I love the Boyle Arts Festival, and I try to visit every year. I usually only just get to the art exhibitions, but that’s good enough for me. Although I would have loved the bubble show! That’s the child in me!
Anyway, off I went bright and early on Saturday morning, and started my day with breakfast at King House Tea Rooms – they do porridge, so I was happy out. I loved that the arts festival programmes were on each table, so I could see what was on at a glance. There’s something so nice about reading a printed programme instead of looking on a screen.
I had a wander around The Courtyard Market, I bought some lovely plants from Erritt Nursery, and thanks to Ruby and Nuala who supported the blog this week, I treated myself to a bunch of flowers.
It was my first time being in The Courthouse in Boyle, the open submission art exhibition is in there. It’s a lovely building, and I loved looking at the different art, there’s something for everyone. I was very interested the assemblage by Angela Duffy, I’m always drawn to pieces like this.
I looked around the main art exhibition in King House, I accidentally ended up in the room that has the outfits belonging to former president Mary McAleese. That’s part of the King House tour – which is well worth doing.
My next stop was the pleasure grounds, it’s such a beautiful walk. I have written about the sculpture trail before, and you can read about that here.
I bumped into artist Matthew Gammon, he has his work in the main exhibition, he’s very talented and you can find him on Instagram.
The KeyNotes Ukulele Group were playing and singing in the grounds of An Rioga, the former Royal Hotel, and I enjoyed listening to them before I went to the Boyle Camera Club exhibition, which was lovely.
Onwards to see the exhibition by Carmel Reynolds, Gabrielle Flynn, Maria Mollohan and Siobhan Cox. I had a lovely chat with Carmel, and the exhibition is lovely.
As I was walking to see the new mural, I spotted Chris O’Dowd, so I had to get a selfie.
I met him at the arts festival last year too, he’s a nice guy, and I was delighted with myself – as you can see in the fangirl photo.
I took another walk through the market, and bought some stickers from Meg – her work is really beautiful, if you love wildlife do check her out. https://www.instagram.com/peaceofirelandart/?hl=en
So, that was my morning in Boyle. If you get a chance head to the Boyle Arts Festival, they even have Bad Manners playing – I showed my age at our work meeting – no one had heard of them! Anyway, you can see the full line-up of events here. Well done to all involved.
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