The Fanzini Brothers
Kerry's favourite Italians Ronaldo & Guido
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Great Big Tour continues.
And so it was that the third part of the tour came to pass. For it was written that after the enormous success that was our visit to Clifden we had to make our way north again to get to Donegal for the third part of our epic trip around ireland. But first we had to get there this involved a trip up through donegal utterely amazing scenery and i mean truly amazing and the great thing about Donegal is that there is loads of it cos the place is so freaking huge. The last time that we were in Donegal we were there we were travelling courtesy of the Earagail Arts festival, now while the Earagail festival is concentrated in the north of the county for the most part this time we were in Donegal for the Blue Stacks Mountain Festival. The Blue Stacks Mountain Festival is concentrated mostly in the south of the county. Our mission was to base ourselves in the village of Glenties and to travel around to the surrounding villages and hamlets and to bring the arts and our own brand of madness to the people of South Donegal. Stroke of genius really by the organisers to send various arts groups such as ourselves and other groups such as puppeteers and storytellers around to entertain the masses.
Donegal, miles and miles of not a lot


To get there first we had to get through the town of Bundoran. Now for surf crazy Roanldo the town of Bundoran offers the opportunity to see the famous peak which is a wave of great note we stood there for quite a while looking at this wave which was indeed a thing of beauty. Apart form the wave i am afraid though that the town of Bundoran does not hold much attraction for me, it seems to have far too many gaming emporiums by far and the concept of vegetarianism seems alien to the people of this town. In fact the hotel that we did eat in was so bad that it shall remain nameless. I do not doubt that Bundoran has plenty going for it but it seems to be hidden under a veneer of tacky overdevelopment.


The town of Glenties where we were based was by contrast a quiet haven of tranquilty and calm as you can see from the photos. We stayed in the Highlands Hotel which is a family run hotel which while short of what one would consider the mod cons or facilities (we do love our leisure centers) they more than make up for this with the welcome and willingness to go the extra mile for their guests. The highland hotel does have one unique feature in that it hosted Meryl Streep in one of the rooms there when she visited there on the occasion of the premier of the movie Dancing at Lughnasa there is indeed a plaque on the door of one of the rooms loudly proclaiming this fact.

The people up here have a great humour and a lovely lilting accent it can take a while to get used to as for the gigs that we did we found ourselves in a mixture of school halls and community halls doing shows and we got to travel all over the south of the county.
Ronaldo relaxes in the Highlands



Rush hour in Glenties

A place of breathtaking beauty and wide open spaces very much off the beaten track and looking unspoilt. Would love to come back here on a walking tour sometime. The organisers of the gigs were also kind enough to give us tickets to a gig which was organised in the an Ghrianán arts center in letterkenny. This gig featured the legend that was Steve Cooney the traditional guitarist who was playing with a harpist they wove what i could only describe a magical tapestry of sound which held to smallish audience entranced it was truly a privilege to witness. The other act unfortunately were really not up to scratch. They were so forgetable that i have forgotten their name which is fortunate indeed cos i am just about to mercilessly slate them. They were rubbish. A self indulgent fusion of jazz percussion and various other genres which i imagine sounded great to the two lads as they played togehter in their sitting room but which just did not work at all for me or it seemed by the reaction of the audience did not work for anyone else either. Cooney on the other hand we could have listened to all night and it was a pity that his set was not longer.
It wont rain, no really it wont.


At least the audience stayed dry.



On another front this series of gigs also gave me a wonderful opportunity to experience incredible excrucating pain. I dont know if it was the amount of work that we did or was it the specific gig that we did where Ronaldo made the call that it would be a good idea that we should do our show outside despite the imminent threat of rain which we imagined would hold off. It didnt. And when it rained it poured. We got soaked. Ronaldo on the other hand figured that the source of the pain was a result of me falling out of my bed one night while sleeping in the hotel. This did indeed happen and must have been some fall because Ronaldo heard me fall from his adjoining room.The upshot of this whatever caused it is that a muscle in my back went into spasm. Intense pain. In fairness it is surprising that given the physical nature of the work that we do that we do not get injured more often. After our days work we went off to the on call doctor service who gave me an injection and some anti inflamatories and advised that i take time off work. Are you mad man have you not heard of the showbiz adage the show must go on. Strangely the back only really affected me mostly during those sections of the show where i was required to lie down. So we just got on with it and did the shows. One of the shows we did was done in Irish and we had the interesting situation where we did the show in Irish while one of the teachers in the school translated the Irish we were using from Kerry irish into Donegal irish so that the kids could understand us. Great stuff.




Our mission to park the van as close to the venue as possible continues.


At the end of the week we made our weary way back to the kingdom back home and despite the pain we really enjoyed our time in Donegal and would we come back? Yes sir in an instant.
Written at 3:57 PM by Fanzini.
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