Mor the Merrier

On the face of it, the Fleadh Mor in Tramore had it all: blistering sunshine, hairy hippies, a stall selling glow in the dark condoms and a line up of rock 'n' roll legends that would be hard to match.
Ray Charles brought the classiest cabaret act ever seen in this part of the world and had them rocking in the fields with classics like 'What I'd Say' and 'Smack Dab in the Middle' and swooning along to 'I Can't Stop Loving You' and 'Georgia On My Mind'.
Dylan was in fine form, despite recent reports of dodgy performances. Van the man was in a jovial mood and played a stormer, and one of the big surprise hits of the weekend was Jimmy Cliff, whose Reggae perfectly suited the sunshine - he had the audience happily skanking to hits like 'You Can Get It If You Really Want It', 'The Harder They Come' and 'Many Rivers To Cross'.
The smaller stages in the marquees lost out crowdwise due in part to the fine weather, but Moving Hearts and Lir drew the punters into the shade, at least temporarily, for some much-needed shelter away from the sun.
There were disappointments: many felt that the Womens Heart show should have been on the main stage and Nancy Griffith pulled out due to illness and no replacement was found causing Saturday's show to end slightly earlier than planned. The beer tent also closed early on Sunday, highlighting the event's crucial problem - the crowd was very small, and presumably a lot of mazzomah was lost.
Despite the good music, it was hard to come away smiling.

With the festival season now well and truly in full swing The Phantom has been practising the art of bi- and tri-location in order to put in an appearance at as many as possible.
The events which should be in everyone's diary are The Athy Inter-national Bluegrass Music Festival and The Letterkenny International Folk Festival.
The Bluegrass event takes place in Athy on 23rd to 25th July and it follows two previous highly successful festivals featuring artists of the calibre of Bill Keith, Eric Weissberg and Jim Rooney, and attracting crowds of up to 30,000 to the attractive Kildare town.
This year's Bluegrass festival features the welcome return of Butch Waller and High Country from California, the debut Irish appearance of British bluegrass champions Huckleberry Hollow and an array of Irish talent to boot. An important element of the festival is the series of workshops on various bluegrass instruments, enabling aspiring musicians to learn at first hand from, and to play alongside, some of the top exponents of the genre.
One key factor of the success of the Athy bluegrass festival is that it is organised by musicians and fans of the music for musicians and fans, and the organisers reassuringly informed Hot Press that it intends to stick with that formula for the foreseeable future.
As a consequence of that policy ticket prices are minimised to cover costs of mounting the festival, with admission #5 per concert or #12 for a weekend ticket for three concerts. Now that has to be remarkable value in anybody's book, and one must acknowledge the support given by the Athy Chamber of Commerce and the recently-formed Irish Bluegrass Music Club.
For those of you not overly familiar with bluegrass music, it has been described as a traditional fore-runner of American Country Music, originating mainly in the Appalachian Mountains of southern-eastern States of the USA. The instruments used usually include dobro, 5-string banjo, fiddle, guitar and mandolin and vocals often including high harmonies. To find out more about it, put Athy in your diary for what should be three exhilarating days.
You'll have about a week to recover from Athy before heading north to the Letterkenny Folk Festival, this year celebrating its 25th anniversary. It runs from the 5th to 8th August and offers a tantalising mixture of Irish and international acts from the folk field.
The Irish contingent includes Phil Coulter, Luka Bloom, Mary Coughlan, Steve Cooney, Seamus Begley, Richie Buckley (plus friends), Jimmy McCarthy, Cairdeas, The Macnas Theatre Company and many others. From overseas will come The Humpff Family from Scotland, Celtic Connection (Sweden) and Fanfare Piston from France.
The Letterkenny Festival will also fit in an array of workshops including tin-whistle and songwriting, the latter involving contributions from the renowned Jimmy McCarthy, David Mulgrew and others. There's #800 up for grabs in a two-day busking competition, plus competitions for singer-songwriters, country marching bands, children's art and a singing pub contest!
On the exhibition front there's a display celebrating 20 years of Clannad, plus street-theatre, ceilis, free open-air concerts, pub sessions and lots and lots of craic! So it looks as if The Phantom is going to be far too busy to check out the much-acclaimed Donegal countryside! Still, maybe a little more effort on the bi-location front and we'll manage that as well.
Somewhere in between all that the Phantom will have to sandwich his annual visit to the Mary from Dungloe International Festival, as will the rest of the attendance of 80,000 anticipated to drop in on this ten-day marathon (from 24th July to 2nd August).
A special concert in the Dome will present a wide range of top Irish talent, including Paul Brady, The Saw Doctors, Mary Black, Joe Dolan, Dominic Kirwan and Irelands best-known hotelier Daniel O'Donnell.
An open-air series of free music gigs, costing an estimated #15,000, will showcase the best of current Irish, country and rock acts. You can try your hand (or your whole body, if you like) at bungy jumping, gunge tanking and sumo wrestling while keeping a keen eye out for the mischevious Bosco from RTE.
And whether you go to Dungloe for this festival or at any time of year, don't forget you can experience the discreet charm of Joe Quigley and the Nightheats any Monday night in Squires of Shipquay Street.