Oireachtas Report

Took myself up to Letterkenny last night, to rendezvous with Mr VC at the Oireachtas - a big annual festival of all things Irish - Sean Nós singing and dancing - such as like can be seen on the following two clips....
Singing
Dancing
I only got to see the singing competition. Each competitor sang two songs - one slow and one fast. The slow ones were between 10 and 15 minutes long, and most of the singers kept their eyes closed for the duration, which I found a bit alienating, especially since my Irish isn't good enough to fully follow what was going on. They had amazing voices though.
The dancing would have been the highlight, if I'd got up earlier, luckily - most of the dancers were still in dancing form later that night in the Errigal hotel, where tables were overturned in the lobby for people to strut their stuff in this great free style dance that basically involves letting the feet do the talking. Everyone got a go afterwards in the function room with a talented live band providing amazing rocking tunes. (I'm a natural mover - a bit like the bollywood really)
It was a pretty crazy environment, people dancing on tables - using chairs as stepping stones around the hall, you couldn't help but get sucked into it. Another highlight was a giant singalong led by the King of the Tory Islands - Patsy Dan - who sang "Báidín Fheilimi" - which is all about a ship wreck on the way to Tory. Fantastic weekend, will definitely be back to it next year.