Festival participants gathered in front of the "monument to monuments" in Keady,  County Armagh, Tommy Makem's home town (aka the center of the universe).

Martyn Kaal has written a brilliant account of the week. You can read it here!

And here is the week-long journal of one Yank named Kate....

We started out Saturday night with a concert featuring The Sands Family, Tommy Makem and The Makem Brothers. 

Besides the 20+ travel-weary festival registrants who came for the entire week, the Ti Chullain center was filled with members of the local community who came out to enjoy the evening and celebrate with us.  After the concert, the craic went on and on for several hours there at Ti Chullain and back at the Mourne Country Hotel in Newry, where many of the out-of-town participants stayed. It was an excellent kickoff to the week and teaser for things still to come.

Sunday we had set-dancing lessons in the morning, then a bus tour of Belfast and a ceilidh in the evening where we danced our feet off.... or got danced off our feet, depending on how you look at it. It was a good opportunity for the festival attendees to get to know each other a bit and also interact with community members.  The experienced dancers and the instructors were wonderfully patient with us beginners!

Monday morning Peter Makem (www.petermakem.com) gave a great talk about rhythm and rhyme. Here are some highlights from my notes:

Rhythm and verse invoke unity in a gathering of people. We can find rhythm and unity both within all aspects of life --  the wavelengths of sunlight, wind rustling, heartbeats, wing-beats. A singer and an audience are transformed into a oneness by the verse and rhythm, creating a suspended moment.  Through Peter's reading of a passage from a Yeats poem, we saw how just subtly different stresses on particular words can change the meaning conveyed. Songs evolve from times of unity -- famine, oppression, struggles, patriotism, joy -- humanity moving/walking/dancing down a common road. Rhythm and verse are the completion of circles. 

June 3, 2000....

The community of South Armagh, Northern Ireland welcomed into its midst a diverse, international group of musicians, poets, singers and Irish music lovers for the purpose of celebrating the singing tradition of the region and all of Ireland, in the name of Tommy Makem, legendary native son.

For eight days we reveled together, learned together, made friends together, and mostly sang together.  What a week!

Click on many of the  choice photos
from the week to see a larger version.
Just remember -- the photos make these pages more interesting, but they also make them load slower. Please be patient!

Also -- see the Related Links page
for more information about South Armagh and the performers at the Festival.

The Monday afternoon tour was of the east side of County Armagh.

The evening event was at the Belleek Country House, a unique pub with a huge upstairs room. A presentation called "350 million years of South Armagh" was an interesting lesson in geology interspersed with music of the Ring of Gullion -- "Ned of the Glen", uilleann and highland pipe tunes and more. 

After the formal presentation, musicians circled up and the event turned into a huge informal session of tunes and singing. Several of the festival attendees, including Mary Smith and Adi Rule sang songs, and a group of local musicians played tunes.

• Evening session circle #1
• Evening session circle #2
• Evening session circle #3
• Evening session circle #4

When things wrapped up at the Belleek Country House, most of the festival group went back to the hotel in Newry for more music in the hotel bar.  The hotel owner, Seamus, doubled as bartender for us several nights and was a bit of craic himself!