Mayo Manchester Tradfest a countywide affair

ON THE LINE-UP Mayo folk band Billow Wood (formerly Flat Out) are known for their vocal harmonies and fusion of Irish and mainstream music.

The Mayo Manchester Tradfest swings into action this Thursday, August 2, and will keep on fiddling, dancing and singing all the way through to Wednesday, August 8. Spread over seven ‘hubs’ – Achill, Attymass, Cong, Ballina, Bonniconlon, Claremorris and Westport – it will see more than 500 performers from Mayo and Manchester involved in over 100 events.
The festival will kick off with a live Midwest Radio broadcast from the Fr Peyton Centre, Attymass on Thursday evening, from 6pm to 8pm, featuring performances from musicians, singer and dancers.
At  9pm that evening, the Breaffy House Resort in Castlebar will host a special ‘VIP Festival Launch Concert’  featuring sean nós dancers The Ganley Sisters, singer-songwriter Sina Theil, Joe Keegan, Marian Waldron, The Fianna PhΡdraig Pipe Band and Manchester Utd FC’s Alan Keegan.
Friday, August 3, will see the Fianna PhΡdraig Pipe Band’s 70th anniversary concert take place at 9pm in the Achill Head Hotel, where the musicians are hoping to join some of the pipers from the island’s five famous pipe bands in a special outdoor performance.  This will be followed by a free concert and open session inside the hotel, with Joe Keegan, known to many from BBC TV show The Voice, as well as guest musicians from Scoil Acla.
The sixth annual Mayo Manchester Tradfest Gala Concert takes place on Saturday evening in Ballina Arts Centre, 7.30pm. Hosted by Alan Keegan and sponsored by the Mayo Association Dublin, it will feature performances by The Fianna PhΡdraig Pipe Band, the Murphy Moore Irish Dance Academy, the Turley Duggan Academy of Irish Dance from Claremorris, Joe Keegan, Marian Waldron, Con Murphy, Dennis McCalmont, the Jiving Juniors and The Centre Stage Vocal Academy.
Sunday’s fun starts at 1pm with a Tradfest Promenade Performance on the steps of Westport House,  followed by a parade to the historic estate’s Grace O’Malley statue. Later that day, at 7pm, a gala concert with host Alan Keegan will be held at Claremorris Town Hall Theatre, featuring Joe Keegan, The Fianna PhΡdraig Pipe Band, Marian Waldron, Joe Beirne, and local musicians Peter Gannon, Ann Morley, Rory Walsh and Declan Burke, the Turley Duggan Academy of Irish Dance.
The action moves to north on Monday, August 6, when the Tradfest will launch the 2018 Bonniconlon Show and Gymkhana at 12 noon, when The Fianna PhΡdraig Pipe band will lead an opening parade. At 2pm, Ballina’s Mount Falcon Estate will host a Tradfest Promenade Performance featuring a selection of the festival’s artists, hosted again by Alan Keegan.
The group returns to Westport on Tuesday, August 7, to stage a Mayo Manchester Tradfest Concert in Matt Malloy’s on Bridge Street at 8pm, with Mayo’s award-winning trad band Billow Wood, as well as local musician David Dee Moore, and Joe Keegan and The Fianna PhΡdraig Pipe Band.
On the festival’s final day, Wednesday, August 8, Ashford Castle’s guests will be treated to a closing private performance, before the group moves to Cong village later in the day to perform a flashmob performance for the general public.

For full festival listings and tickets visit www.mayomanchester.com.