I had a wonderful chat with Tara McGowan, the founder and director of The Cairde Arts Festival this week. The festival is one of the highlights of summer in Sligo, and there is something for everyone to enjoy.
Tara moved back to Sligo in 2000, and started working with Blue Raincoat Theatre Company as their general manager. After a couple of years, the team were approached by some parents of young adults with Down Syndrome, who wanted drama classes for their young people. They did some research and that was the beginning of Cairde.
Tara explains:
“And from that, and also a kind of a desire I had since moving back to Sligo, having been away for all of Sligo Arts Festival and thinking, Oh, it’d be really great to have an arts festival in Sligo. We don’t have one right now. So those two things kind of merged. We started in 2003 with a sharing of the work that we were doing.
At the time as well, Globe House opened up in Sligo in 2003, and we wanted to reach out to the new communities who were coming into Globe House at that time. So we started collaborating with a number of artists who were working in Globe House, and just having this community celebration of new people that we were engaging with at the Factory Performance Space, which is the home to Blue Raincoat Theatre Company.”
You can hear the full interview on the podcast: https://shows.acast.com/magnumladys-podcast/episodes/interview-with-tara-mcgowan-founder-and-director-of-the-cair
The Cairde Festival 2024 takes place from July 6th – 13th, and you can read all about the events on their website: https://www.cairdefestival.com/
I’d like to thank Tara for taking the time to chat to me. If you have an idea for a podcast episode, or if you’d like to sponsor the podcast, you can send me an email: valrobus@gmail.com
Magnumlady Blog 
Met her in her old gift shop “Cait and I” – lovely lady. I think I gave you the print of it 🙂