Hibernacle - Orlagh House, Dublin - July 4th

This day last week, I was recovering from Hibernacle. What's Hibernacle? Well, it was a fantastic three day affair on the side of a hill overlooking Dublin city, featuring some of the best artists on the Irish music scene!

This wasn't Electric Picnic, All Together Now or even Kaleidoscope. It wasn't a big, sprawling metropolis of a festival. It was, as festivals go, an intimate affair. There were two stages, the main stage (obviously), and a small, personal, stage in the Secret Garden. Both stages were separated by a 200m walk. As a performance wrapped up on one stage, the other stage was getting ready to kick off.

Later on, as the sun set over the city, the party moved indoors. If you fancied a dance, there was disco affair in one of the halls, and, in a rather grand room, George Murphy and friends were banging out all the trad favourites. If that was too much for you, you could just sit outside, sipping a beer, champagne, or on a wibbly wobbly wonder, and watch the city come to life at night.

I think I'm getting across my point, Hibernacle was an incredibly relaxing affair for punters, and even for me, as I went from stage to stage all night long.

Look at that line-up above! Pillow Queens, Villagers, Lisa Hannigan, all headlining! It's what dreams are made of, and look at the rest of the line-up, absolutely full of my favourite artists!

I mentioned the Secret Garden stage. Over the weekend, Eddie Winston, Grainne Hunt, Wallis Bird, Áine Tyrrell, Driven Snow, We're Not Together, Dani Larkin, and Lisa Hannigan all played intimate shows there, but it wasn't just for music, oh no! The fantastic Emmet O'Brien and Ned Dunn also performed some spoken word pieces every day. I always find spoken word very thought provoking, if only it had been like this in school!

Drinks wise, there were 3 outdoor bars, one at each of the stages and on by Orlagh House. Later, as the party moved indoors, a bar opened within the house. Food was your normal festival burgers and noodles options. no chips though! Oh and how could I forget, the ice pops, oh the ice pops. Did I have one or two Wibbly Wobbly Wonders? I most certainly did!

A few things I noticed... It is a very family friendly festival. Security was low key, no drunken fools causing trouble. The artists hung out in crowd watching other artists perform, that's always a good sign. There was no corporate sponsorship, a refreshing relief from the bigger festivals, and my last observation, a complete lack of generators... that meant no background noise, no smell of diesel to disturb the fresh, country air. A small thing, but still...

Anyway, I'm not a writer, so I'll stop now and just post some photos: