Fringe festival offered a feast of arts across the town
Deimante Stankeviciute (left), chairperson of Carlow Fringe Festival, and Sonya Cullen at the launch of Carlow Fringe Arts Festival in An Gairdín Beo Photo: michaelorourkephotography.ie
AN opportunity to try new things, enjoy venues all over town and open up the arts to everyone, Carlow Fringe Arts Festival was deemed another great success last week.
“It went very well, really positive,” enthused Maurice O’Reilly of Carlow Fringe Arts Festival.
“A fringe festival is an opportunity to try new things and see what works, and people responded to that,” he added.
Carlow Fringe Festival was officially opened on the Friday evening of the Bank Holiday weekend in An Gairdín Beo and ran throughout the weekend, concluding with the Fiddle & Vittles closing party on Monday evening, also in An Gairdín Beo.
The festival’s very popular busking competition welcomed local participants, buskers from around the country and even internationally! The buskers added a great atmosphere to Tullow Street over the bank holiday weekend, with the grand final taking place on Monday in An Gairdín Beo.
“We’d a busker who came up from Cork and also a busker who has connections in Carlow and was visiting from Australia so he took part, so we’d an international flavour,” said Maurice. “It was great to get so many young people involved,” he added.
The busking competition was won by local performer Daniel Craig, who delighted the judges with his performances all weekend. Another innovative and popular part of Carlow Fringe Festival was the ‘Half a Poem’ competition, bringing out the creativity in everyone.
“A patron of the gallery Made in Carlow, Eckert Smith, wrote the first half of the poem and people were encouraged to submit the second half. It was something new that we’d never done before, but by the Sunday evening we had an entry of 23 people, which was really good,” said Maurice. “I think it's something that will grow legs and get increasingly popular,” he added.
The peaceful and tranquil setting of An Gairdín Beo was the perfect setting for an art exhibition that ran throughout Carlow Fringe Festival, with lots of painting and pieces from artists. Getting the morning off to a relaxing and peaceful start was morning yoga with Laura Lochab, also in An Gairdín Beo. Another highlight of the festival was a raku pottery-firing exhibition with Jim Behan, with several demonstrations held throughout the weekend.
“Jim is brilliant at explaining the processes and the history of the art and his knowledge of pottery and ceramics from around the world,” said Maurice.
Pembroke d’Art was also busy over the weekend with a performance of playwright and author John MacKenna’s fascinating play on the Friday evening. On Saturday night it was ‘ceol agus craic’ in Pembroke d'Art with Zoe Hayter, Mary Ann and guest Lisa McAree performing. There was also music throughout the weekend at Tully’s Bar as part of the festival.
