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Workshop Week

Saying last week was a busy one is a major understatement! With just over two months left until the festival it was time to get some legitimate building and designing going on down at the site of the festival in Dunderry. We’d planned to get some bunting, flags and a variety of benches and seating made for the weekend. We also had to meet with our site manager, Ed, to discuss preparations that needed to be made in advance of the festival.

Arriving down on the Monday and we split into teams for sign making, bunting and bench construction. Despite Kurt lacking some vital equipment (apparently hammers are used in the construction of benches) work got underway on seating. Inside folks were busy sewing together bunting, a process that was streamlined by Sara Smith, who helped us to put them together a lot quicker than we’d been doing before. Ferdia was flying solo, carving out signs so folk don’t get lost out here in the wilds of County Meath!

At this point the stage had become an issue. We hadn’t fully committed to either hiring or building a stage. A midnight meeting in The Poet’s Rest in Slane ensued, where Nob, Rob, Benny and Ed drew up the blueprints for our own amazing pyramid stage on the back of a Guiness soaked bar napkin.

On Tuesday morning we had worked our way out of bias tape for the bunting and began working on flags and banners (check out our photos!). The rest of the week was a whirlwind of meetings, sewing, gluing, hammering and cooking. By Wednesday evening we had a back lawn littered with hand made benches, a room full of bunting and a household of well worked individuals. We were all left with the same feeling. This. Is. Real. The festival was coming up around us. We had benches in front of us that, in the short space of two months, people would be sitting in, enjoying the last of the good weather and listening to music from the likes of Gay Woods and Dr. Strangely Strange. There was the bunting that would decorate our spirituality area, where people would be getting away from it all for the weekend. The signs were made that would guide folks to our experimental archaeology area where people would be learning how our ancestors crafted bows and arrows from scratch. The Spirit of Folk was in the air. Thanks to all our great volunteers who made it all possible.