Festival Fit

Three festivals every week for a year. MARK GRAHAMcelebrates the surreal

Whilst trying to get my head around a Captain Hook lookalike singing The Voyage in Doolin last Saturday, I was struck by how lucky we are to be steeped in an abundance of natural ambient surrealism. We don’t have to forage for the bizarre: if you just sit in one place long enough it will land in your lap, especially if that place has a festival happening in it.

On a recent fête-related spin to Das Kapital, I stopped to have a chat with Pat Ingoldsby as he hawked his books outside the Bank of Ireland headquarters on College Green. He recited a poem for me that told of a lady who kept a somewhat feral ferret in her nether regions. When I was young fella and in my formative years, Pat presented a daytime television program for children with a telephone on his head. What chance did we have?

Flann O’Brien wrote for this very paper and planted seeds of surrealism throughout the country (standards have obviously dropped a gCopaleen or two, since I snuck in here).

Festivals are places where odd behaviour is not just expected, it’s actively encouraged. I’ve encountered folk who travel the length and breadth of the country with a mobile sauna installed in a horse trailer and a naked gentleman who was protesting about the illegality of his uncloaked body. I’ve thrown shoes at a cardboard cutout of George W Bush atop a mountain in Connemara and seen whole villages excited and enthralled by where a cow will shit in a field (it does beat The X Factor, mind you). Some readers may think Pat McCabe’s storylines outlandish, but if you’ve ever festivalled around the Border counties you’ll agree he probably plays it down a bit.

This weekend sees the return of the John Joe McGuire weekend in the wonderfully named town of Swanlinbar, Co Cavan. It’s in a local tavern here that you can take part in a chainsaw raffle. The main prize giving takes place on St Patrick’s Day; sure to add an extra element of excitement to what are guaranteed to be already lively proceedings. If you do hit Swanlinbar this weekend, buy me a ticket.

I found myself at the Pirates of the Caribbean/Riverdance extravaganza in Doolin, soaking in some sean nós shanties as part of the Micho Russell Weekend. Trad festivals named after people always seem to have an extra quirk or two. It’s in Tullamore you can attend the Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival, even though Johnny was born in Dublin and laid to rest in Longford. You can head for a pint in the popular hoppin’ hotspot of Friels during Willy Clancy Week in Miltown Malbay, but the name over the door will tell you that you’re entering Lynchs (relations of the bould David Lynch gan dabht).

If you do go to a trad festival that is named in memory of fiddler or to honour a piper, just don’t expect things to be straight forward is all I’m saying. While attending the Winnie Fennell weekend in Cappaquin, I took the highly irregular step of trying to conduct some research.

“Winnie must have been a great and well-respected musician to have a weekend like this named after her,” I probed, in an effort to find out what Winnie played and to worm my way into conversation with the large beard that was possibly hiding a man in it beside me. I had a feeling there was a man in there because every so often a hand would appear out of it, grasp a pint and retract into the hairy depths. Every time the glass

re-emerged it had less stout in it. “Not at all,” said a voice from within the whiskers, “Winnie couldn’t play a note, she was a publican. Pulled a good pint though.” A pint of plain is your only man, after all.

Safe travels, don’t die.

* ayearoffestivalsinireland.com