Smells Like Festival Spirit

Maybe I’ve been institutionalised by decades of hairy musicians and 5000 K rigs and punters puking and brawling and rutting in the mud, but the term Literary Festival never exactly conjured Babylonian degrees of titillation in your reporter’s bits and bobs.

Last weekend though, mine eyes were opened to the glory. Colm Tóibín and the nice folks at the Kilkenny Arts Festival invited me up to read, and the city was buzzing. (Kilkenny’s always buzzing.) There was an exhibition of paintings by Mick Turner from the Dirty Three, Low played, Heaney read, the streets bristled with a benign carnival vibe. We read at the beautiful new Set Theatre, a venue versatile enough to hold both rattling Saturday night bands and more, um, cultural events. The show was a sell-out and we signed and shifted every book on the table.
Duties discharged, your pilgrim hopped a bus to Dublin, then a connecting service to the dark heart of Monaghan. A fine young volunteer driver named Neil picked me up at the bus depot and as night fell we drove deep into Blair Witch country towards Hilton Park. First Christian I met was the festival’s host Pat McCabe, second the venerable Jinx Lennon. Jack L did a tribute to Paul Robeson that included one hell of an ‘Old Man River’. Actor Cillian Murphy DJ-ed up a storm.
Your correspondent casually enquired of two passing ladies the location of the bar. One of them reached into her carrier bag and handed me an unopened bottle of wine. “You sure?” I said. “We’re vintners,” she replied. That kind of night. They kept the bonfire lit ‘til dawn and I even found my tent in the artist’s camping site without too much bother. Next morning I pulled body and soul together and dragged boots on and tramped through the drizzle towards the Butty Barn (which looks exactly like it sounds, a great rustic shelter with a huge stage and PA and hay bales for seating) and at 12 noon commenced to deliver a 40 minute set to a fine crowd of foxhole crawlers that included Mike McCormack and Dermot Healy. There followed a spirited crime writers debate, and I managed to snag a lift back to Connolly station with all round sound bloke and heist maestro Declan Burke.
The Flatlake is like no other festival, operating without corporate sponsorship and with a thoroughly laudable sense of the relaxed-but-bizarre. Where else could you attend an art auction, rock concert, literary reading, theatrical event, greasy pig contest and cultural debate and still take a piss freely in the great outdoors without fear of reprimand, all the while soaking in the way-out sounds of Radio Butty? Go next year. You’ll thank me.