The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
FÉILE NA BEALTAINE CALLS SUMMER TO LIFE
ARTY without being stuck up about it, classical, modern, irreverent, and delivered with fiery passion; the brief performance by Graffiti Classics at the launch of Féile na Bealtaine could have stood as a symbol for the festival.
Minister for Tourism and Sport Brendan Griffin generously took time out to perform the official opening in An Díseart on Thursday, delivering his well-considered speech with children cavorting under his feet and an audience variously arranged on seats and on the floor in front of him. Féile na Bealtaine does lots of things – but it doesn’t do ‘formal’!
And then it was on with the programme – an exuberant mix of visual art, poetry, literature, music, academic lectures, children’s entertainment, Bealtaine celebrations in the celtic spirit, and a massive street theatre parade.
The festival aims to provide something for all tastes and the packed venues at most of the events provided the measure of its successs. You mightn’t expect a lecture on the psychological insights to be gleaned from Irish sheanfhocail to draw a crowd on a rare sunny afternoon, but there wasn’t an empty seat in the Fresco Room at An Díseart as Professor Aidan Moran delivered a highly entertaining talk, which included an explanation of why multi-tasking is a waste of time. Prof Aoife McLysaght had her audience enthralled when she discussed genetics with Nuala O’Connor in the science room at Bunscoil an Chlochair; aspiring astronaut Dr Niamh Shaw talked about space travel with a hugely enthusiastic roomful of children in An Díseart on Sunday and on Monday, while others nursed bank holiday hangovers, Dr Bill Hanlon held his audience in fascination with a talk about the culture, health and spirituality of people in remote villages in the high mountains of the world.
On the musical front, there were packed venues for performances by the Dingle New Music Choir and Orchestra in the Skellig Hotel on Thursday, Graffiti Classics in Ballyferriter, classical pianist Fiachra Garvey – preceded by young local pianist Ben Johnson – in St James’s on Friday, and the trad music Sibín Orchestra in Feothanach Hall, also on Friday. The eagerly anticipated concert by Camille O’Sullivan in St James’s Church on Saturday was sold out and those lucky enough to have a ticket savoured the unexpected bonus of an impromptu poetry recital by Brendan Kennelly who answered the call to ‘say a poem’ after he was spotted among the audience.
There was no room to stand back and view the paintings at the official launch by former minister Jimmy Deenihan of Carol Cronin’s latest collection. And anybody who wants to go back to the gallery for a second look would want to get a move on because almost all the paintings were sold before the weekend was out.
Meanwhile, over in the old creamery, there was a constant stream of visitors to the ‘Project 52’ exhibition by local artists and, in between times American artist Andrew Jacob – the great grandson of the last king of the Great Blasket – was painting a mural of his ancestors on the gable wall of Nellie Fred’s pub. It’ll be there for as long as paint survives weather and, according to Andrew, the “old timers really like it”.
The lyrically literate flocked to Dick Mack’s pub on Saturday for a morning of poetry and pints and even the rather unlikely pairing of poetry and geology filled Emlagh House on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
The festival reached back into our ancient past on Saturday night with an Oíche Bhealtaine celebration in the field behind Curran’s pub, where other-world figures dressed in fur, flowers and the bones of long dead animals drifted among the bonfires against the somehow perfectly appropriate soundtrack of techno-trad music.
The following morning – and too early for some who lingered into the dawn by the embers of the Bealtaine fires – the festival street theatre parade produced a vividly colourful and hugely varied interpretations of its guiding theme of ‘science’. Easily the biggest parade the festival has ever had, its success was the result of Féile na Bealtaine’s ability to be inclusive. A perfect of this was Kim Bauer from Seattle who arrived in Dingle on holiday last week and came upon Féile na Bealtaine by chance. On Friday she was in Curran’s pub making straw masks for the Oíche Bhealtaine celebrations (pictured right); and by Sunday she had been press-ganged into carrying the Féile na Bealtaine banner at the head of the street theatre parade.
“This really is just amazing,” said Kim. And, for once, nobody could disagree with the Americans.