A harp festival which has consistently attracted thousands of music lovers to Co Roscommon each year is appealing for funds for a permanent base.
Several thousand people will this week attend the O'Carolan Harp Festival and Summer School in Keadue, which commemorates Turlough O'Carolan "the last of the Irish bards" who lived locally. But festival organiser Paraic Noone pointed out that many of the classes will be held in vacant houses and private homes throughout the village because no funding has been allocated for an O'Carolan harp centre.
An estimated 8,000 people including students from Japan, Korea, the United States, Brittany, Italy, Spain and Britain will attend the week-long school and the harp festival, which will be officially opened next Sunday by Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan.
"We have done a lot to keep the tradition of the harp alive but despite three applications to the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht and two to the Arts Council, we cannot get funding," said Mr Noone. Planning permission was granted for the project at a site in the centre of the village, which has twice won the overall award in the tidy towns competition. The permission expired two years ago .
Also in Co Roscommon, the Boyle Arts Festival got into full swing at the weekend with concerts by Nóirín Ní Riain and her sons Eoin and Micheál Ó Súilleabháin, while traditional musicians and poets provided entertainment in many of the town's pubs.
One of the highlights of the Boyle programme is an art exhibition in King House including work by over 100 artists among them Barrie Booke, Nick Miller, Tony O'Malley, Seán McSweeney Melanie le Brocquy and Jane O'Malley.
The programme for the week features tenor Robin Tritschler accompanied by pianist Dearbhla Collins, Cuban/Irish salsa band Havana Che, broadcaster Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, who will read from his autobiography From Dún Sion to Croke Park, Steve Wickham & Cadenza , the New Orleans Gospel Choir and the Blue Raincoat Theatre Company.
This year the O'Carolan summer school has been expanded to include classes in concertina, fiddle, tin whistle, banjo, button accordion, bodhrán, as well as harp, flute, uilleann pipes, sean nós dancing and set dancing.
As always, one of the highlights will be the door dancing competition, which takes place in the open air and this year commemorates Patrick McPartland from Arigna, who was a celebrated door dancer 100 years ago.
