Excitement at launch of new Cróilár festival in Athlone
The stirring into life of a significant music and arts event brightened up a wintry November evening on Friday last, as plans were formally unveiled for the first Cróilár festival in Athlone next April.
The event, which will be held throughout the town over the weekend of April 4-6, was launched at a well-attended gathering in the Engineering building on the TUS Athlone campus.
A 16-strong voluntary organising committee has come together to establish the new initiative, which aims to replicate the success of the Other Voices festival in Dingle.
"With Other Voices, there are a lot of beautiful old churches and local pubs and it's a festival with a lot of different musicians playing throughout the town, floating around to different venues, and the whole place just comes to life," said Jack O'Meara, a biopharmaceutical entrepreneur and Mount Temple native who is one of Cróilár's organisers.
"The idea here is that Athlone is just as good as Dingle. We have beautiful churches, a lovely castle, loads of beautiful pubs... could we try and get something similar going in the town?"
The festival will have a particularly strong emphasis on music, but it will also feature some other arts events including comedy, storytelling and a ceili dancing workshop. Friday's launch heard that the St Mary's Church of Ireland building on Church Street will be a festival venue, as will Athlone Castle.
In addition, five pubs in the town: Peddler Mac's, The Brazen Monkey, The Snug, Flannery's, and Nuts Corner are due to host events, while Maisie's will be the venue for after-parties each night.
The headliners for the festival have not yet been finalised, but it was announced on Friday that singer-songwriter David Kitt would be among those appearing at the festival.
Other acts confirmed to date include Dublin-based band Of All Living Things, Comedian Amy Walsh, Tullamore music artist Serka, and Irish guitarist and singer-songwriter Dubh Lee.
Athlone musicians Ellen O'Meara and Liadh (Leah Moloney), both of whom performed at Friday's launch, will also be appearing at the festival.
"We're probably going to be aiming for around 50 different artists (in total)," said Eddie Connolly, who is drawing on previous experience of running music festivals in order to help establish Cróilár.
Colm McDaid, who works as fire officer in Athlone, is another of the organisers. He explained that he had the idea for a festival like Cróilar for some time, but it was only after he met Jack O'Meara that it started to take shape.
During the launch, Cllr Aengus O'Rourke welcomed the introduction of a new festival to the town.
"From the town's point of view, we've always been seeking to build a calendar of events, of festivals, year-on-year," he said.
"(Cróilár) is in April. In May, we have the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival. Then we're getting into the summer period with Féile na Sionnaine, and the Athlone River Festival coming back to life again.
"We are slowly but surely building up that itinerary of really important festivals which gives us a chance to better promote the town," said Cllr O'Rourke.
Tickets for the Cróilár festival are now on sale at: croilar.ie
The launch heard that volunteers would be needed to help out with the staging of the festival. The organising team for the event includes: Jack O'Meara, Eddie Connolly, Aisling Keenan, John Shanagher, Colm McDaid, Harsh Gupta, Ellen Harney, Molly O'Meara, Maeve Russell, Jack Linane, Tori Henry, Dave Flanagan, John Maguire, Shane Nugent, Amy Walsh and Leah Moloney.