Shane Hegarty's encyclopaedia of modern Ireland
There are, officially, 11,000 festivals in Ireland every year, attended by 7.1 million people. The festivals are increasing exponentially, piling up on the calendar. Soon there will be one dedicated to every man, woman and child in Ireland. For a week, you will celebrate your very own International "Stuck in that Crappy Job" Festival or the "Not Chicken for Dinner Again" Fleadh.
Due to the proliferation of festivals, towns are having to show increasing ingenuity in order to stand out. It is always noteworthy when a town matches itself with a subject that appears completely unrelated, such as The Ballinasloe Festival of Bauhaus Architecture, Moate's Blue Movie Week and the Ballyhaunis Non Sequitur Fest. To start your own town's successful festival, though, it helps to have an obscure local figure who was considered a bit of a drunken bore in his day, but who is now remembered as a gregarious storyteller. Then add some craft not already associated with another festival. And finally, the word "international" should be added to the title, even if the farthest anyone has travelled is from the next field.
Your festival - let's call it the Sean MacAirgead International Pipe-Smoking Summer School - must be opened by someone whose giant chain of office reaches down to his belly. And he must do it from the back of a truck. After that, all your festival needs is a line-up. There must be a public debate on the place of pipe-smoking in the modern world; at least one concert featuring Damien Dempsey; a market featuring both local produce and a man selling tapes of himself singing songs about having his tea; an Eastern European puppet act; face-painting to shut the kids up; and something to do with tractors. Everybody loves tractors.
The support of the local community is also vital. They must be willing to put up alcohol prices for a week. They must be keen to open ad-hoc B&Bs, because they might as well cook a fry for a Yank as have an empty bedroom while the kids are on their J1s.
For those few remaining townlands and streets that don't yet have their own festival, it's worth noting that many of the good ones are already taken. Foynes has an annual Irish Coffee Festival. Spanish Point, Co Clare has a Surfing Blitz. There are already a couple of airshows, and lots of classic car rallies. Some try to squeeze in as much as they can, such as the Wexford Hooves 'n' Grooves Festival, which features the hand-in-glove combination of music, horses and rowing. Some day soon someone will go for the best combination they can think of, and we'll all flock to the International Bikini, Space Travel and Barbecues Festival. And before you make a grab for the Annual Pack The Pubs Week, that is already the unofficial title of the other 11,000 festivals.