MUSICAL GEMS AT TRADFEST

DINGLE provided a perfect antidote to last weekend’s miserable weather with the seventh annual Tradfest, which filled pubs and other venues with the best of trad music, singing, dance and the kind of craic that made the incessant rain falling outside seem like a distant memory.

Best appreciated by rambling from one music session to another, the festival had many subtle highlights, among them a sean nós dancing workshop with Edwina Guckian in Benner’s Hotel on Saturday morning. West Kerry wouldn’t be known as a stronghold of the loose-limbed sean nós style, but participants took to it with great enthusiasm. Some of them might yet be a match for young Catherine and Tom Cullen who delighted the crowd with their fancy footwork on the counter in Curran’s pub on Sunday night.

In between times the festival offered some wonderful sessions – all in a very relaxed and easy going style that left a door open for people to join in. The appeal was magnetic, so much that people guarded their standing room – not to mention the hope of a seat – once they got into a pub.

Mags Smith and Barbara O’Higgins from Dublin were among the many who travelled to Dingle for the festival and they were entranced by the experience. “This is just fabulous, where else would you get the likes of it?” they said, summing up the feelings of many about a rare gem of a weekend.

Photo by Declan Malone Derek Hickey on the box and Tom Cullen on the counter in a night of music and dance in Curran’s pub during Tradfest.

Derek Hickey, Tony O’Connell and Mike McGoldrick playing in Curran’s pub on the closing night of Tradfest on Sunday.