Carrick Water Music Festival

The 2016 Carrick Water Music Festival has been running for the last few days in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim.

We went along today to check out the events. In hindsight yesterday would have been a better day to go as there was a music trail running throughout the town with live music in various venues. We did enjoy today though and the sunshine was an added bonus. The first event of the day was a talk about the history of The Bush Hotel.

Joe Dolan, the owner of the hotel, gave us a great talk about the hotel. It dates back to 1793 and was rebuilt in 1900-1902. Michael Collins stayed at the hotel in 1917 and there is now a room named after him. The talk was accompanied by a slide show, I was quite taken aback to see one of my photos on the big screen, as I had no idea it was used.

After the talk I visited The Dock. It’s a lovely building and well worth a visit, there is a wonderful gift shop there and also regular exhibitions and music.

The Moon River Boat was the venue for the Original Guinness Jazz Band so we had a lovely time cruising down the River Shannon listening to the music.

There were a great crowd on the boat and the band really looked like they were enjoying themselves so there was a great atmosphere.

One of the Sligo Jazz Lads joined the band for a couple of tunes too. I was tempted to get up and sing – but I can’t sing and I didn’t want everyone jumping overboard. If you’ve seen my experience with the sheep on a boat you’ll know what I mean!

The Carrick Music Festival finishes tomorrow (Sunday July 17th) with a day full of family events at The Dock and The Eddie Lee Three playing on the Moon River Cruise, plus lots more. Check out the website for more details.