Fiddlers Green Festival 2018

Songs and a picnic at Fiddlers Green to start the annual festival in Rostrevor.

A couple of hundred of us walked up the hill to the clearing at Fiddlers Green to start the festival last Sunday.  For a change, this year the grass was bone dry, it was a gorgeous afternoon, and once we'd all recovered from the ordeal of the climb, it was a splendid start to proceedings.  Performers from Denmark, Germany, America and Spain did their party pieces along with all of us from here while everyone enjoyed their picnic.

Fiddlers Green is a community festival surrounding a folk festival which happens at the end of July every year and attracts a festival family from all over the world.  As well as the music side of things, there's art exhibitions, lots of mountain walks, children's events, traditional tunes and song sessions and far too many late nights and various refreshments to imbibe!  

The invisible partner has been the wonderful weather we've been having.  Thankfully it's not quite as scorching here as the folks over in England and Wales are having to endure, but it's still been in the mid to high 20s which for us is fabulous.  Everyone's out in the street and the atmosphere is great.

We have a gig tomorrow afternoon and then I'm off to see Ralph McTell tomorrow night.  Sunday Tom and I are hosting the final singaround at lunchtime and the final concert with The Sands Family is like a big collective hug to say goodbye to everyone until next year.   On Monday a crowd of us will head back up the mountain (further up this time), weather permitting (there's storms on the way) to finish it all off - that'll finish all of us off too no doubt but a pint of Vitamin G will restore equilibrium when we get back down.  

I hope you all have a great weekend.  

I Am Not At War With Anyone

Fiddlers Green Festival finished last night and a great week was had by all - there was so much good music and wonderful weather set it all off ... We're all in need of a rest now as we say goodbye to the visitors from England, Scotland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark and I'm sure many more that I didn't get to meet.   Our own gigs went off really well - yesterday we played a concert of new material from our forthcoming CD with a guest uilleann piper ... hopefully I'll have a video from that soon.  And my singing workshop on Friday was really good fun - multi lingual group of singers. 

You come to the end of a week like this and think you've missed so much, because there's so much happening and you can't possibly get to everything ...

One of the highlights for me was to hear Luka Bloom sing - he was wonderful - apparently simple songs but lyrics that really get to the point.   This was his opening song - although it's sung in this video by a children's choir -  he wrote this song to protest against the war in Iraq and decided to write it as a child would see it.   And somehow I think it's a fitting song at the minute.

I Am Not At War With Anyone
 by Luka Bloom

I am not at war with anyone


I am not at war with anyone


Go away warplanes


You bring fear and shame


I am not at war with anyone

I give my love to Iraq, and to America


I give my love to Israel, and to Palestine


We could live as one


Between the sea and sun


I am not at war with anyone

I don’t need to be friends with everyone


But I’d like to live in peace with everyone


This rush to war is wrong


And so I sing this song


I am not at war with anyone


I am not at war with anyone

I am not at war with anyone


I am not at war with anyone


Go away warplanes


You bring fear and shame


I am not at war with anyone


I am not at war with anyone


© 2003 Luka Bloom

And here's Luka live from a TV show, playing with Steve Cooney who lives here in the village - a guitar wizard.  

This song is called Heart Man.   We hear so much news about bad men - this was written for all the good men in the world. 

I've been absent from blogging most of this month - what with feeling really under the weather, and family stuff and festival rehearsals and lots of visitors - andt I'm still feeling jaded and out of sorts ...  However, it's good to get time to pause and reflect and I'll be coming back with a few more reviews in the coming days and weeks.  

And finally, the reward of our wonderful summer this year, my passionflower has bloomed!!   

Such a strange looking flower.  

 It has been more than 12 years since it last bloomed - so it's well worth the wait.

I just love it :)  It makes me smile :)

What's blooming in your garden?   Heard any good songs lately?  You know I love to hear.  

27th Fiddlers Green Festival

Last Friday night was the launch of this year's Fiddlers Green Festival which will take place between 20th and 27th July with a few small events on the Friday and Saturday before hand and probably a hangover party the Monday after .... so 10 or 11 days in total ... It's time to get into training :)

This is a unique festival in that it is organised by lots of different groups of people and then put together in one umbrella programme.   The main concerts each night are mostly folk - the opening night features 20 singers and 20 songs - all local, mostly young people, singing one song each as a fund raiser for the festival.  Luka Bloom is playing Monday night, Tuesday sees the Henry Girls, Wednesday is a new group to me - NASC - which has a Scots Gallic singer and an Irish language singer and some amazing musicians that play both classical and traditional.

Peace activist and songwriter Tommy Sands

Thursday night sees The Music of Healing combined with the Creative Arts Award - this is a very special night which was first created during the Troubles by Festival President Tommy Sands, as a platform for two opposing politicians to have a stage together and answer questions to an invited audience - there have been some strange combinations on that stage down through the years and it has truly been a place of healing.   The song from which the event title came, the Music of Healing, was co-written by Pete Seeger and Tommy Sands and looks to a future that we could have if we could get along together here.  Tommy's Music of Healing project has travelled the world since and is a peace education project at the Irish Institute of Pittsburgh.
About 5 years ago, the Creative Arts Award was incorporated into the evening - and this year the recipient is Martin Lynch, one of Northern Ireland's best known playwrights, who has made a profession out of writing plays for the man in the street rather than the intelligensia.

Playwright Martin Lynch

Moving on, Friday night at the Festival sees another award concert - the Hall of Fame - this award has been given for 27 years to a musician or group who have furthered the development of Irish music across the globe.   This year it will be given to Cherish the Ladies, a New York based traditional Irish band of women who are really at the top of the folk and traditional tree now.   Joannie Madden the founder of the band lead the St Patrick's Day Parade in Yonkers, NY this year.   This video is from a gala spectacular on PBS so the band are augmented .... but you can clearly see the brilliant musicianship...  It'll be a brilliant night - they always have dancers with them and the singer is usually kept secret until the night of the concert.


Saturday night's concert is still a surprise - but rumours are circulating about a well known Scottish performer - and then the main stage closes on Sunday night with a regular concert by the Sands Family.  Oh and I should mention that we're playing Sunday afternoon at 3.30.

Around those headline concerts there are pub sessions, an afternoon concert series which Tom and I are included in, a lunchtime folk club, an outdoor stage, several art exhibitions, open mike sessions, a couple of organised walks through the mountains, an event on the water where local boatsmen will take you out for a spin on the bay, a Duck Derby!!, lots of pop up cafes, readings, films and a complete children's programme with games and events for the very young up to mid teens.