Best music festival in Ireland! Kilkenny Roots Festival

Driving into the sunset to the Kilkenny Roots Festival

The Kilkenny Roots Festival has got to be one of the very best places to hear great musicians, see them up close in atmospheric venues, and buzz with the eclectic crowd of festival goers-- in short, have the craic. And for not much money! About half of the gigs are free, & the rest generally cost between €10-€20-- recession busting at its finest.

John Cleere has been organising the festival for years, and has a keen ear/eye for quality acts. One of the big scoops this year was Alabama Shakes, and seeing them live at the Set Theatre I realized that they are without a doubt a band that should be experienced live. So get their CD/download/vinyl, but also SEE THEM LIVE! Here's a taster of them doing a song you likely best know as performed by Led Zeppelin

Imagine it live-- it was fabulous!

Truthfully they rocked so hard my faithful Galaxy S2 couldn't handle the louder bits and the sound went very distorted,- thus the more subdued clip :-)

On the gentler side of things, we also saw the wonderful Amanda Shires, twice! Now, I say gentler, but she has a song about murdering her lover- have a listen: 

This is not my video, BTW- not trying to take credit :-) Plus, in this video there is added Rod Picott for your listening pleasure! He was at the KKRoots, too, but we didn't get to his own gig. We didn't get to lots of the gigs, but plan to take time off to do so next year-- you should think about it, too--drive off into the sunset and spend a golden 3 day weekend in Kilkenny!
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PS: check out this for tips on where to eat in Kilkenny! For newspaper articles on the 2012 festival see this one, where an artist declares he's in love with Kilkenny. He's not alone, in this article, musician & writer Willy Vlautin tells about his experience of the festival.  Head to Kilkenny next time & find out for yourself! :-)

Irish wildflowers along the Barrow river

 Go down to the riverside in late spring and early summer, and the wildflowers will be everywhere.

A walk along the river Barrow in Graiguenamanagh, Kilkenny, Ireland was an adventure in simple beauty as I took these photos. Enjoy!

Wild Flag Iris

A water snail was also on walk a by the river Barrow

Hogweed about to burst into flower

Clover, so good for the beees

Queen Anne's Lace

Wild Mallow

There are plenty of birds singing in the trees, as well, but not easy to photo with a phone! There are sand martins nesting in a sandy bank, swallows swooping and chattering, and if your are lucky you can also see the Kingfisher dipping in the river for little minnows. 
 And of course ducks and swans float along on the water, dibbing & dabbing contentedly. The otters can be seen at times, especially the friendly younger fellow who has greeted me a few times along the bank in Silaire Wood.  Do you have a favorite Irish walk? Let us know in the comments, or tweet us at @vibrantireland
 

                                                

Foxglove in the meadow

A gorgeous beach cove in Dunmore East, Waterford: what to do in Ireland

Gorgeous beach at Dunmore East, Waterford, Ireland

If you are looking for a beautiful sandy beach, sheltered in a cove with its own cave, rock pools, and a view out to the world's oldest working lighthouse, then Dunmore East in county Waterford, Ireland is the place to be!

Seaside rocks at Dunmore East, Ireland

 The village itself is charming, and the 17th century smuggler's haunt just up from the beach, The Strand pub, is ideally situated for having a pint or coffee & watching the boats pass by. The Dunmore East Adventure Centre is up the road, and we could see their small sailing boats zipping along out on the water. Last year Hubby reluctantly (hated being on boats) did a day's sailing with them, and came back loving it! Give them a try. 

I've made a wee video with the photos from our visit today- enjoy! The lighthouse over on Hook Head, across the water, is hard to see in them- they are just from a camera phone. You can easily see it with the naked eye, tho! :-)

Dunmore East is having a Rambling Weekend 18-20 May 2012, click here for more info on that, and on the Dunmore East tourism site for more general information & listings of their other festivals. See you on a sailboat soon? :-)

Boats at Dunmore East Harbor, Waterford, Ireland

Fab flyer- go to this launch! What to do in Kilkenny, Ireland

I love this flyer! Great design!

Looking for something interesting to do next Thursday? (3 May 2012) There's a good gig on in Cleeres (more on that below) but beforehand, get on down to the Kilkenny Arts Office at 5pm for the launch of the Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheet! 

Don't worry! 

It won't include

That's because the 154 poems submitted for inclusion were well whittled down by the excellent Editor Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Nuala was born in Dublin in 1970 and lives in Galway. She has won many short fiction awards including RTÉ radio’s Francis MacManus Award, the Cúirt New Writing Prize, the inaugural Jonathan Swift Award and the Cecil Day Lewis Award. She was shortlisted for the European Prize for Literature. Her début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times and ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner. Her third short story collection Nude (Salt, 2009)) was shortlisted for the UK’s Edge Hill Prize. Nuala’s third full poetry collection The Juno Charm was published by Salmon Poetry in November 2011. Her fourth short story collection Mother America will be published by New Island in May 2012. She is nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize for a story from that book, ‘Peach’. 

Selected poets include Carmel Cummins, David Thompson, Amanda Richards, Gillian Somerville-Large, Connie Walsh, Mary O’Shea, Kevin Dowling, Nuala Roche, Gerry Moran, Nora Brennan, Helena Nolan, Angela Keogh and Susie Lamb.

Please do join the poets, editor and Arts Office staff at the launch of the Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheet Issue 12 on Thursday 3^rd May at 5pm in the Arts Office, No. 76, John Street, Kilkenny where you will have the opportunity to hear the poets read their work and editor Nuala Ní Chonchúir speak of the work.
Copies of the Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheet Issue 12 are available for FREE! from the Arts Office, no. 76, John Street, Kilkenny and libraries around the county after the launch.

For further information on activities undertaken by the Arts Office please contact no. 76 John Street, Kilkenny T: 056 7794138 E: niamh.finn@kilkennycoco.ie

    After, head to Cleeres to hear Cornish Bluegrass band Blue Horyzon. There will also be 2 tickets to the sold-out Alabama Shakes to be won on the night! Plus-- the pints in Cleeres are FAB! :-) Have a wee listen to Blue Horyzon below:

It's all happening in Kilkenny! See you there!

A Sponsored Video- This DOES sound interesting! Have a go at travelling the World!

If I were free to jet off and travel the world, I would definitely be entering this competition from SPAR! They are looking for a travel savvy person, who knows the art of modern journalism such as spreading the word via social media, blogs, videos and photos, and who has an adventurous attitude and an urge to find out what is around the next corner! Must be older than 18 years, have good English skills and be available from the 1st of July 2012 onwards. Could it be you?

 Have a watch of the video and see! You can also visit See The World With Spar for more details. GOOD LUCK- if you win let me know! :-) Sponsored by SPAR

Intriguing, Yellow, & Tasty! What to do in Kilkenny, Ireland

Looking for something to do in Kilkenny? The next exhibition in Kilkenny's (free) Butler Gallery is opening Saturday, 28 April, 2012 and it sounds quite interesting! (more info below.) Why not nip over to the Kilkenny Design Centre across the street afterwards & try these tasty looking new offerings (photo to left) in the Food Hall. The last time I was there I had the gorgeous local Goatsbridge Smoked Trout  pictured below- YUM! They've got lovely crockery there, & lots of cookbooks you can browse, too.

Local Kilkenny smoked trout from Gaotsbridge!

Here's the flyer for the new Fiona Larkin show, &amp I've added a bit of show info from the Butler Gallery below the flyer. The opening reception is at the gallery on Sat 28th April, from 3.30 to 5.30 pm. I wonder will there be a yellow brick road to draw us in? ;-)

Butler Gallery says: 

''Another View of Helene, begins with a surreptitious photograph taken of a girl at a gallery in Berlin. The girl appears to have a strange yellow mark on her back. This simple curiosity allows a keyhole opening into what Slavoj Zizek[1] calls ‘the abyss of the other’, in recognizing what we do not know about the other we fill the void with fantasy. Materialising imagined connections is where the work finds its starting point. The colour yellow is used as a guide or driving force in developing a language for the unknown, attempting to develop a glossary through collected images of ordinary things.'' 

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[1] Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

             I'm intrigued! See you there! 

April Apple Blossom

April apple blossom is in full effect, enticing the bumble bees into the garden, as well as bringing me out to soak up the sun. Thought I'd try out my new Blogger phone app & see how a post from here would work; here it goes :-)
 Here are some cherry blossom & a spring sunrise over the    Blackstairs mountains, too.