Scots praise Pan Celtic Festival
At the opening jumping competition at the Kingdom County Fair were (from left) Donal Finn, Milltown; Mrs. Joan Galvin and PJ Galvin, Beaufort; Patrick Finn Snr. and Patrick Finn, Jnr, Kilcummin, and Michael Galvin, Beaufort.
Wednesday May 27 2009
THE biggest and best Pan Celtic Festival ended on Sunday night with a ceilí and concert representing the best entertainment from all six celtic countries.
The delegation from the other countries were high in their praise of the weeklong festival, and Mr. Fred MacAulay, chairman of the Scottish National Committee and senior Gaelic producer with BBC Scotland, said that in his opinion his years festival had reached a new peak of achievement. He said the programme was a magnificant one, with so much happening each day to keep the interest of everyone who came to Killarney.
Scotland were once again winners of the Celtavision song contest with the song An Lon Dubh (The Blackbird). This was sung by Margaret MacLeod of Edinburgh who also composed the song. It told of Margaret's visits to her grandparents on the Island of Lewis in her youth, the fact these people were now dead, but that a whole new generation of tradition loving people were protecting the heritage of Scotland gave reason for hope.
This was Scotland's third win in this competition and they are the first nation to achieve this. Margaret MacLeod was a member of Na hOganaigh when they secured Scotland's first win in 1972. Mary Sandeman was their second winner in 1976.
The Celtic singing competitions followed on Thursday night and Ian MacKay made it a double for Scotland when he won it in the solo section, to be followed home in second place by last years winner Catriona Primrose with Eddie Barrie, a student at St. Brendan's Seminary in Killarney in third place for Ireland.
In the groups Wales struck for their first win of the week with Perrerin taking the first prize of £150, and McMurrough of Ireland were second.
The folk dancing on Friday night was one of the most colourful of all the competitions held during the week with the Welsh group, Parti Dawns, Colegy Brifysgol, Abertawe, taking first place in the group dancing. Mark Clementts, a member of the group, took first prize in the solo dancing with a magificant display of clog dancing. Second in the group dancing was the Isle of Man group Bock Yuan Fannee and John Young of Cobh was second in the solo dancing.
