Festival celebrating traveller music and culture set to take place in Glenties
Following last year’s two-week musical journey in traditional barrel-top wagons, this year The Long Grazing Acre tours Donegal, Clare and Louth, focusing on a different musical Traveller family in each location
Glenties is set to host The Long Grazing Acre tour on 23 & 24 August in celebration of the enormous contribution Travellers make to Traditional Irish music.
The tour, led by world renowned uilleann piper and co-founder of the iconic Bothy Band, Paddy Keenan, starts in Glenties, on 23 August. Keenan will be joined by musicians descended from other famous musical Traveller families.
Following last year’s two-week musical journey in traditional barrel-top wagons, this year The Long Grazing Acre tours Donegal, Clare and Louth, focusing on a different musical Traveller family in each location.
The tour, coordinated by Anna Legge, starts on Sat 23 August with a weekend packed with events including a concert with a stellar line up in the Highland Hotel in Glenties. This leg of the tour is curated by Rab Cherry, and the focus will be predominantly on the Doherty family of Traveller musicians.
The programme for the weekend is packed full of events kicking off with a musical bus tour celebrating the famous Doherty family led by Simon Doherty’s grand-daughter Bianca Rohleder on Saturday 23 August at 11am. There's a tin fiddle exhibition at 3pm followed by a film screening at 4pm and a concert at 8pm.
At the concert in the Highland Hotel at 8pm on Saturday 23 August, Keenan will be accompanied by guitarist and singer Marty Barry, great grandnephew of the well-known Traveller singer Margaret Barry, fiddler Bianca Rohleder who hails from the famous and much-loved Doherty family of Traveller musicians from Donegal, and Keenan’s long-term musical partner Éamonn de Barra.
On this leg of the tour, they will also be joined by renowned Donegal accordion player Dermot Byrne and Tom & Felix Doran, great grandnephews of pipers Johnny and Felix Doran.
The following day, Sunday 24 August kicks off with tin smithing and wattle tent making workshops at 2pm with Terry and Mikey McInerney, a Pass-the Tin-Fiddle session at 4pm with Peter Campbell and ends with a more informal music session at 8pm that evening. The Long Grazing Acre is funded by an Arts Council Touring Award.
Tickets for ther bus tour are available on EventBrite, The Long Grazing Acre Musical Bus Tour, as is The Long Grazing Acre Concert - Glenties.