Since its foundation in 1979, Cork’s annual folk festival has given lovers of folk and traditional Irish music a wonderful opportunity to enjoy a feast of the highest qualtity music, song and dance.
The 2008 folk festival will feature artists, musician, dancers and singers from around Ireland, Britain and far beyond. The programme will include a huge range of musical traditions and styles from Salsa to Slides, from old-timey bluegrass to sean nós singing. Some of the highlights will include a concert with the West Kerry group, Beal Tuinne featuring Seamus Begley, Rita Connolly, Jim Murray and Shaun Davey at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral and concerts with Salsa Celtica, a vibrant 11 piece world music fusion band from Edinburgh. Also appearing will be Michael McGoldrick, Ed Boys and John Joe Kelly, the ‘pride of the west’ with John Wynne & John McEvoy and the legendary Beara box player Finbarr Dwyer. Throughout the festival weekend, audiences can sample everything from the very best fiddle, accordion, pipes and flute players in Ireland to a giant open-air Céilí Mór with the Kilfenora Céilí Band. As usual the festival will feature concerts from the Cork Blues, Pipes’ and singers’ clubs, plus lectures, children’s events and a music trail featuring 40 free sessions.

Sponsors include Beamish, the Evening Echo, Failte Ireland and C103

Of these events the one grabbing most of the headlines is the Dublin Fringe Festival. Picking up where Edinburgh left off, The Fringe is Ireland’s showcase of visual and performance arts played out at established and makeshift venues throughout Dublin from September 6th to 21st

Read more on the Dublin Fringe Festival

A visit to Westport as part of an Ireland vacation or holiday will show the beauty that the town exudes.

Tidy towns initiative

The national TidyTowns competition was launched by Bord Fáilte (now Fáilte Ireland) in 1958 as a follow on from the National Spring Clean Campaign which ran from 1953 and 1957 as part of Tostal a tourism celebration of all things Irish. Bord Fáilte was restructured in 1995 and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government assumed ownership of TidyTowns and now organises the competition with the support of national sponsor SuperValu

The winners in other categories for 2008 were as follows:

Tidiest Large Urban Centre: Ennis, County Clare
Tidiest School: Duleek Boys NS, County Meath
Tidiest Village: Birdhill, County Tipperary
Tidiest small Town: Kenmare, County Kerry
Tidiest Large Town: Westport, County Mayo
Special award for contribution to ‘Tidy towns’ over 50 years: Glenties, County Donegal

This follows the announcement by Ryanair last week that it was cutting two routes out of Cork Airport including the Galsgow route.

Aer Arann, who also fly to Edinburgh from Cork, confirmed this morning that they will begin flying from Cork to Glasgow’s Prestwick airport from October 28. This ensures there is no break in service for travelers between the two airports and is great news for me :) (and for other people working for companies with offices in both Cork and Glasgow.)

This is a blow to toursim in the southwest of Ireland, a region that has also seen UK visitor numbers affected by the closure of the Swansea-Cork ferry 2 years ago.

The routes to close are from East-Midlands and Glasgow-Prestwick, which will close on October 26th and 28th respectively.

Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said they had made the decision due to an increase in the charges being imposed by the airport on those routes from 1 November however Cork Airport management have rejected this claim stating that they have not raised charges.

Mr O’Leary claimed that he felt a deal was possible in recent negotiations but that the Airport’s parent company the Dublin Airport Authority(DAA) were blocking the move. He said that the situation could be rescued if the DAA “changed its mind” but as of now the two routes will finish in October.

This statement is sure to bring further pressure on government to complete the process of making Cork an independent airport from Dublin. This was promised with the breakup of Aer-Rianta in 2004, however as yet the process has been no more than a name change from Aer Rinata to the DAA.

As someone who works for an Irish company that has offices in both Cork and Glasgow, I really hope they sort this mess out!

Despite Ryanair owning 29.4% of AerLingus, these two airlines are fierce competitors and are always in battle for customers. When I saw this I did a little research and found that when you do a google search for AerLingusplc, there is the Ryanair version of the site ranked at number 1. This search also revealed that Ryanair also own www.aerlingusplc.net.

The European Commission blocked a proposed takeover of AerLingus by Ryanair last year on following a rejection by the Aer Lingus board. Is the ownership of two Aer-lingus titled websites is a sweet dig back at the Irish national airline for Michael O’Leary or just childishness?

As always, myguideIreland have a very special offer this month giving you the opportunity to spend a week in Ireland for just $399!

Furthermore, for anyone who missed this last month, we are also continuing to keep you up to date with the top remaining festivals in Ireland this Summer & finally in this edition we hope you’ll enjoy experimenting with this month’s extra special traditional recipe!

Read the myguideIreland Ireland Newsletter in full.

At myguideIreland we are currently offering excellent value on self catering accommodation for the weeks of August 16th and 23rd. Stay in one of our selected 3 bedroom properties for an amazing €499 for the week.

A stay at a self catering holiday home offers all the comforts of home with the fun of discovering a new part of our beautiful country. Our properties are situated in areas that offer lots facilities and plenty of outdoor activities.

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