South Manchester Turned Green for Irish Festival

South Manchester Turned Green for Irish Festival

South Manchester’s Irish Pubs, Clubs will be turned ‘Green’ once again for the 2012 Manchester Irish Festival in March, which is Europe’s biggest Irish Festival outside of the Emerald Isle.

The area which is home to the biggest Irish community outside of London is staging just over half of the 200 events which are featured in this year’s 17 day Irish extravaganza.

The festival is launched on Friday 2nd March and continues right through to St Patrick’s weekend, finishing on Sunday 18th March. Major highlights include the two week Guinness & Levenshulme Pub company sponsored Tradfest, which has 64 Art, Dance, Film, Live Music & Sport events.

Most of the events are free, or are heavily subsidised by the sponsors and are staged in the company’s four flagship venues, which are Hennigans Sports Bar, The Union Inn and m19bar & Venue in Levenshulme and The Farmers Arms & Oasis Music Bar in Burnage.

The winners of this year’s Manchester Irish Festival Battle of the Bands will launch the Tradfest on Friday 2 March with a free concert at the Farmers Arms and Manchester’s premier Celtic Rock Band ‘The Last Drop’ will perform the closing party in the same venue on Sunday 18th March.

Lawrence Hennigan the Irish company director of LPC said “The company has been supporting the Irish Arts in Manchester since 1989, we have been involved in the festival since it was founded 17 years ago. It is a fantastic line up this year we have even managed to secure the UK screen debut of an Irish Music documentary filmed in New York. The producer is flying over from America to talk about the film and meet the audience at the VIP screening in m19bar on Wednesday 7th March.”

The other festival hubs which are staging events in South Manchester include: St Kent’s multi-award winning Irish Club in Fallowfield, which are staging a number of pre-festival events starting in February and in March they have something happening on every day of the two week event.

St Mary’s in Levenshulme are staging special Irish film shows and a host of Irish community care events. Whilst the Horseshoe in Levenshulme have a number of traditional Irish music concerts planned. Finally the Chorlton Irish Club are staging special family orientated events as well as live music and dance events.

Other Cultural highlights include a special photographic exhibitions called ‘I love MCR Mayo’ which is being sponsored by Mayo County Council diaspora website www.mayo.ie and the Manchester – Mayo Tourism group.

During the St Patrick’s weekend parade on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 March, the festival is staging a Manchester-Mayo weekend featuring special Tradfest concerts with live Irish Music and Dance displays. Manchester’s newest Irish Dance troupe ‘The Reel Deal Irish Dance Troupe’ fronted by James Hackland from ‘Young, Gifted & Green’ and ‘Reel Rhythms’ are staging their debut concert with the award winning Irish group ‘Shake the Barley’ on Saturday 10th March in the M19 bar in Levenshulme.

On Sunday 11th March, Mayo band ‘Peel Your Own Spuds’ who have been featured on ITV are headlining the Post Parade Tradfest in the m19 bar, which features a whole host of guest Irish musicians and Irish dancing displays from 4pm.

Other Live Performance highlights include a special ‘Bob Dylan & Clancy Brothers tribute night’ on Saturday 3 March. Whilst the award winning full Irish Radio show are staging a special live radio broadcast from the Union inn on Wednesday 7th March featuring the award winning Grace Kelly and traditional Irish musicians from as far away as Scotland.

St Patrick’s weekend starts on Friday 16th March with a Celtic Rock night at the Farmers arms featuring the Cheshire based 5 piece band ‘Crazy Folk’, on the same night in the m19 bar, Claire Mooney and the Moving House band stage a St Patrick’s Eve tradfest.

On St Patrick’s Day itself on Saturday 17th March, there are a host of venues hosting a whole array of cultural treats, it starts with a special breakfast at St Kent’s club in Fallowfield, after which there are a host of live music events which carry on til 2am. Highlights include the all-day Irish musician session hosted by the award winning Ciaran Ryan and Jack Baddock in the Union which is free admission all day.