Oh Ballinamore Festival, how can I explain you to the lay man or woman?

Joy of mine and so many childhoods, lifeline of a small county town for 47 years, witness of good times and bad and an important part of our lives here in this our small part of the world.

As seventies and eighties children the festival was our summer holiday, no foreign shores or resorts for us but the weeks of ‘preparing’ for the local festival, all the townspeople painting and polishing meant the festival cometh! (I still love to see this happen today!)

Then….the thrill of the funfair arriving, the platform and bunting going up, the festival programme in the shops and planning what to go to, dancing on the street every night in the dark from cradle to grave in rain or shine, treasure hunt, fancy dress, children’s disco, what to wear on the opening day, the show with its animals, muck and rain, candyfloss and chips from a van, Daddy tossing the sheaf on high street, trips to Cumiskeys sweet shop, plastic duck races on the canal, street games and all the dear random little things, sitting with friends on the footpath, fireworks, freedom, family all together and everything just being really different for one week.

I believe the festival was and is permission to possess our town, claim every inch, eat, live, lie, laugh, and breathe the town. Surely this is what community is all about in the purest sense.

As we got older it became about new friends and going out to the funfair and local pubs and club and then later yet about old friends and meeting people not seen in years and years : )

In a seamless imperceptible motion for us the children of the seventies and eighties it turned back on it-self and became once more about family, our young families, our small children and their first festivals. The intoxication of tradition, of rooting our children deep to this place, linking them to our experience and memories and thereby creating new nostalgias and knowing smiles, the small traditions of the future, and future and future that mean so much.

I’m grateful to the festival, it gave me wonderful memories of my parents, my mother bringing us to ‘the bard’ (music entertainment on the street) or as we thought it was, the clinic beside the platform ‘bars’ every night from a very young age in all kinds of weather!

My father in his prime tossing the sheaf (a bundle of hay to be thrown with a pitchfork over an ever increasing height), a test of strength which he had in abundance. They always made it a real holiday for us, they ensured we looked forward to it as much as Christmas every year and made it extra special.

I also believe we who grew up here can be grateful to the festival and in particular to its long running and much loved Chairwoman Jackie McTague for keeping a community spirit alive in this town. Even as someone who always felt like an outsider this week was always better, different and special, it kept fragile ties together and forged new ones, it kept business afloat and continues to do so in times of economic trouble, it made and makes people feel at home, it welcomed and celebrated the visitor while elevating the local and making them feel that bit more special/part of the inner circle as it were! It celebrated and continues to show the very best a small town has to offer………… being a part of something……….belonging………..coming home..

Long live community spirit and long live Ballinamore Family Festival : )

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