Sun, wind and giant kites at Mayo International Kite Festival

The Mayo International Kite Festival which took place on Achill Island over the weekend attracted its biggest attendance with professional kite flyers from around the world attending.

The weather conditions were ideal for kite flying in Keel on Achill Island over the weekend with blue skies and a light wind adding to the magic experience. Dolphins, crocodiles, whales and giant teddy bears were among the creatures which took to the Achill sky for the festival which has been running since 2017.

The Mayo International Kite Festival is organised by Achill-based water sports activity company, Pure Magic with support from Mayo.ie and Westnet.

This year the main event took place on Sunday on the sandybanks beside Keel lake with hundreds of people enjoying the spectacular display as well as music, workshops, demonstrations and entertainment. There were also smaller events on Saturday on Keel beach while giant kites also flew around Newport.

Francois Colussi of Pure Magic who skipped the opportunity to MC at the sailing events at the Olympics in France explained that the festival was the biggest to date.

“This year's festival was a huge success and was beyond all our expectations. We had fantastic weather and the biggest attendance we ever had from the pro kite flyers from all over the world. There were kite flyers from France, UK, New Zealand, Ukraine, South Africa and America and we filled the whole sky from one side of the Keel Sandybanks by the lake to the other. It was incredible we saw thousands and thousands of smiling faces over the weekend and it was an incredible success.

“This event is growing from strength to strength and next year we are planning to invite even more kite flyers to come and experience the magic of Achill. It was a very smooth event with lots of music as well as a lot of wind, sunshine and happy people and we will come back bigger and better in 2025,” he said.