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Celtic calendar MALCOLM ROGERS presents a month-to-month
guide for 2008.
 January
— Wander in Wicklow...
“To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre.
Arm yourself with some poetry and walk along the Wicklow Way. The views
from Glencree Valley, sweeping down to the Irish Sea, are as fine as you
can get in these islands. Walk far enough (or take the bus) and you’ll
come to St. Kevin’s monastery in Glendalough, one of Ireland’s
— arguably Europe’s — most important Christian settlements.
The walks up the steep sides of the heavily-wooded valley are spectacular,
dramatic and thought-provoking. Medical researchers reckon that when you
walk the left-hand side of your brain progressively shuts down for business.
This, apparently, is the side of the brain which deals with the niggly,
day-to-day business of work, family, whether the car needs serviced. The
right-hand side deals with spirituality, art, music, poetry, literature,
Shakespeare, Shaw, Sheridan and Wilde.
Nowhere better to allow this than this hallowed place, where Irish monks
were dealing with spirituality for centuries. In fact, there was scarcely
a left-hand side of a brain working here for 1,000 years.
For further left-hand side shutdown, finish your Wicklow tour with a night
in Johnnie Fox’s pub. It can be touristy, certainly, but a good
night can usually be guaranteed.
www.glendaloughbus.com departs
central Dublin for Glendalough twice daily.
...or Confer with the Linesmen in Sligo
The Yeats Winter School January 23-27 is an opportunity to learn more
about one of Europe’s greatest poets surrounded by the places which
inspired him.
The speakers for the weekend are Nicholas Grene, Professor of English
Literature in Trinity College Dublin and poet Harry Clifton who teaches
at University College Dublin.
Morning lectures are followed by guided tours to essential sights in the
afternoon — Lough Gill, Lissadell House and a visit to Yeats’
burial place at Drumcliffe. Formal and informal lively evenings are guaranteed
with music on Friday and dinner on Saturday night.
February — DART out of Dublin...
“February is merely as long as is needed to pass the time until
March.” — JR Stockton
Well, yes and no, but predominantly the latter — especially if
you head outta town. Steer clear of the DART during the week — it’s
not much more fun than the Piccadilly Line — but on a Sunday it’s
a different story. Head north to Howth and you’ll get terrific views
of Dublin and the Bay all the way.
Howth is renowned for its seafood bars — the Deep on North Quay
is the place for sole food (we cod you not). After your meal, wander down
the harbour and spot the plaque where Sitric Silkbeard landed. Crazy name,
powerful guy — Sitric was later to become the Viking boss of Dublin.
DART www.irishrail.ie have services every
10 minutes.
...or Go To The Movies
Cinema is truth 24 times a second, according to Jean Luc Goddard, probably
something James Joyce ruminated on 99 years ago when he became manager
of Dublin’s first cinema, the Volta in 1909.
Alas, the cinema is no more but Ireland remains in thrall to the silver
screen. It has the largest cinema-going population (per capita) in the
EU and hosts one of the best movie marathons in Europe — the Jameson
Dublin Film Festival, February 15-24.
www.dubliniff.com
March — Party on Pat’s Day
“Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, that month of wind and
taxes, the wind will presently disappear, the taxes last us all the year.”
—Ogden Nash.
Poor old Ogden Nash didn’t have the bulwark of St. Patrick’s
Day to help him through the vicissitudes of March.
Dublin will mark the Apostle of Ireland’s Day in saintly style,
with the Festival running for five days, March 13-17, with music, theatre,
carnivals, a treasure hunt and of course on Monday March 17 — the
Parade. Over five days 4,000 performers and 1million people will be celebrating
with céilís, capers and craic. Assign a designated driver
and party on!
Armagh, where Patrick set up his monastery, is probably unique in the
world in having two cathedrals with exactly the same name. Yes, you’ve
guessed it: St. Patrick’s. And if you can’t fathom why two
identically named places of worship might stand facing each other in one
city, then you’ve not been paying attention these last 800 years
(and you probably haven’t read the Good Friday Agreement).
Like Armagh, Downpatrick’s celebration of the Apostle’s missionary
will be primarily contemplative. St. Patrick is buried in the grounds
of Down Cathedral reputedly alongside Ireland’s other two patron
saints, St. Brigid and St. Colmcille.
Waterford, arguably the oldest city in Ireland, will also celebrate St.
Patrick’s Day enthusiastically. Largely as a result of local boy
Luke Wadding, March 17 was declared a Holy Day of Obligation within the
Church.
April — Shimmy down the Shannon...
“April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”
— Edna St. Vincent.
Don’t let Ms St. Vincent put you off. Spring is a wonderful time
to mount an expeditionary force along the longest river in these islands.
The Shannon babbles majestically along, lapping the shores of some of
the country’s most iconic countryside — strewn with flowers,
certainly. In the Shannon Callows in Roscommon keep your ears open for
one of the most evocative sounds of the Irish countryside, the corncrake.
If you’re a country lass (or lad) over the age of about 50 this
is the very sound of Ireland in the rare ould times.
At Clonmacnoise cast your mind back even further — some 1,500 years
to be exact. Here at the crossroads of ancient Ireland, St. Ciaran founded
a monastery which helped shape the very future of Christianity. Several
high crosses remain, plus assorted churches and gravestones. And if you
manage to visit Clonmacnois in the evening with the dying sun sinking
beyond the sweep of the Shannon with the ancient highway Esker Riada in
the distance, then you are tempted to look around at this place of prayer
and pilgrimage and think — maybe there is something in this religion
thingy after all.
After all that contemplation stop off at Banagher and head for J J Hough’s
— locals and visitors join in the music (not very good) and the
craic (mighty).
www.shannoncruisers.com
or www.emeraldstar.ie
...or Go To The Races
Very much a family affair (the local schools even take a day off so students
can attend), Punchestown Racing Festival is one of Ireland’s big
racing days out. Dates to be confirmed.
 May
— Celebrate May Day on the Hill of Tara...
“For I am to be Queen of the May, Mother, I am to be Queen of the
May.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson
In former times May Day was a Celtic spring fertility festival known
as Belatain or Bealltainn. In pre-Christian Ireland this was the second
most important day of the year, the start of the warm season. At Tara,
the ancient seat of Ireland’s kings, the lighting of great fires
(sometimes with a sacrificial element) was a characteristic of the festival.
Although the site is now a peaceful, grass-covered haven of tranquillity,
though the legends may be (slightly) more fantasy than fact, there can
be no doubt that for more than 2,000 years Tara was a place of paramount
religious and later political, importance. This was unquestionably the
heart of the Celtic nation.
Tara is situated about six miles east of Navan, on a hill some 512 feet
in height. Although comparatively low, the hill offers good views across
the midlands and eastern Ireland. On a clear day you can see a large part
of Leinster, the Slieve Aughty Mountains (Munster), away in the westerly
distance Slieve Bawn (Connacht) and to the north, the drumlins of Ulster.
It’s fitting that all four provinces should be in view, because
it was here that the great assemblies of the five Irish provinces (including
Mide) took place.
...or Get the Joke in Kilkenny
When someone first suggested having a comedy festival in Kilkenny, everybody
laughed. Well they’re not laughing now. (Well, actually, they are.)
Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival is today one of the foremost chucklethons
in these islands. This year’s festival runs from May 29-June 2 www.thecatlaughs.com
June — Admire a Hooker
No, not a front-row forward, or anything else which might be confused
with this traditional Irish sailing craft. From Kinvara in Galway to Carnsore
Point, racing festivals are held to put these sailing smacks through their
paces.
In June the venue is Portaferry. On the banks of Strangford Lough. Best
place to stay in the town is The Narrows, a stunning B&B — www.narrows.co.uk
— and one of the best pints in the North is served at Fiddler’s
Green. Oysters, naturally enough, are a specialty.
July — Have a Whale of a Time
Whales, dolphins and porpoises can be seen off all the coasts of Ireland,
although the south west and west are usually the most promising. Ireland
has some of the best whale watching in Europe, if not the world.
Luckily enough Ireland is Europe’s closest land to a ‘whale
super highway’, home to at least 23 species of cetaceans (what the
whale and dolphin families are pleased to call themselves on formal occasions)
— representing more than a third of the world’s species. You
might expect to see the blue whale, the fin whale, the humpback and the
minke whale. Dolphins include the common bottlenose, Atlantic white-sided
and striped.
www.dolphinwatch.ie
www.discoverdolphins.ie
www.whales-dolphins-ireland.com
www.whalewatchwestcork.com
July also sees the Galway Arts Festival kicking off (14-27) with artists
and companies from throughout the world presenting an international programme
of theatre, spectacle, dance, visual arts, music, literature and comedy.
Over its 30-year history the Festival has become a vital showcase for
Irish arts internationally and international arts in Ireland and is now
firmly established as Ireland’s leading arts festival.
www.galwayartsfestival.com
August — Pick a Rose
“Tinsel in February, tinsel in August. There are things in a man
besides his reason.” —Wallace Stevens
The Rose of Tralee International Festival takes place from August 1-31.
The competition itself includes — in case you’re called Sven
and reading this on the internet in Finland — the selecting of the
Rose of Tralee from various Roses from around Ireland and the Diaspora.
Yes, this may sound hopelessly antiquated, Sven but this is actually Ireland’s
biggest festival.
The day after the announcement on live television, over 10,000 spectators
pack the streets to watch the carnival procession.
www.roseoftralee.ie
September — Guzzle a gastropod in Galway
“On an apple ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went.” — PJ Kavanagh
Two oyster festivals take place in Galway during September: The Clarenbridge
Oyster Festival and the Galway International Festival taking place in
Galway City.
The craic and creamy-headed Guinness bring people from all over the world
to the shore of Galway Bay to sample the world famous oysters.
Seafood lovers will be hard pushed to find anything better than this,
Ireland’s longest-running gourmet extravaganza. The arrival of the
new oyster season is marked by a feast of drinking, dancing and bivalve
bingeing. Both festivals offer organised events — official opening
dinner, black-tie ball and world oyster opening championships.
The Galway International Oyster Festival takes place at the end of the
month (exact dates to be announced), the Clarenbridge Oyster Festival
takes place the second week of September.
www.clarenbridge.com
 October
— Hit a high note in Wexford
“What I really want from music. That it be cheerful and profound
like an afternoon in October. That it be individual, frolicsome, tender,
a sweet small woman full of beastliness and charm.” —Friedrich
Nietzsche
The Wexford Opera Festival has returned to its autumn slot, to the new
Wexford Opera House. The 57th Wexford Opera Festival will run from October
16 to November 2 with programme still to be announced.
Originally the idea of novelist Sir Compton Mackenzie this event is now
one of the world’s most glamorous and esoteric opera festivals,
with three (usually obscure) operas staged.
If you can’t get tickets, not to worry. Alongside the festival proper
a huge programme of fringe events takes place incorporating everything
from traditional sessions to opera-slanted street theatre.
This year’s festival features Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snow maiden
and Richard Rodney Bennett’s the Mines of Sulphur.
www.wexfordopera.com
Renowned as Europe’s friendliest festival dealing in blue tones,
syncopation, improvisation and swing, the Guinness Cork jazz festival
has hosted some of the all-time greats of jazz in its 30-year history.
This year’s offering is no less illustrious, with some 1,000 musicians
from over 30 countries dabbling in a gaggle of styles from Dixieland to
hard bop.
This year’s event takes place October 24-27
www.corkjazzfestival.com
November — Surfin’ safari on the west coast...
“So dull and dark are the November days,
The lazy mist high up in the evening curled” — John Clare
Immersing yourself in the Atlantic might not to be everyone’s taste
but legions of surfers from around the world are discovering the surf
of Ireland’s coastline. The main attraction of what is now one of
Europe’s top surfing spots is the huge Aill na Serracht wave which
washes the coasts of Mayo and Donegal and has led the area to host a round
of the World Surfing Championships.
You can learn to surf at www.DelphiAdventure.com or www.bundoransurfco.com
if you think you’re hard enough probably November 21-23.
...Or celebrate one of Ireland’s greatest poets.
The Patrick Kavanagh weekend takes place November 21-23 in Inniskeen.
The three days encompasses a packed programme of lectures, talks and discussions,
workshops, poetry readings and art exhibitions.
There is a very active social side too with music, céilí
and old-time dancing and tours of the surrounding area in the company
of knowledgeable local guides.
The results of the 36th Annual Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award will be announced
during the festival. This prestigious award is given for a first unpublished
collection of poems in English and the list of previous winners includes
many well known names, including Eílean Ní Chuilleanain,
Paul Durcan, Thomas McCarthy, Peter Sirr, Sinead Morrisey, Conor Callaghan,
Celia de Freine and Joseph Woods.
www.patrickkavanaghcountry.com
December — See the Light in Co. Meath
“God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.”
— JM Barrie
Every year for the last 5,000 years a small drama has taken place at
Newgrange, Co. Meath on December 21. Despite sounding a bit like a housing
estate in Essex, it is, in fact the oldest solar observatory in the world;
for that matter one of the oldest man-made structures on the planet.
At sunrise on the day of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the
year, a shaft of sunlight travels the length of a the underground passage.
For 17 minutes the chamber is illuminated and then it returns to darkness
for the next year as the light departs down the passage like a retreating
man with a lantern.
This annual spectacular is an awesome sight to all who witness it; the
winter solstice was an important day in the pre-Christian Celtic calendar
and this yearly occurrence provides a tangible link with Ireland’s
ancient history.
Sadly, there is only room for 10 people inside Newgrange at any one
time and only two within the interior chamber; and so a lottery has been
devised to give visitors a fair chance. The bad news is to apply for the
lottery you have to actually head for Bru na Boinne to pick up the forms. |
