By Fou Scarf
Post Full Moon, 8th Oct 2025
I live in Athenry, currently home to 11 roundabouts and growing. We also have train-lines pointing East, West, and South, and more to come. This town is now the fixed point within a giant compass with all these magical roundabouts turning in unison. These new wheels of Athenry are changing the image of Athenry on the map, and in our minds.
The potential to create new social spaces, indoors and outdoors, is real. Athenry is on the point of change, for the better, as old buildings are re-invigorated and clubs and groups re-ignite and welcome new members. We can re-establish this once vibrant town by making space for artists, musicians, and performers. The public will benefit.
The October Blood Full Moon and a storm have passed. Storm Amy was a reminder to prepare for Winter. Before I do, I wish to look back on some Artistic highlights during the Summer season of 2025. What caught my eye and persuaded me to check it out and attend? What moved me? Here is a mini selection from festivals in Dublin, Sligo, Hull (U.K.), Caceres in Estremadura, Spain and a once in a lifetime event in County Kerry.
Bloomsday – June
Bloomsday festival was a hoot. This is the James Joyce festival that celebrates his first date with Nora Barnacle on the 16th of June, and Dublin City in 1904 and today. People come from all over the globe to capture some of the spirit of rowdy Dublin, in song, dance, film, performance, poetry and cabaret.
This year the Fingal Mummers stormed the James Joyce centre running up and down the 5 floors, riotous and boisterous, giving everyone a good lashing of their tongues. Singers included Cathy Jordan, Traditional, and Dean Power, Irish Tenor, who stirred the deepest feelings in the intimate White Room at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Lucia Joyce was sensitively portrayed in a turbulent dance.
Best of all, groups and tours gathered all over the city to poke fun at Dublin characters and themselves in a spirit of camaraderie that is welcome back. Great to see new friends of all ages being made on our streets. James Joyce would have loved it.
Cairde Festival, Sligo – July
Off to Cairde Festival in Sligo, a full week in early July, where writers from North and South of the border launched new publications. They also delivered workshops, and I took part in one. According to writer Sean O’Reilly ‘all the draft material is precious’. When the Northerners let loose, the humour is richer, darker, and illuminating. Eoin McNamee reminded us that ‘the border affects the people on both sides of it.’ This was exciting territory.
On the flip side, the Cairde Festival champions circus and street performers from Ireland and abroad. Acrobats and clowns inhabited the town centre, the beach, and the woods and led a night Parade. Musicians welcomed the revellers each evening to the hostelries. A lovely mix.
Fresh Ink Playwrighting Festival – July
A chance invitation to Hull in the UK coincided with the Fresh Ink Playwrighting Festival, over one weekend 17-19 July. In a Marquee on the docks, in torrential rain, this was ‘Fresh’ indeed. Middle Child Theatre company gave spirited readings of 8 plays at various stages of development, some on second draft, some on eighth and some reappearing. In the audience sat the writers, dramaturgs, theatre makers, and creatives. This was an immersive experience where each attendee watched all plays and was encouraged to give feedback.
I got a snapshot of the issues which are pertinent to society right now. A look into the underbelly of the UK. Younger playwrights tackled issues of race, personal boundaries, and same sex families. There was a highly comedic first date and a chance encounter in a gym with a historical bully. Older playwrights lampooned political double-standards about protesters and capitalism and there was a farce depicting a lunatic Colonel Gaddafi, causing havoc in England, at high speed. Lastly, A rag and bone man reduced everyone to tears in a love letter to his native Hull. Theatre is where it all began for me, so I loved it.
Fresh Ink proved to me that collaboration and feedback each step of the way are essential ingredients for new work. This young festival has attracted the interest of the National Theatre in Britain. Ireland could do with a playwrighting festival like this.
‘1975’, An Teac Damhsa, West Kerry – August
August saw me laid low but could not stop me making my way in the last days of the month to Baile na nGall, in West Kerry. I turned up, on spec, to An Teach Damhsa (Dance House), to a sneak preview.
I had gleaned from a conversation on the radio that Michael Keegan-Dolan, master choreographer, was secretly plotting away down here on a novel idea. A dance show to fit the seminal Dé Danann Album titled 1975, played in its entirety without an interval. This album marked a wild turning point in Irish music. Now, 5 dancers, from 5 different corners of the world, with Michael K-D at the helm, created characters with exotic influences, that responded to the joy and thrust of Dé Dannann’s music.
The dancers rose and fell with the rhythms and stepped out or sat when spent, just as a dancer would do at a céilí, only to run back in to re-join the energy. Dressed in bright Jellybean coloured suits they startled the audience in this tiny Teach Damhsa rehearsal studio. We were rattled and shook, sitting at close proximity. There were wild storms battering West Kerry. This was a storm on the inside. This show will tour. Watch out for it. So glad I went.
Irish Fleadh, Caceres, Extremadura, Spain – September
Once I had heard, by chance, earlier this year, that there was an Irish Fleadh in the town of Caceres in Extremadura, in deep rural Spain, I was entranced. Then I learned that this was the 21st year. I couldn’t believe it. It is run by an Irish man and a Spanish woman, both immersed in Irish music, Peter Crann and Patricia Brava. All free and friendly.
The outdoor concert venue is in a small plaza surrounded by Churches with natural alleyways letting people enter and leave, a stage at one end and bar at the other. Gorgeous. The crême de la crême of Irish musicians were here over 2 uplifting nights, with top billing for The Friel Sisters, majestic and powerful, and Mike McGoldrick with Tim Eddy, playing and improvising to dizzy new heights. The Armagh Rhymers appeared on stage several times and brought the house down with their antics.
Whenever the notion took them, or so it seemed, the Irish Treble Dancing Quartet stormed the stage, and I witnessed Spanish teenagers and elderly kicking and stomping with gusto.
7 local bars in the old town, were fully on board to host musicians and make space for them indoors and outdoors. This allowed for a rolling bunch, just like in Ireland. Only difference was the official time of sessions, 12am to 3am, following the concerts. Take an Irish Fleadh. Add in Spanish musicians, architecture, bars, terrazas,food and people. A treat.
Harvest
That is my harvest this year. I will reap the benefit and enjoy the crop. We are past the Equinox now and looking to fill our Wintertime with artistic endeavours and events to keep us going. This Summer pushed me back into writing. I am looking forward to some winter delights.
Fou Scarf