Fleadhed – Mo Bhig Fat Dirty Féile
RTÉ One Monday October 31st at 18.30
As the curtain comes down on the festival season we look back at the evolution of the Irish music festival and how it reflects Irish society… One thing that hasn’t changed though is that they have always been a little bit durrrty!!!
Festivals didn’t always start out as music festivals. The Carnsore Festival was originally a protest against the building of a nuclear power plant in the area. Of course somebody always brings a guitar along and next thing you know it’s a music festival! Broadcaster and member of Something Happens – Tom Dunne recalls playing at Carnsore with his band The End and while it was a protest it was ‘really about the social attraction and the music side of it.’
Chuck Berry caused ructions at The Boys of Ballisodare Festival which ran from 1977 to 1982 in Sligo. Philip King, of Scullion and Other Voices fame, recalls Chuck turning up in a limo and tells of how…’the window went down 3 or 4 inches, the cash went in, the window went up… Chuck got out!’ The same festival was famous for its T-shaped tent… the original ‘T in the Park’ you could say!
The daddy of all Irish festivals has to be Lisdoonvarna in Co.Clare. Paul Brady, Planxty and Séamus Ennis performed there down the years from 1978 to 1983. It came to an abrupt halt in 1983 following the tragic drowning of 8 young festival-goers in Doolin which coincided with trouble from a biker gang at the festival. The locals had had enough!
Féile which ran from 1990 to 1997 was one of the first festivals for young people according to Fiachna Ó Braonáin of Hot House Flowers fame, who headlined the Trip to Tipp in 1990! Tom Dunne describes the scenes as he was driving through Thurles on his way to perform there as being like ‘the fall of Rome’.
The age of so called innocence came to an end with the birth of the mega festivals like Witness which became Oxegen and then Electric Picnic…although Electric Picnic is for the more discerning festival goer with pods, yurts and gourmet burgers.
We strip back the B.A.R.E in the Woods Festival in Portarlington, Co. Laois, to see what goes on behind the scenes in the weeks leading up to the festival and on the day itself. We capture the disbelief of Hip hop legends The Sugarhill Gang as they realise their VIP green room is the drawing room of what could be “the big house” in Glenroe! We meet their hosts; retired judge James O’Sullivan and his wife Pauline or ‘Polly’ – parents of one of the 4 organisers of this pocket sized festival held in their own back garden !
While B.A.R.E in the Woods has been a success it’s not so easy to throw a festival as was demonstrated when the Ravelóid festival this year was scaled back from a 2 day camping event to Ravelóid in the City! A festival needs a USP to survive these days it seems and the Irish language angle just didn’t cut it!
So as we near the end of another festival season, we look back nostalgically and take the words of Philip King to heart : ‘Nobody should go through their lives without having waved their freak flag high at a festival.’
Contributors: Philip King, Tom Dunne, Fiachna Ó Braonáin, Nadine O’Regan, Bernie Ní Fhlatharta,
Presenter/Reporter: Daráine Mulvihill Producer/Director: Eimear O’Mahony