'It's an arty town, but we all get into the festival'

Kinsale Arts Week kicked off in blustery weather, but the outlook for the week is fine indeed, writes GEMMA TIPTON

The sun shines on Thursday, as we fight over Peter, the only man (it seems) in Kinsale with a drill. Janet Mullarney, Sheenagh Geoghegan and I are trying to get exhibitions up ahead of their Friday openings.

Janet’s show, in Coholan’s Butchers, now cleared of carcasses and chops, is perhaps the most tricky to install, but I’m not letting go of Peter just yet.

I had asked some of my favourite artists to show work they’d never, ever sell, and we need to drill a fair few holes to get it on the walls.

“You can feel the atmosphere growing,” says Carole Norman of Crackpots restaurant. “Everyone’s running round, building the stages, there’s art appearing in windows, and places you haven’t been into all year suddenly become galleries.”

By Friday, the rain is falling, just gently, but enough to put off the builders painting the steps of Brian O’Doherty’s The Lookout: Fort Within A Fort installation at Charles Fort. We log on to windguru.com, a website beloved of Kinsale’s sailors, to see what the future might hold. Rain and more rain.

Gales too. We quickly log off and focus intently on slightly less grey areas of sky. Perhaps it might brighten up? A brief lull on Friday makes the exhibition openings fun, as people crowd the temporary galleries (aside from Janet’s butcher’s shop, mine had been a hairdresser’s, and Sheenagh’s a café), and then head over to the lovely old Greyhound Bar.

“It’s an arty town,” says the bar’s owner Gerard Murphy, “there’s writers and artists here all year, but we all get into the festival. We don’t put on anything particular here; here is where people come after the noise and the music to relax.” It starts to rain again.

In Fishy Fishy Restaurant at lunchtime on Saturday, it’s like the United Nations.

Dutch, French and English accents mingle and, at the next table, two Texan women are wondering what to do about their husbands. Golf has been cancelled, and the men are getting grumpy.

They’d driven from Shannon, kissing the Blarney Stone en route. A helpful Irish woman shows them the festival programme, and starts planning a husband-cheering-itinerary. Hugs and kisses are exchanged. “You Irish are so wonderful,” say the Americans.

“Irish people think they must be made of sugar,” announces Guillaume Lequin, as he gives me fantastic coffee and cake in his Mange Tout delicatessen. “One drop of rain and they think they will melt.”

By this time, there is more than one drop of rain falling, and it looks pretty set in. “Thank God I’m not going to Paul Brady,” says a woman buying quiche. As I had just seen Brady wandering the corridors of the Carlton Hotel, looking bewildered by the weather, I had a feeling he may have been wishing for something similar.

Dog Tail Soup, who are playing support to Brady at Charles Fort, text the organisers. Might it be cancelled? No such luck, they’re told. We look at the sky some more. There’s definitely an improvement on the horizon.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin comes to Charles Fort to open the festival officially. I walk past his car and see him looking dolefully out as my umbrella breaks. But, trooper that he is, he braves the rain to give a rousing kick off to the week of theatre, music and art. If you worried about the weather in Ireland, you wouldn’t plan anything, but we’re here for the duration and nothing’s going to stop us having fun. As Brady takes the stage, the sun comes out.

Sunday morning is heavenly again. Just to be sure, we check Wind Guru: it’s looking good for the week.