– Life along the Slaney

It’s a funny thing with festivals. There isn’t one for months then you can’t move for bouncy castles, sandcastle competitions and face-painting clowns.

Wexford does seem to do well with festivals catering for everyone from strawberry lovers in Enniscorthy to opera lovers in Wexford. Gorey however has long been in the ha’penny place when it came to festivals and carnivals – but no longer it seems.

Announced last week, the Gorey Market House Craft and Design Festival will take place over the August Bank Holiday weekend and is seeking to carve out a niche for the town among the plethora of festivals crowding the Irish countryside every summer.

Among the 31 festivals listed to be taking place over the same weekend in Ireland on the Association of Irish Festival Events (AOIFE) website are the Indiependence Music and Arts Festival in Cork; O’Carolan Harp and Traditional Music Festival in Roscommon; the Spaoi Festival in Waterford; the Castlerea International Rose Festival and just down the road in Bunclody the Eileen Aroon Festival.

So as you can see, the playing field is pretty crowded. With everything from music focused festivals to general community-type carnivals, it means the Gorey festival will have to be unique and well-organised to stand a chance of success and of creating a brand name for itself in years to come.

What the Festival Committee – made up of council officials, councillors and local business people – have come up with is an arts and crafts focused festival which provides a lot of free entertainment for all the family and is making use – finally – of the new Civic Centre on the Avenue.

Most Irish festivals have that all-too-familiar feel to them – barmen races, some sort of talent competition and increasingly Jedward.

The Craft and Design festival however seems to have sidestepped most of these pitfalls and created a schedule of events centred around exhibitions of local, national and international craft work as well as what sounds like an interesting craft trail.

One of the driving forces behind the organisation and rebranding of this festival is town clerk, Ger Mackey and speaking at the launch he said the committee was looking to create a niche in the Irish festival market for Gorey.

He let slip that next year the Crafts Council of Ireland will be celebrating their 40th anniversary and have designated 2011 as the Year of Craft. This, it seems, will put the Market House Craft and Design Festival in the optimum position to take advantage of a likely sure in interest in arts and crafts during the year.

It is all too easy to fall into the complacent position of putting little or no thought into a festival and look for the cheapest option all the time. The festival committee in Gorey must therefore be commended for their ability to think outside the box and not accept the easy option.

While the craft and design elements are at the centre of the festival, the line-up of live music also shows a real sense of community on the part of the committee. Most of the acts who will take to the stage on the Main Street during the weekend have a close link to Gorey.

From the hugely popular and established acts like the Tasmanian Dust Devils and Cathal ‘Elvis’ Byrne to up-and-coming local acts like Rumours of a Rift the line-up will be sure to please all in the town.

With final preparations now being put in place for the four-day festival it is now down to the people of Gorey and the surrounding areas to come out and support this festival  in their numbers – and help it establish itself as a permanent fixture on the festival scene.