Paparzzo Pretensions

or

Another Weekend, Another Festival

It seems the country is over-run with festivals these days.  For example, a quick search on the internet reveals that The Secret Garden festival is happening in Martinstown House, just down the road from me next weekend (18th and 19th August), featuring story-tellers, poets, musicians and artists in return for €38.  This is the first I have heard of this festival.  Who goes to this?  Why are the tickets so expensive?  €38 to sleep in a tent?

Attempting to erect the tent

If you want to spend a weekend camping in the rain while enjoying a few bevvies and listening to good music, check out a bike rally.  It'll cost you €10 or €12 and you'll get a badge to pin on your jacket.  A great night is guaranteed with the music and bar open well into the night, stalls to buy bike gear, t-shirts and camping equipment and the ubiquitous chipper van looking after all your nutritional needs. 

Anyway, last weekend was the turn of the OGAM festival in Uisneach.  That's the Off-Grid Arts and Music festival.  It has something to do with solar energy, but I'm afraid I didn't listen to that bit too closely.

Éanna, with Stephen, event organiser, behind the pole

The Hill of Uisneach is the centre of Ireland and the meeting point of the Cúige, or five ancient provinces of Ireland - Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Connacht and Mídhe.  It was an important site and a fire was lit there every year on the feast of Bealtaine (first of May, first day of summer) which could be seen from the Hill of Tara.  Uisneach is also mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters (celt.ucc.ie is a great resource for old Irish documents).  Unfortunately the hill is in private hands so you can't just wander up it, although you can get permission from the landowner.

Finally! Tent's up!

Anyway the reason I was at this obscure festival was to meet my brother, Éanna, who was playing with his band Synergy. I got there at about 3, a couple of hours before my brother was due to arrive.  According to Facebook, it was supposed to kick off at 11am, but alas, nothing was happening apart from a slight panic about forgotten equipment - in that hippy-eco kind of way that you only see at such events.

Now there were some nice colours so I took out my camera and took a few photographs before deciding that there must be a better way to spend my time.  I left, much to the consternation of a female 'organiser'.  It's funny how people assume that if you've a camera around your neck, you're from the media.  When I came back later to meet up with Éanna and laugh at his band's attempts to erect a tent, people were lining up to ask me to take their photo and give me their names and e-mail addresses which I duly jotted down in my notebook.  It was great fun!  Some people even thought my walking stick was a fashion statement.  I had a brief feeling of being a VIP trend-setter!

Synergy in full flow

The festival itself was scrappy, to put it mildly.  A band from Navan started off the show early, but proved incredibly difficult to get off the stage, leaving the small crowd fairly bored after hearing their entire repertoire for the 4^th time.  Synergy took over but weren’t too happy with their performance.  It was a messy kind of night and their guest drummer was, to be blunt, incapable of keeping the beat.  However, the crowd enjoyed it and happily nodded and drank away with a few brave souls dancing in the trippy lights.  Not the best festival, but meeting up with Éanna always makes for a good weekend!