Anthem for another Festival

The 30th Fiddlers Green Festival finished officially on Sunday night - although there was still some sessions happening last night as the last stragglers hung on for another day, many of  heading up to the top of Slieve Martin to toast the end of another year of friendship and great music. 

This was the band that played on the Main Stage on Saturday night.  Four Men and A Dog are a stupendous band - even though this video was shot  7 years ago, their energy is still as fierce and the virtuosity of the playing just leaves me breathless.
(The Dog, by the way, was the nickname of their first singer, Mick Daly)

The week went off really well - starting with a garden party here, then many local singers taking part in 20 singers, 20 songs on Sunday night - that's a lovely idea for a festival fund raiser and the house is always full.  

Tom and I played on Monday night, opening for Luka Bloom - we had a fabulous night.   Luka is a very energetic performer and writes a lot of rocky political songs.   But he always opens with this simple song that he wrote from the point of view of a child and is now being sung by choirs all over the world as an anthem for peace.  - I Am Not at War with Anyone

It struck me as the week went along that we are very privileged here to get to see world class musicians in our small hall.  wonderful stuff.  

I'll not go through the whole programme with you, but I'll share a couple more videos later in the week to give you an introduction to some of these Irish bands.  The pubs were full for all the sessions; the lunch time folk club had singer songwriters from here and from Scotland; the afternoon folk club was mostly local acts - we are blessed with wonderful young performers in this area; there were a couple of art exhibitions, workshops in traditional music and writing, singing and storytelling, singarounds, walks and even a Duck Derby!!

Our visitors are making their way home now - to Germany and Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, Scotland and England - there were even some from as far away as Australia and Canada.  

Safe travels to you all and we'll see you back again in another year's time. 

Linking up today with the lovely Denise over at Denise's Planet.