19th Ennis Trad Festival returns this November

DATES for this year’s Ennis Trad Festival have been unveiled with the popular event confirmed to run for five days from November 8.
Plans are now fully underway for this year’s festival, attracting thousands of people to the county capital, some from as far away as Japan and America.
John Rynne, chairman of the organising committee explained, “It’s early days at the moment, although we are up and at it earlier than we have in previous years. We have a new committee and new members and we have a number of plans at various stages of development. We always try to co-ordinate the concerts to give a variety of things and we will be waiting until we have all of that nailed down before we make any announcements on that side of it. But in the next month we will probably be announcing the main headline acts.
“There have always been big names attracted to the festival but we also try to pull out some more obscure names that might make for a good concert as well. We’ll have a few surprises. We have some ideas of people for the line-up but at the moment, people are looking at their itineraries and their touring schedules, so we don’t want to name anyone just yet until it’s all tied down.”
He did reveal that five CD launches will take place at the festival. Fiddle player Eileen O’Brien will launch a CD of her famous father Paddy O’Brien’s compositions and a few airs. Singer Ann Kerrane, Chris Droney’s daughter, will also launch a CD. Other launches will be of recordings by Boston-born accordion player Colm Gannon, Clarecastle-based singer Nóirín Lynch and singer as well as tin whistle player Grace Kelly.
According to John, the committee have been inundated with festival fans from all over the world looking for information on this year’s event.
“We are one of the most popular Irish music festivals on the international scene. We have a great number of overseas visitors, our email has been hopping with Americans, Japanese, Norwegians, people from all over looking for confirmation dates. We would be getting emails from as early as the day after the previous festival. We would get thousands of enquiries from people planning their trip to Ireland, and the festival, a year in advance.
“I would think there would be between 5,000 and 10,000 people easily around Ennis for the week. I always have doubts when people proclaim figures, so the way I base it is the hotels are always full and the events are full. We have had a little drop off with the recession in the last two or three years but people make an effort to come to this festival. In all their festival-going, this one still appears at the top of their list.”
John believes that what sets Ennis Trad apart from others is its emphasis on sessions. “The headline acts, if you like, are kind of a secondary thing to the main body of the festival, which is the sessions on the ground. In that sense, we’re unlike every other festival on the basis that that’s what we actually focus on rather than the big events, which are really the place to go after the sessions. We focus very carefully on the organisation of a huge variety of very, very good quality sessions and that is where I think we have made our reputation.”
“We offer very, very good value for money on the basis that most of the people on the committee are musicians. It’s not the normal committee that might decide to organise a festival and then have a focus on music second. We’re Irish musicians and we started this to facilitate good Irish traditional music here in Ennis, which is famous for its music.
“We have been very careful to not allow the festival to turn into a Bavarian drinking festival or something like that. The sessions are very carefully organised with the very best of musicians, really the top musicians in the country who would all be headline acts in their own right and who are very well respected within the scene.
“They’re all here in that week so there is a huge social dimension amongst the musicians and dancers who come here every year and meet each other, catching up on what they have been doing because a lot of them mightn’t get to meet. There is a big social meet up, it’s like a big gathering of all those who really care about the traditional aspect of the music and who would be at the top of their game in terms of their musicianship. They create an atmosphere and we try not to have it eclipsed. We don’t go for extensions in the pubs because there is no need and we have the late night concert anyway.
“We have sessions during the day as well and all of those things come together to create an environment where someone can come in and literally hear a really good session anytime during the festival. They’ll be mindboggled by the choice of which to go to. We also mix and match. Because we have a fair degree of experience within the committee of musicians, we often put musicians we think might enjoy playing together who might not have even met before. It’s not so much a lucky bag as a careful match making set up to create these sessions. That really is the backbone of it, that’s where it has stood the test of time.
“I know a lot of other festivals have come and gone, and others are still there but an awful lot of them have adopted a lot of the things we started as a method for doing their festivals. A lot of them are focusing on a solid backbone of sessions but I don’t think they do it as well as us. We have the edge on them in terms of experience.”
John acknowledged the support of Clare County Council, Ennis Town Council, hoteliers and the Vintners. “In times of recession, the level of entertainment that we are offering people and the amount of free entertainment available, should make Ennis Trad Festival attractive to anyone to go for a day or more. They will be highly entertained for little or nothing. There is also the opportunity on top of that if they want to hear the headline acts in a more formal setting, they can.”