It's all about breaking records as Belfast Zoo prepares a giant finger painting and the Fleadh Cheoil plans the biggest ever session, writes FIONOLA MEREDITH
SUMMER IS the season for outlandish world-record attempts, and this week, there will be two determined assaults made on standing world records. Tomorrow, Belfast Zoo will create the largest finger painting in the world – or so the organisers, the Northern Ireland Childminding Association (NICMA), are hoping.
On Friday night, Market Square in Tullamore, Co Offaly will be packed with thousands of musicians, singers and dancers, in an effort to create the largest traditional Irish session in the world, otherwise known as “the session to beat the recession”.
The finger-painters are quietly confident that the gigantic artwork – named The Big Picture – will exceed the 2,025 sqm painting created in Austria in 2007, which currently holds the record. The Big Picture will be made up of more than 2,000 separate pieces of canvas, each one painted by children from across Northern Ireland, from toddlers to teenagers. In special workshops in Belfast, Derry, Omagh and Newry, little ones enjoyed the freedom to create splodgy masterpieces, while older children produced highly detailed canvases. In all, NICMA estimates the artists used 3,500m of material and 1,000 litres of paint, not to mention creating 15,000 very messy hands and feet.
The idea is that all the paintings will be stitched or clipped together in the form of a giant house, to celebrate the home-based care offered by childminders. “It’s our 25th anniversary, and we just had this brainwave,” says Bridget Nodder, NICMA’s director. “If you saw our office today, it’s pure madness. There are 2,000 paintings in here and we’re just starting to put the whole thing together with sewing machines and plastic tags.” Nearly 3,000 children and volunteers are expected to descend on the zoo’s car park on Thursday to finish assembling the huge artwork, and to hastily paint additional canvases if necessary.
While the Northern finger-painters have never gone for a world record before, the organisers of Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Tullamore – often described as “the Olympics of Irish music” – are old hands. Last year, 2,852 musicians, singers and dancers performed for 56 minutes. This year, they want to see 3,000 performers on the go for 60 minutes: truly the session to end all sessions. “We ask people to download the tunes and songs from the Fleadh’s website and spread the list around to all the Comhaltas branches, music classes, music groups, families and musicians all over the world,” says the Fleadh’s youth officer, James Hogan, who came up with the idea in 2007. The record attempt will be preceded by an opening parade, where musicians from across the country will walk through the streets of the midlands town.
The logistics of organising such a huge event must be a bit of a headache, but organiser Karen O’Grady is sanguine. “Everyone travels in the parade under their own county colours, and then we just count each person in as a singer, dancer or musician.” If it’s anything like previous years, the latest attempt will be quite a spectacle – Tullamore’s Market Square awash with thousands of revellers brandishing fiddles, bodhráns, flutes and a rag-bag of other assorted instruments. The good-natured crush means that participants need to be ready to dodge the stray elbows of fiddlers as they play Shoe the Donkey and Geese in the Bog, while children join in with tin whistles from the safety of dads’ shoulders.
“Playing music solidly for a whole hour is no mean feat,” says Karen O’Grady. “And the atmosphere and the energy in this world record attempt will be electrifying.”
While the fingerpainters will have independent witnesses that will provide information to Guinness World Records, the Tullamore session is going solo, which means it won’t be an official attempt.
www.belfastzoo.co.uk, www.fleadh2009.com
