Westmeath will once again have a significant presence on stage, behind the scenes and in the audience of 50,000 at the sold-out Electric Picnic festival in Stradbally Hall, Co Laois this coming weekend.
Dozens of musical acts from the Lake County as well as writers, poets, painters, artists, sculptors, food producers and more will all be participating at the annual three day festival, which started as a small one-day event back in 2004.
Chief among those is poet Marty Mulligan, who has been one of the main men behind the celebrated Mindfield Spoken Word Area since the festivals inception. Marty has been a pivotal driver in growing the Mindfield area from a single tent with a capacity of a few dozen to a major nine stage part of the festival catering for thousands of festival-goers.
The vast Mindfield area is “a festival within a festival” says Marty. “It’s an oasis of literary readings, political debate, performance poetry, science experiments, technology, inspiring talks, news quizzes, public conversations, theatre, comedy, music and much more.” A recent addition to Mindfield is the Theatre of Food, which features Ireland’s top celebrity chefs and food writers. the Irish language is celebrated with An Pobail Gaelige marquee which this year is hosted by Hector O’Eochagáin. Two Westmeath writers are among those reading works in Mindfield, Topic’s own Ronan Casey and Hector are reading from the soon-to-be-released book, ‘Medium-Sized Town, Fairly Big Story,’ whilst North Westmeath champion Manchán Magan and storyteller Paul Timoney are also performing.
Marty has always ensured that Westmeath acts get a look in on each of the myriad of stages in Mindfield and a a lot of the technical and production support behind the scenes also comes from Westmeath.
Indeed, Paul McDermott and a crew from the Mullingar Arts Centre have looked after the theatre stage for nearly a decade whilst the Mullingar Youth Academy are looking after two stages under the watchful eye of Daniel Egerton. Mullingar musical acts to play within Mindfield this year include Cronin, Ska’s Good Gravy, Good Man Sheila, Arrow in the Sky, Ashley Tubridy, Graham Dowling and legendary singer Mary Coughlan, who played The Stables in Mullingar for decades, is playing as a special favour for Marty.
Niall ‘Bressie’ Breslin is giving a special talk on mental health in the Theatre stage at 7pm on Saturday.
On the main musical stages elsewhere, Mullingar band The Academic are set to add to their growing support base. The band have had an immense summer with mega gig after mega gig so the Picnic should be no problem to them. The White Chalk from Castletown-Geoghegan are also performing, they too are capping a remarkable summer in style. Traditional musicians Paul Taaffe, Johnny Owens, Rodney Lancashire and Enda Seery are also performing.
One of the biggest aspects of Electric Picnic that sets it apart from other festivals is how it looks, and fresh from having her work enjoyed at Glastonbury this summer, Moate artist Patsy Preston will have her impressive works dotted around the festival site, particularly in the Greencrafts area. Mullingar wood carver Richie Clarke will also be exhibiting and will be hosting classes in the Global Green and Greencraft area. Westmeath food network members will also be there in force. Indeed two years ago, Rogan’s Smokehouse and Louis Peppard won an award for festival food at the event. If it rains at the festival, a Westmeath man has you covered as John Lynch of Mick Lynch Tree Surgeons is providing woodchip to soak up any downpours.
New autumn music festival
Meanwhile, after a summer in which Westmeath hosted an exceptionally low number of festivals, a North Westmeath tourism company is among those behind a brand new music festival which is set to become one of Ireland’s ‘must-attend’ festivals.
Directing Tourism are one of a number of companies behind Samhain to be held in Lough Crew Gardens on Sunday, 26 October. Billed as Ireland’s biggest Hallowe’en Fancy Dress party, Directing Tourism have worked exceptionally hard to bring the festival into the midlands from its previous location at Glendalough House in Wicklow.
Music promoters Archetype, Hidden Agenda, Bodytonic and Bedlam are moving to the midlands for the long term. Samhain’s line-up has been praised widely on social media and music sites, with Jon Hopkins and John Talbot joined by electronic-music’s brightest rising star Maya Jane Coles. Pioneering Berlin-based duo Booka Shade, Detroit vet Jimmy Edgar and many more acts are set to play over three musical stages.
Directing Tourism MD Bartle D’Arcy is no stranger to the festival market, having opened up Belvedere House, Gardens and Park in Mullingar to dozens of big events during his successful tenure there. He is hopeful of opening up both Lough Crew and Tullynally Castle in Castlepollard to festivals, and is meeting regularly with top music and event promoters.
He said Lough Crew is ideal for this event. Revealing that the festival will also feature a plethora of theatrical nooks and crannies, he added there will be a big emphasis on locally produced food and craft beers.
Like Bestival in the UK, the festival encourages fancy dress and Bartle is hoping the thousands of festival-goers will embrace an alter ego for the night with fancy dress and celebrate the ancient Celtic tradition of the Festival of the Dead.
He says Lough Crew is the spiritual home of Samhain so there is an added omen to the event.
Early Bird tickets for Samhain are on sale now from www.samhain-festival.com.
