By Marcel Krueger.
The geographical and mythological centre of Ireland does not look like much. It’s a small green hill among other small green hills rolling away left and right of the R390 between Mullingar and Athlone. Tonight, on the last day of April, the Hill of Uisneach, as it is called, is more busy then usual. Hundreds of people converge here to celebrate the beginning of summer, with the ancient Celtic festival, Bealtaine, an old tradition renewed in recent times with an Irish Burning Man type celebration: The Festival of the Fires.
In the car park, it seems like a normal festival: families with buggies, wheelbarrows filled with coolers and blankets, teenagers sipping their tinnies and listening to the sounds blaring from their car stereos,
Photo by: Kai Mueller (www.kaimueller.eu)
and tweed-clad farmers keeping an eye on the crowd and their fields. The first indication that this festival is different are the hundreds of paraffin-filled lanterns along the track to the main festival area, something you wouldn’t see at other European festivals without someone waving the fire protection guidelines in your face. The area is large and even though there are more than one thousand people on the hill, it does not feel crowded. There are a few drink- and food-stalls and a couple of stands selling batik scarfs and handmade jewelry, and two stages blasting music over the green lawns. A large pile of dry wood looms over the festival, visible from everywhere, a constant reminder of the fire to come. Even more unusual than the lanterns and the gigantic woodpile are the groups of re-creationist Celtic warriors on horses, gathered near the bonfire and the main stage. The men and women clad in woolen tunics, carrying long sticks in lieu of lances, with blue face-paint seemed strangely displaced among the revelers, talking into their iPhones on horseback.
The Festival of the Fires was initiated 2009, in an attempt to rekindle interest in the old tradition of welcoming summer with a large bonfire on top of the hill, a bonfire that could be seen from everywhere in the plain midlands of Ireland. The ground provided by local farmers, a group of enthusiasts set to work and got the first festival off the ground in April 2009. Since then, the festival has become a staple of the Irish festival calendar, especially as it’s a BYOB-event and one of the most child-friendly ones: you can register your kids for free when you buy a ticket. There are free tours on the hill itself, from a place called St. Patrick’s bed (where St. Patrick allegedly slept) to the Cat Stone, where the borders of the four Irish provinces meet.
Photo by: Kai Mueller (www.kaimueller.eu)
The music is an important part of the celebration. From Liam O’Maonlai to internationally famed bands like Kila, the Irish sounds are fitting for the Celtic undertone of the festival. There’s funk, rock and trad side by side, with people dancing and cheering to all sounds. Others wander around between the stages and the bonfire-pile, taking in the views over Meath and Westmeath, sipping from beer cans and smoking joints. But to me it feels like everyone is waiting for the fire: all over the place there are small statues created from straw, more paraffin-lanterns are erected and fire-jugglers in tight sportswear doing stretches and dousing plastic torches and sticks with gasoline.
Legend has it that the fire on the Hil of Uisneach was the one fire of Ireland: people would smother their hearth on the last day of April and wait for the fire from Uisneach to reach their village to rekindle the hearths. Once the big fire was lighted, you could see other fires being lit all over Ireland, spreading out all over the midlands.
At 9pm, the music stops, and a strange parade emerges. Led by people clad in colourful gowns (somewhere between Elves from Lord of the Rings and an amateur-theatre troupe) carrying unlit torches. There’s also a
Photo by: Kai Mueller (www.kaimueller.eu)
group of drummers with bodhráns producing a dull hypnotic drone, and fire-jugglers and fire-breathers jumping between the spectators and the parade. The torches are lit one by one, and everyone continues uphill toward the big pile of wood. The paraffin-lanterns are lit, bengal fire is waved by people in the parade and bathes everything in red light. The parade reaches the bonfire, rounds it one time and – while the drummers bang, the jugglers weave circles of fire and the crowd is strangely silent – the torches are thrown into the fire. The crowd fills the air with with celebratory cheers as the gasoline-soaked wood catches fire, and a huge bonfire alights, large sparks flowing. One by one, the parade disperses into the crowd, who at this stage, have trampled over the barrier tape to get closer to the fire. The music starts again, and suddenly someone near me shouts: “Look, the fires!”. You can see bonfires in all directions lightening up, spreading out from Uisneach through the Midlands to the four provinces, made me think it may have been like this ages and ages ago. Fire and booze and music and people are an old story, but one that works for one night on a hill in the middle of Ireland every year.
Kieran Hennessy
May 12, 2011
Nice review.