Biggest street party hits the highs as thousands enjoy Spraoi festival fun

The biggest street party of the holiday weekend took place in Waterford where tens of thousands turned out for the annual Spraoi festival.

Normal life was suspended for three days as locals enjoyed a feast of free entertainment provided by a variety of performers from local songwriters to international acrobatic troupes.

Comedy was a big element of the festival as large crowds gathered to watch energetic performers like Stickleback Plasticus, a pair of ballroom dancers who looked the part but couldn't dance, and the Buckingham Palace-style guardsman who drank pints of beer on the job.

Tourists and visitors from throughout the south-east mingled with the city-centre crowds, but the event continues to be largely a local one, when the people of Waterford come together for a communal celebration.

The Spraoi director, Mr T.V. Honan, said the event, first held in 1993, did seem to be getting better every year. "The crowds were in great form and spirits and again the quality of acts was very high," he said.

That view was endorsed by Peter Eijsink, who is involved in organising a similar festival in the Dutch city of Amersfoort and was in Waterford to see what Spraoi was all about.

Mr Eijsink had just been to the Galway Arts Festival but declared himself even more impressed by Spraoi. "It's almost the same as our own festival in that it's for the local people. That's why the atmosphere is good. Everybody knows each other and everybody is talking to everybody else," he said.

"The Galway Arts Festival is much bigger but this one is more intimate, and I like that."

Intimate or not, the crowds attending the festival were the biggest ever, with 1,000 attending the opening event alone on Friday, a performance by The Bagdaddies, an east European gypsy-style band from Newcastle-on-Tyne. Other acts equally defied easy description.

Extra gardai were on duty on Saturday night but a Garda spokesman said the event passed off without incident.