The highlight of the arts calendar in Co Donegal, the Earagail Arts Festival, is this year taking advantage of special funding for Millennium celebrations to bring art to the most unlikely of places.
Tory Island will be the venue on Sunday night for a pyrotechnics and fireworks show by the Manchester-based Walk the Plank. Staging the show involves erecting a 50-foot structure, which will beam light around the island. Festival director Angela McLaughlin said the Tower of Light show, which will also be staged on Rathmullan pier next Friday night, would be one of the highlights.
Anybody planning to make the trip to Tory on Sunday night can also take in one of the festival's other free outdoor shows earlier on the beach at Magheraroarty at 3 p.m. Streetstory: Harvest of Ghosts is the result of a collaboration between Nigerian playwright and director Sam Ukala and English-based company Horse and Bamboo. It is described as "a story of kings, priests and oil companies, villagers and their ancestors" and involves masks, rituals, processions and puppetry. The show will also be performed tomorrow at Rathmullan, again at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
The Earagail arts festival, now in its 11th year, believes in not being confined to a single urban centre. This year some 70 events will be staged in 31 venues in 14 towns and villages around Co Donegal.
The festival also has a wide scope and a policy of drawing on local talent as well as bringing in acts from outside. The music programme is wide-ranging and highlights include performances by Billy Bragg, Ugandan guitarist Bernard Kabanda, Buncrana's Kevin Doherty (formerly of Four Men and a Dog), Luka Bloom, Mairtin O'Connor, and Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson. Jazz fans are catered for with Guy Barker and Louis Stewart.
In drama, the festival has commissioned a new production of Ken Bourke's Wild Harvest from Donegal's only professional theatre company, Ballybodeybased Fada. The play will be staged in three towns from July 13th to 17th. Kabosh Theatre Company from Belfast will perform its award-winning Mojo- Mickybo.
To close the festival next weekend there will be carnival parades in Letterkenny and Falcarragh. The Inishowen Carnival Band and Belfast's Streetwise Circus will take part.
The Earagail Arts Festival runs until July 18th. Information and bookings from 074-29186.