Rains fail to damper Galway’s summer solstice festival

galway | arts and media | press release Monday June 23, 2008 15:29 by Admin - Galway Community Arts loughnanewilliam at hotmail dot com

Galway summer solstice

Last weekend’s downpours failed to dampen the spirits of the hundreds of people who gathered for the inaugural Galway summer solstice festival ‘Saoire na Sraide’. The festival, organised by Galway Community Arts, was designed to celebrate the longest day of the year and featured a street carnival, live music and street theatre and a range of children’s activities.

Saturday’s parade themed ‘Ancient Ireland, revisiting the land’, had to be postponed due to flash flooding. However, when the colourful procession of warriors, wizards, faeries, jesters, pagans and poets finally got underway on Sunday afternoon, nothing could stop the crowds from celebrating this significant day in our calendar.

According to festival organiser Aisling Battersby, the event was planned to bring together the community to celebrate what was once a popular and widely known Irish festival.

“We wanted to do something different, something fun where people could get together through music, art and creativity and mark this important day. Despite the bumps caused by the unpredictable weather Saoire na Sraide went down well with people from all ages and walks of life and we’re already getting requests to organise next year’s festival” said Aisling.

Saoire na Sraide would like to thank everybody involved in making the event a great success including the sponsors, participants and large crowds who attended.

ENDS