Beoga and of course the 50 international Irish dancers made for a night of great entertainment. Eileen was graceful and made the dancing look easy. 10 days to create a performance, what an exceptional achievement!
Whilst Eileen was hard at work,Vicky, David and I took on Dublin with the help of Dolores and Paul. We had a great time together and tried our best to distract Vicky from missing her daughter.
Thursday night saw us take off to Belfast via the Fleadh Festival in Cavan. This is one of the largest annual traditional music festivals in Ireland. We specifically went to see a concert with Clannad and Altan, two of Ireland's most noted bands. Both play traditional Irish music but each have a different sound, Clannad's ethereal sound is similar to Enya's (she is the lead singer's sister) whilst Altan is more the foot-tapping jig and reel variety but they also play beautiful ballads. Both bands have been together for over 30 years and a couple of the musicians in Clannad looked like they were wearing shirts from 30 years ago. I loved the sound of Altan and their music distracted me from the hard seats, cosy closeness to the person next to me and the rain that was bucketing down outside.
Our 2 hour drive on to Belfast was not a pleasant one with the rain pouring down, and a wrong turn which meant narrow roads rather then the route we had planned. We finally arrived a little testy at about 1 am. Whilst David had a lecture the next day at the university, I had the luxury of a sleep-in, a late breakfast and a leisurely look around Belfast.  This included the Ulster Museum with 10 Da Vinci drawings, the Hop On Hop Off bus and the viewing platform at Victoria Square shopping centre. There was so much talk on the bus tour about the peace in Belfast and how much the country has changed, but this dialogue was interspersed with comment on the division that still exists. True peace will not be evident until the "peace" walls are removed and people move on without the constant reference to their past.

Ross Errily Abbey

We drove to Galway on Friday afternoon. We had spent an hour or so there with Emma and Rebecca and were determined to make it back to experience the Galway night life for which it is known. We also wanted the opportunity to see that area of Ireland as we had heard lots of things about the surrounding countryside.
So on Saturday morning, we headed towards Cong. This is a very pretty town.  I had read that if you imagined your romantic notion of an Irish village, this would be it. On the way, we went to Ross Errily Abbey. This is one of the best preserved Franciscan friaries in Ireland dating from the 14th Century. The countryside in this area is chequered with stone walled fences and filled with Connemarra Black Faced sheep.

The Hun

Near Cong is Ashford Castle. This is an amazing castle, now a 5 star hotel but in the most splendid grounds. It is set on 370 acres and has a lake at the front, turrets, fountains, woods for exploring and a nearby school of falconry. We had lunch in Cong, at the Hungry Monk cafe, before our return trip through the Connemarra district, an area of mountains, lakes and valleys.

Cong

The evening still lay ahead of us and it was the music and atmosphere of Quay Street we were looking forward to. We had a lovely dinner at the Quay Street Kitchen where the waitress suggested we go to The Crane to listen to more traditional music. It was packed with people but the music did not disappoint. 16 musicians were playing a variety of instruments with the occasional song being sung in between. It was marvelous!

On Sunday, we visited the village of Knock, an hour north of Galway, and attended mass. Knock is known for the appearance of Our Lady, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist in 1879. It is one of the major pilgrimage sites in Ireland. After visiting the Knock Shrine and browsing in the many shops selling religious items, we drove west to the coast, to Westport. South of Westport there is an imposing mountain called Croagh Patrick. Many people climb this mountain as a pilgrimage of penance as it was here that St Patrick spent 40 days and nights.

Knock Shrine

Croagh Patrick

Our weekend was fast coming to an end and so after the long drive back across Ireland, we settled into to another week at home in Dublin. Now we have Finland and Estonia to look forward to next weekend.

Musicians, The Crane Bar, Galway