Fiddlers, accordion players, dancers, singers and broadcasters will be heading to Limerick for Sionna 2003 later this month.
The traditional music and dance festival, running from Wednesday, November 12th to Sunday, November 16th, will feature street theatre, concerts and a seminar on music, dance and disability.
The festival's highlight will be the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Traditional Musician of the Year Awards, which will take place in the University of Limerick Concert Hall on Saturday, November 15th.
Some of the musicians who will be honoured that night, including musician of the year, fiddle-player John Carty, from Boyle, Co Roscommon, and young musician of the year Ciarán Ó Maonaigh from Gweedore, Co Donegal, were at the reception in Dublin to publicise the festival's programme.
Dermot McLaughlin, chief executive of Temple Bar Properties, fiddle player and presenter of RTÉ's current series, The Raw Bar, chatted to broadcaster Ciarán Mac Mathúna.
Pádhraic Ó Ciardha, deputy director of TG4, was looking forward to the festival. "There is a sense in which music and the language are the heartbeat of the nation - le chéile 'siad cuisle an naisiúin seo."
"Tá an féile an-tabhachtach dúinn," said festival organiser Micheál Ó Súilleabháin, director of the Irish World Music Centre at the University of Limerick.
The campus is in the process of crossing the Shannon into Co Clare, he said. Within 10 years, , the river Sionna "will eventually run through the centre of the campus", he added.
Also present were Seán Ó Ceallaigh and Niamh de Búrca, of Gael Linn.
Then there was time for some music ranging from the Glory Reel, to the Bean an Tí ar Lár reel and the Harp and Shamrock hornpipe.