‘You can feel the sheer joy of the crowd’: It’s Ireland’s year as 900,000 music fans head for Celtic festival in Brittany

It began life in 1971 as a modest piping festival in a far-flung region of western France. Its first, long-serving director, the late Jean-Pierre Pichard, once told The Irish Times about his early attempts to draw attention to Breton music within the creative establishment in Paris. He said he was made to feel like a little Breton boy up in the big city.

Fifty-two years on, the Festival Interceltique de Lorient is one of Europe’s leading urban festivals. This summer its organisers are anticipating the arrival of 900,000 visitors to the naval town of Lorient, in southern Brittany, for an exuberant celebration of Celtic culture.

The 10-day event will also welcome about 5,000 artists from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Asturias, Galicia, Cornwall and the Isle of Man, as well as the Celtic diaspora in Australia, New Zealand and Acadia.

This year Ireland steps forward as the featured Celtic nation. Reuben Ó Conluain has been head of the Irish delegation since 2006, succeeding the late Irish-language and culture activist Tomás Mac Ruairí, for whom he had acted as a volunteer translator since 1986. On the first Sunday of the festival Ó Conluain will carry the Irish flag at the front of the spectacular Grande Parade.

Bowel cancer: ‘I truly know what it means to live and am genuinely loving life’

---

That They May Face the Rising Sun: The best Irish film in a very long time

---

‘When our last embryo failed, the clinic told us there was nothing more they could do for us’

---

In the summer sunshine of Brittany, a throng of promenaders from across the Celtic world, unseasonably dressed in traditional costumes, presents a dazzling spectacle as they move through the streets in a great musical wave, heading for a massed gathering at Stade du Moustoir, home of FC Lorient.

Ó Conluain says he has sought to build a collective sense of pride and belonging within the delegation, uniting participants from across the island behind a single flag, regardless of their home places or cultural identities and backgrounds. The result is a joyous sense of family and international fellowship.

[ A handy guide to 99 of the best Irish festivals in 2023 ]

“It’s a tremendous privilege to lead the parade in this, the year of Ireland, with 70,000 spectators lining the streets and another 10,000 waiting in the football stadium,” he says. “You can feel the sheer joy of the crowd and the musical momentum building at your back, hearing the sounds of the Breton bombardes and cornemeuses, the Galician and Asturian gaitas, the accordions of Acadia, the Irish and Scottish bagpipes, the Welsh singers, the Irish, Cornish and Manx dancers. Particularly for many of the young members of the delegation, it’s like nothing they’ve ever experienced before.

“Ireland has been a participant since the very first festival, in 1971, and we have always made the delegation as representative as possible, going north, south, east and west. This year, among a group of around 170 people, we have dance schools, pipe bands, folk groups, instrument teachers, dance and language instructors, and an artist. It always amazes us how the people who go to the Lorient festival are so familiar with Irish music. They know it really well – more than many Irish people.”

The programme features a rich mix of concerts, spectacles, masterclasses, competitions, workshops and choral recitals. Musicians, dancers and singers from the respective delegations appear alongside high-profile professional artists. A sprawling artisan, crafts, book and food market sets up camp along the quays. And then there’s the unofficial fringe, a colourful patchwork of music sessions, playing late into the night, in bars and pavement cafes, around the waterfront and through the town.

Among this year’s headline acts are Altan, with the National Orchestra of Brittany; Clannad, playing their final concert in France during their farewell tour; The Friel Sisters’ tribute to the late Paddy Maloney; Usher’s Island, a reunion of Dónal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Paddy Glacken, Mike McGoldrick and John Doyle, who join the virtuoso fiddler Frankie Gavin and others for the Irish Legends concert; Celtic Odyssey, for which the Breton uilleann piper Ronan Le Bars has brought together 17 musicians, including Altan’s accordionist, Martin Tourish, and vocalist, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, and Dónal O’Connor, the Belfast fiddler and director of Belfast TradFest, who has been involved with the Lorient festival man and boy.

“I was first there with my parents” – Gerry O’Connor and the late Eithne Ní Uallacháin – “who had a band called Lá Lugh,” he says. “Then, in my late teens, I played with a band called Planxty O’Rourke, as a member of the Irish delegation. Now, as a professional musician, I’m part of Celtic Odyssey, which was a huge success in Lorient last year and which we were invited to perform at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall in January during Celtic Connections.

“The Lorient festival has been brilliant in inspiring other festivals across the world. It has led the way in showcasing Celtic music and opening up connections between the Celtic nations, bringing people together to share music, exchange ideas and build relationships.”

A new performance space, Le Kleub, will provide a platform for a rising tide of emerging artists, who are bringing contemporary sounds to post-traditional music. Making their festival debut on that stage will be Cúig, five young musicians from counties Armagh and Tyrone.

“We are influenced by a broad spectrum of music,” says the band’s guitarist, Ruairí Stewart. “We would have listened to a lot of trad music growing up but, as our musical palettes broadened, we started experimenting more with what we were creating ourselves. It’s a huge honour to perform at Lorient in the year of Ireland. There are so many talented musicians and bands coming out of Ireland at the moment. We hope our modern sound will showcase the fact that Irish music is in safe hands.”

As he prepares to marshal his troops for the short flight from Dublin to Lorient, Ó Conluain talks passionately about the inclusivity of the mission in which he has played such a pivotal part. “We are very proud of being non-political, all-Ireland and cross-community. Even through the height of the Troubles we managed to maintain that. Everybody comes together as the Irish delegation, to show that our music is distinctive and different. We go as one, to share that music with each other and to present it to others.”

Festival Interceltique de Lorient runs from Friday, August 4th, to Sunday, August 13th