€1.5m hit to North Clare as Doolin Folk Festival cancelled

THE Doolin Folk Festival, which had been due to take place on September 18-19, has been cancelled for the second year in a row, writes Owen Ryan.

Donal Minihane of Hotel Doolin said that it was too risky not to make the call now.

“It’s a big investment and it’s too much of a risk to be holding out and holding out. There’s a roadmap coming at the end of August from the Department, but we don’t know what’s in it. There’s too much risk involved.

“To be fair to the ticket holders, the artists, the crews and everyone involved, we had to let them know.”
He said it would have been very positive for Doolin and its surrounds given the number of tickets sold each year.

“It’s a huge amount of bed nights for the area. There would have been 1,200 tickets and it sells out every year. All of those people have to sleep somewhere, eat somewhere and have a few drinks somewhere.

“There’s a huge spread and it could be worth €1.5 million to the area over the weekend, so it’s a big loss. Also it’s a loss to local musicians, artists, staff, suppliers and crew. It’s a big loss.”

While Covid is still seeing aspects of life put on hold here, earlier this year they had been confident that they’d be okay in September.

“We cancelled last year. This year in February and March we knew it couldn’t go ahead in June so we said we’d postpone it until September.

“We felt we’d have a good chance, that people would be vaccinated and things would be in a much better place. We thought we’d be much further along than we are now.”

He says that some more information and clarity on when such events can go ahead would be very welcome.

“Our two main things at Hotel Doolin are hospitality and music. We knew that those two areas would be the last to open up again, we were aware of that, we’re okay with that, but we’ve been very patient now.

“It’s not like we want to open up tomorrow, we just want them to let us know when we can open up so we can start planning.

“Or even let us know under what criteria; how much of the population would need to be vaccinated or what the prevalence of the disease would be in order to let us operate. Even if they told us that we’d be happy enough.

“I do want to say the Department and the Government have been good to us in terms of support. We’ve got support under the live performance scheme to put on gigs that wouldn’t have been viable otherwise.

“We’ve also got support from the Clare Arts Office to put on a smaller event on the weekend called Doolin Sessions, that would have been the weekend of the Doolin Folk Festival. That has been good and we’re grateful for that.

“But, at the same time, we would prefer to be back operating under our own steam and not taking taxpayers’ money to do it.”