Musicians have rich pickings in Co Clare this summer. No sooner have the strains of the Willie Clancy Festival in Miltown Malbay died than they are replaced by another celebration.
The highlight of this weekend's festival in the east Clare village of Feakle will be this evening's performance of a sequel to Brian Merriman's The Mid- night Court. Merriman, who taught in Feakle, set his earthy 18th-century poem nearby on the shores of Lough Graney.
Banned for decades, its sequel, Poet in Purgatory, written by Steve Cooney, will lament that Brian Merriman wrote the poem in the first place. It will be performed by the Australian-born musician, with music by Martin Hayes, the Slieve Notes group, Seamus Begley, and Len Graham and John Campbell from Northern Ireland.
Workshops continue until tomorrow. Mr Gary Pepper, festival organiser, says that in its 13th year it has begun to attract musicians from Italy, Japan, South Africa and Holland.
Next weekend the fourth Eigse Mrs Crotty will be held in Kilrush, which commemorates the famous concertina player from which the festival takes its name. The focus will be on the diminutive instrument with workshops being held for beginners, intermediate and advanced players, followed by ceili and pub sessions.
Demonstrations of the instrument will be given by Aogan Lynch and Micheal O Raghaillaigh, a member of the Providence band which will headline the memorial concert on August 19th. Dr Ciaran MacMathuna, the RTE broadcaster who recorded Mrs Crotty in the 1950s, will open the festival.
"There have been a huge number of inquiries. We have laid on more pub sessions to give it more of a festival feel," says Ms Aine Clune, the PRO. Information: http://clare.local.ie/kilrush