Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival

The culmination of six weeks of activities throughout the county of Clare! Willie & Son

The biggest ’singles’ event in Europe and one of the oldest festivals in Ireland. Located in the Spa town of Lisdoonvama, with its Spa wells Health centre and the only working Spa in Ireland, the sulphur baths, famous for their therapeutic treatments are an excellent way to relax after the rigours of the matchmaking festival. The cosy bars of Lisdoonvarna have live music (and dancing!) daily, and according to www.matchmakerireland.com ‘romance and craic are to be had in abundance’!

The Final Weekend of the Matchmaker Festival, featuring the grand finale when the best-matched couple are picked and awarded the coveted titles of ‘Mr Lisdoonvarna’ and ‘Queen of the Burren

The Dublin Theatre Festival was founded in 1957 with the intention of showcasing the best in international theatre while also bringing attention to new Irish productions. It’s the oldest festival of its kind in Europe.

            The Dublin Theatre Festival, sponsored by Ulster Bank, this year runs from September 24 until October 11. The Dublin Fringe Festival, sponsored by Absolut, takes place between the 05 and 20 September. While the main theatre festival features mostly mainstream dramatic works, the alternative festival showcases dance, comedy and theatre in various other guises.

            Many of the shows at the Dublin Theatre Festival are family friendly, with several shows aimed at children. A cultural centre aimed at this age group, The Ark, will host a number of shows through the course of the festival for kids of various ages, including four productions from Denmark. The Danes, who count Hans Christian Andersen among their number, know a thing or two about children’s entertainment and have a strong tradition in the field. The theatre festival includes an adaptation of Hansel and Gretel. There is also a musical specifically aimed at toddlers.

            More adult themed fare can be found elsewhere at the festival, although some of it deals with the education system. For those living or staying outside of the city, an adaptation of Pat McCabe’s The Dead School goes on tour, playing in Blanchardstown, Tallaght and Dun Laoghaire. Central to the play is the clash between traditionalism and modernity, with an older school teacher critical of a younger teacher’s techniques.

            Tradition and modernity also feature in Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, with a wilting class of privilege being supplanted by the search for meaning in modern life. Chekhov has a high profile in Ireland, thanks in part to acclaimed Irish playwright Brian Friel’s recent adaptations of his work. A Russian production of Three Sisters – featuring a renowned cast and an award winning director – runs at the Gaiety Theatre between 29 September and 3 October. The play will be performed in Russian, so you may want to hear Chekhov’s lyricism in his native tongue (or ascertain whether the great playwright had a poetic ear at all). English surtitles are provided.

            An adaptation of The Birds – the short story by Daphne DuMaurier, made famous by the Hitchcock film, also based on it – can be seen at the Gate Theatre. The adaptation is written by award winning Conor McPherson and features a strong cast.

            Meanwhile, the Dublin Fringe Festival, which precedes the main festival, has a less conventional format, and the tickets are in general less expensive too. It features a more widespread selection of performance art. Some of the pieces are site specific. For example, “Basin” is performed at Blessington Street Basin in Dublin 7. It is an examination, through multimedia and more conventional live theatre, of the history of Blessington Street Basin. In keeping with the non-conformist expectations of the fringe festival, it has some magical elements, and includes a ninja duck poacher, ghost children and a trip through Narnia.

            Die Roten Punkte at the Metro Bosco Theatre ably parody Germany’s industrial music scene, with some very strong musical numbers that would fit into any 80s top ten chart, alongside great comedy. The name of their “hit single” says it all: “Ich Bin Nicht Ein Roboter (I Am A Lion)”. Reviews for this mock concert show have all been extremely favourable.

Dublin Theatre Festival Box Office: 01 677 8899

Dublin Fringe Box Office: 1850 374 643

Croke Park on Dublin’s north side is the home of the Gaelic games in Ireland’s capital. A brisk twenty minute walk from O’Connell Street, one of Europe’s widest main thoroughfares, will take you to the stadium. The games traditionally played in Croker, as its known, are Gaelic football and hurling. However, recently, other sports played there include soccer and rugby due to the ongoing redevelopment of Lansdowne Road, Dublin’s other main stadium on its south side. The decision to allow sports of foreign origin to be played at the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association was controversial for some members of the GAA. The Gaelic Athletic Association is the Irish and international sporting body responsible for the promotion of Gaelic games, including camogie, hurling, Gaelic football, handball and rounders, with a heavy emphasis placed on hurling and football. The popularity of both sports among the Irish is high. Principally because of this, out of the population of about six million in Ireland, the GAA boasts 800,000 members – the largest organisation in terms of membership in Ireland. When you consider this alongside the fact that GAA players are amateur status athletes, and the sporting body relies on a good degree of good will and volunteerism, you can appreciate how important Gaelic games are to the Irish populace.

The foundation of the association in 1884 was a reaction to the decline in the popularity of Irish sports. The association also actively encourages other aspects of Irish culture, such as Irish dancing and the Irish language. However, since the late 1800s, there has frequently been a chauvinism displayed when it comes to Gaelic games – members of the British armed forces and the police were not permitted to join the association in its early days, and even children who played Gaelic football were often not allowed to play soccer or rugby if they wanted to retain their place on the Gaelic team. The decisions of school teacher-coaches to deny teenagers the right to play more than Gaelic and hurling in days gone by may well have scuppered more than one professional football career in the English Leagues. Croke Park has been used to host Gaelic Games for decades, and even today some traditionalists took exception to the recent rugby and soccer internationals that have been played there because of Landsdowne Road’s refurbishments.

However, the GAA had some basic tenets outlined in its foundation that were less controversial, including the desire to encourage native games among all social classes.

Croke Park itself has seen some redevelopment in recent years, making it among the largest world class stadiums in Europe. In keeping with the changing times in Ireland, it can also lay on impressive corporate hospitality functions both during matches and at other times.

When it comes to GAA games, the All Ireland football final is one of the two main events, the other being the hurling final. Held at Croke Park every year on the third or fourth Sunday of September, the football final is the culmination of a games series among the counties from all four corners of Ireland – currently with the exception of County Kilkenny, whose strength lies in its hurling team – for the Sam Maguire Cup. The game is faster than soccer and a joy to watch, so if you have an opportunity to see a match, whether it’s the All Ireland Final or not, check it out.

Cliffs of Moher

At more than two hundred metres in height, the Cliffs of Moher, comprising layers of flagstone and shale facing into the Atlantic, is an impressive attraction when you’re at the top. Crowning the cliffs is a Victorian structure called O’Brien’s Tower, from which the site has been used to view the area since the 1830s.

O’Brien’s Tower is named after a local Member of Parliament, Sir Cornelius O’Brien, who in the 1830s and 1840s was said to have built practically everything in County Clare at the time, with the exception of the cliffs themselves. The O’Brien clan can be traced back to Brien Boru and before that to early Christian Ireland. The clan O’Brien still retains a leader as the head of the house, and at various times in the family history, the O’Briens have been either pro or anti-British, and either Protestant or Catholic.

At any rate, Cornelius O’Brien served as a member of parliament at Westminster in London, representing Clare. An early advocate for tourism, he saw the value in marketing the Cliffs of Moher as a spot for sightseers.

If you don’t want to use the tower, unanticipated gusts of wind make it less dangerous for visitors to simply crawl on all fours or on one’s belly in order to peer over the edge, than to simply stand at the height and look down on the Atlantic below.

More sophisticated than O’Brien’s Tower is the new interpretive centre, Atlantic Edge, also located at the Cliffs. The centre houses this interactive experience underground – after entering via a viewing ramp providing access to the main dome shaped area, the domed cave itself is then revealed, where exhibits and images are displayed.

There are four themes for the exhibit: Nature, Man, Rock and Nature.

Visitors are led post-exhibit via a tunnel to give the visitor a taste of the caves that the area also has in abundance. Through the tunnel, they arrive at a theatre where a virtual reality adventure takes place. The Atlantic Edge exhibition wraps up half an hour before the visitor’s centre’s closing time, so if you reach the site late in the day, you can visit the centre to see if the exhibit is still running immediately, just in case you’re disappointed.

If that all seems a little bit gimmicky, the Cliffs of Moher stretch for some eight kilometres along the coastline, so they are more than just a tourist resort. A Refuge for Fauna since 1988 and a Special Protection Area for Birds (SPA) under the EU Birds’ Directive since 1989, the Cliffs are the chosen residence of one of the largest colonies of nesting seabirds in Ireland. The area around the cliffs has grasslands and heath that are worthy of special attention, given the importance that conservationists and bird lovers give the area. Indeed, the special designation attributed to the site comprises an area of some 200 hectares.

The Cliffs of Moher have reached a shortlist for the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. “New7Wonders of Nature” is an endeavour to bring such a list – which has never been definitively compiled – up to date. The Cliffs are now on a list of nearly thirty that includes the Amazon Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.

More beer is imbibed in Ireland from the Guinness Brewery in Dublin than from any other source. St James’s Gate on the south side of the Liffey is a centrally located sprawl not far from Dublin’s Phoenix Park, and this is where the creamy stout is made. Arthur Guinness established the plant on this site in 1759. The date when the lease began is significant: Guinness celebrates 250 years on the site in 2009.

A Web friendly campaign has begun in earnest to mark the occasion, with Guinness running, inter alia, a questionnaire at one of its domains. The campaign is also marked with television advertising and a host of “Global Toasts” and the establishment of the Arthur Guinness Fund, in keeping with its namesake’s philanthropic disposition. The Fund’s chief aim is to enable those with the skills to do so to better their communities.

So is Guinness, as a marketing campaign in the 1930s and 40s claimed: “good for you”? Diageo, the international company that has taken over the Guinness brand, today refuses to make health claims for any of its beverages. However, studies have shown that the antioxidant compounds in Guinness can be beneficial to the heart. These are not found in lighter beers, and the claim is similar to those made for red wine over white. The antioxidant properties are said to help prevent arteries and other blood vessels from becoming clogged with cholesterol. However, the health benefits of Guinness have been known for generations by Irish parents. Many Irish family anecdotes will relate how the weakest children in the family were often fed a bottle of Guinness – perhaps once a week – in order that they gain a little weight.

The black roasting of malt still takes place within the walls of the large property, and the brewery (now owned by Diageo) also produces international beers today for the Irish market. However, a visit to the Guinness Storehouse attraction does not include a visit to the brewery itself (not surprising given modern health and safety regulations). The black stuff, as it is known, has been brilliantly marketed through the centuries. From the creamy white head with a smiley face that pre-dates its yellow counterculture cousin by decades, to the toucan, to the waves and horses surfing towards the shore, to the dancing maniac; each Guinness marketing campaign has contained an advertising gem or three. The Guinness Storehouse itself is no different. The 1904 building provides a history lesson through a tour, with a massive atrium shaped like a pint glass as the centrepiece. The six storey exhibit shows visitors exactly what goes into a glass of stout.

On display you’ll see a huge copper fermentation vat, you’ll learn about ingredients, the malting process, how hops are grown, and you’ll also see photographs from the nineteenth century of long dead employees –in their prime at the time – hauling large kegs of the black stuff as it was being prepared for shipment. Also, you’ll find an exhibit of the barrel maker’s craft. Until the end of World War II, the cooper handmade the kegs that were used to store the stout.

The Gravity Bar on the top floor of the Storehouse is a great vantage point from which to view the city at the end of the tour, and to enjoy a pint of the very stuff you’ve just learned a lot more about!

Galway is the favourite Irish city of many. Something of a cosmopolitan mecca on Ireland’s west coast, it is also home to the Galway International Oyster Festival. The Galway festival was originally begun to capture tourists after the summer, capitalising on the beginning of the oyster season after tourists were traditionally supposed to leave the country. Its continued success is testament to a well organised excuse to party, and there are plenty of events to attend over the course of the four days.

Now in its 55th year this year, the Galway Oyster Festival will take place from 24 to the 27 September. Gourmet seafood and live music will feature, as well as the Guinness – which has always been said to go well with the oysters. Indeed, in Ireland tradition dictates that the oysters are eaten live with buttered brown soda bread, washed down with stout. If you’re balking at this, oysters can also be cooked in a variety of ways including smoking, baking, boiling or roasting them – and seasoned too, with salt or butter – so there will hopefully be an oyster meal that caters to your tastes. Oysters are low calories too, and a healthy seafood, so if you’re watching your weight, you won’t feel too guilty indulging at the festival.

An Oyster Opening Championship features at the festival, with contestants vying to open – or shuck – thirty oysters as quickly as they can. No two oyster openers are allowed to come from the same country, so the championship features only the cream of the crop from around the world in terms of oyster shuckers!

The Oyster Pearl, a beauty contest to find a representative for the festival, has been running since 1954. Each nominee is sponsored by a local business, and the overall winner not only becomes the public face of the festival, but is awarded a string of pearls and 500 euros, among other prizes.

The Oyster Festival features gourmet food to cater for other tastes. A Mardi Gras event on the 25 September at the Radisson Blu Hotel is a buffet with both hot and cold foods. Seafood platters with more than just oysters also feature at The Famous Afternoon in Eyre Square (26 Sept).

Although eaten since ancient times, often by the working classes, the oyster in the 1800s began to become scarce in parts of the United States due to over farming. As a result, foreign oyster types were introduced, which resulted in disease that spread to the native oysters on the east coast of America. This and other factors led the oysters to become something of a luxury food.

Today, oysters are still regarded as a delicacy due to their relative rarity. Organisers of the Galway International Festival will also be the first to tell you that they have been cited as an aphrodisiac. Serious research carried out to establish this found that due to the oyster’s mineral content, this may in fact be true. Whatever the facts of the matter, the festival is a celebration of the opening of the oyster season, and it’s well worth a visit.

For those tourists who’ve visited Ireland enough times to know, the Dingle Peninsula is the best of the five large peninsulas of Ireland’s southwest, and the town of Tralee marks the entrance to the peninsula itself. Razed in 1583 and destroyed again in the mid-1600s during the Cromwell’s repressive invasion of Ireland, Tralee’s history is a bloody one. However, now that times are more peaceful, the town is home to the beauty pageant / personality contest called The Rose of Tralee.

The Rose of Tralee Festival is named after a nineteenth century love song by William Mulchinook of the same name. Mulchinook was in love with a woman named Mary O’Connor who worked for his family as a maid. As a member of the merchant class, society would have frowned upon a relationship between Mulchinook and his maid, the daughter of a shoemaker, and so Mulchinook’s love for Mary was discouraged. Mulchinook emigrated, but when he finally returned to Ireland years later, he discovered that Mary had died of consumption during the potato famine of Ireland’s mid nineteenth century. Broken-hearted, he wrote the ballad.

You should note that the origins of this story are apocryphal. The song’s lyrics are credited to C. Mordaunt Spencer while the music is believed to have been penned by Charles William Glover. However, the story itself is embraced by the festival organisers, who have held the event since 1959. The Rose was originally supposed to be a Tralee native, although if living elsewhere in the world they returned home to represent their place of residence. The first festival featured a handful of contestants, but the relaxation of the rules to first permit Kerry natives to take part, and then in 1967 to allow women of Irish birth or ancestry, helped the festival to grow into what it is today.

The young women represent their countries, states, cities or counties of birth in a contest in order to be crowned the Rose. The attributes of the winner are supposed to match the lyrics of the song from where the festival gets its name, so the judges base their selection of the Rose each year on the “lovely and fair” Mary O’Connor. However, it is more than just a beauty pageant – Mulchinook’s song also stipulates that it was more than Mary’s looks that won his heart – “the truth in her eyes ever dawning” is what made him so besotted. Bearing this in mind, the Rose of Tralee festival places a heavy emphasis on personality too, and many of the girls perform what the Irish would call a “party piece” – reading a poem, dancing a jig or singing a song.

The pageant is shown on television each year, presented over two nights, and it has seen a handful of presenters in recent years after veteran broadcaster Gay Byrne stepped down as the master of ceremonies. Recently too, some figures in the Irish media have called for the Rose of Tralee to be brought to a conclusion, given that it has struggled financially. Critics claim that it is an outmoded pageant from a bygone era. However, since 2005, Ray D’Arcy has presented the show from Tralee, bringing a more youthful cheekiness to the ceremony, and it continues to draw a big Irish television viewership.