Festival links hands across the Irish Sea

Oct 8 2007 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

Anna Gilbert, Liverpool Irish Festival Director, and Sudarghara Dusanj, director of Cains, toast the success of the forthcoming Cains Liverpool Irish Festival _320

THE annual Cains Liverpool Irish Festival, which opens next week, has its first full-time director in 28-year-old Anna Gilbert.

And, whisper it gently, she is neither Irish nor a Liverpudlian.

“But I do have a passion for this festival,” she says.

Much of the festival had already been planned by volunteers, so she is working on getting this year’s festival on the road and making sure that next year’s will be even more special.

She will also be fund-raising including raising cash to pay for her own job. “I have been funded for a year but after that I will need to raise money for the post,” she explains.

She is from Suffolk and was brought up in a tradition of English folk music.

The job with the Cains Liverpool Irish Festival appealed to her immediately, she says.

“There is such enthusiasm for a festival like this.”

It will celebrate the links between Ireland and Liverpool with two weeks of events, including concerts, music workshops, plays, poetry, literature and lectures

There are four school projects this year, but she hopes to raise funding for more next year, suggesting that this is an important part of the festival.

The festival, which opens on October 17, will run until November 3.

One of the first events will be a poetry session at the Liverpool Everyman Bistro from the local Dead Good Poets Society with guest poet Nora Connolly, and it will end with veteran Irish singer/ songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan in concert at the Philharmonic Hall on November 3. This year’s venues include Liverpool Community College, the Royal Court Theatre, the Pogue Mahones pub in Seel Street, The World Museum, and The Edinburgh and Peter Kavanagh pubs.

Many of the largest events will be staged at the Philharmonic Hall, with The Dubliners appearing on October 19 and Clannad’s Moya Brennan appearing with the strings of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on October 21. Unusually, the festival also features the traditional Scottish group, Capercaillie, also at the Phil on October 31.

A new venue this year will be the restored St George’s Hall concert room, which will feature Irish fiddler Nollaig Casey and guitarist Arty McGlynn on October 20.

* FULL details of the festival on www.cainsliverpoolirishfestival.com

philkey@dailypost.co.uk