Clancy Brothers Festival celebrates 10th anniversary

Plans are well underway to celebrate the tenth year of the Clancy Brothers Festival of Music and Art on June Bank Holiday weekend, May 31 to June 5.

With music in the theatres , pubs and on the streets, the River Festival, the Art Trail, drama, workshops and family fun, this year’s festival promises to be unmissable.

Music highlights of the 2017 festival include concerts by Eleanor McEvoy, Robbie O’Connell and Dónal Clancy in the Brewery Lane Theatre, and the return of The High Kings to the Strand Theatre.

The ever-popular River Festival returns to Seán Healy Park with fun for all the family and an outdoor stage featuring Jig Jam, Newfoundland and The Backyard Band.

There will be more music on the Pub Trail than ever, youth busking in the streets, nature and heritage walks, lunchtime theatre at the Brewery Lane, the Clancy Brothers Songwriting Competition concert featuring ‘A Song for Carrick’ and surprise guests, music and drama workshops for all ages, a food fair, the Eoghan Power Memorial ballad singing competition and the ever-expanding Art Trail showcasing emerging and established artists from across the South East including the exciting new interactive multimedia arts project, ‘If These Chairs Could Talk’.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary, songwriters are invited to enter a new category in the Clancy Brothers Songwriting Competition.

‘A Song for Carrick’ can be on any theme associated with Carrick-on-Suir. It could be a song about the town, its setting on the River Suir beneath Slievenamon and the Comeraghs, a love song based in the area, or about someone famous or not so famous from Carrick-on-Suir such as Black Tom, Maurice Davin, Seán Kelly, or even the Clancy Brothers themselves. The possibilities are endless. First prize is €200, runners up €50 each, sponsored by the Carrick Business Association, the Clancy Brothers Festival of Music and Art and The Tudor Artisan Hub. The closing date for ‘A Song for Carrick’ has now been extended to Friday, April 28, 2017.