United & Celtic Legend launches Festival Brochure

Manchester United & Celtic Midfield legend Paddy Crerand was just one of the VIP’s who came along to the media launch of the 2010 Manchester Irish Festival brochure and new website at Mulligans Irish Bar in the city centre.

Gena Rose, the manager of Mulligans, who was responsible for hosting the event said “We were delighted to sponsor the event, it was a great evening and we were delighted that Paddy, who now works for Manchester United’s MUTV, was able to pop along. Everyone got a real taste of the Emerald Isle and the award winning Irish musicians and dancers brought the house down with their show stopping performances.”

Festival co-chair Kevin Fitzpatrick said “We would like to thank Mulligans who are one of the main sponsors of the festival for hosting this special warm up event for the start of our fifteenth Irish Festival.

he Festival with over 226 events at fifty different venues throughout Greater Manchester is still Europe’s biggest Irish Festival. It is officially launched at Manchester Town Hall with a Civic reception by the Lord Mayor and a host of Irish celebrities on Friday 5 March and runs until Sunday 21 March with fifteen days of Irish entertainment.

It is not just an Irish festival for the Irish community, the party is open to everyone and we want everyone to come along and join in the craic.”

Seventy two TV, Radio and Newspaper media journalists throughout the UK and Ireland popped along to the special event, these included Granada TV’s Andrew Lindsay and celebrity newspaper journalist Diane Bourne from the MEN showbiz Diary page.

Visitors to the event were treated to a night of live Irish music and dancing from Kieran Cunningham and his band Quare Craic (Kieran is about to appear in Coronation Street as a new character and he took time out of his filming schedule to attend the event).

Other performers included the world champion accordion player Sean Scally and his brother Donal, the Keegan Kennedy School of Irish Dancing and the Royal Variety of Great Britain Pride of Erin award winners – Young, Gifted & Green.