Mallow Arts Festival: 5 highlights for all the family at this week's event
True Tides: pop-rock outfit headlines Mallow Arts Festival on Saturday night with a gig at The Arches. Pic: Ray Keogh
Heading into its seventh year in its current incarnation, and drawing on a rich history of arts festivals and celebrations in the North Cork town, Mallow Arts Festival is serving up a programme of music, film, performance, conversation and family fare, largely involving members of the local community.
Beginning as a tentative step into the viability of a full-time arts centre in Mallow town, the festival has assembled a dedicated committee of local creative workers and facilitators as the Mallow Arts Collective, overseeing arts events and opportunities throughout the year.
The big opening-night ball includes choral performances from Cór Magh Ealla; showtunes and arias with Maureen Flynn; rockers Lookout Mountain; and the grand debut of the Mallow Musical Society.
A debut anthology of short stories from Mallow-born and -based writer Joanna Foley, Vagrant Whispers, launches, with readings from her colleagues in the Mallow Scribes group, and drama sketches from Mai Rafferty.
A pair of intimate gigs in the town's hidden gem of a cellar bar, free at the door.
Thursday July 25 sees solo originals and covers from singers and songwriters Ophelia Bennett McCormack and Aisling Corrigan; while Friday July 26 is a trip-hop-inflected session with SheLovesCalpol, a bilingual musical project featuring singer and poet Julie Goo and Tír na gCasta producer Mike Mills.
Free events for all the family on Saturday July 27 include imagination play with Kinderama (9am & 10am; St James Church); the Pied Piper's Fancy Dress Parade (departing St James' Church yard at 10.30am); free art workshops with Me and the Moon (11.30-4pm; Hibernian Hotel); the beginning of Ballyclough street-style artist Edith O'Mahony's latest mural (12pm; St James' Car Park); and Ronan Leonard's annual Digital Scavenger Hunt (rendezvous at the Festival Office on Main St at 12.30pm).
Sunday July 28 sees the Meet Your Heroes event, where kids can say hello to local emergency-services personnel (2pm; Mallow Castle); and screenings from the Munster Animation Project (6.30pm; Hibernian Hotel).
The festival's musical headliners for 2024 have a homegrown hue, with legendary singer and songwriter Luka Bloom visiting his songbook in the surrounds of St James' Church on Friday July 26; and pop-rockers True Tides taking to the Courtyard Bar of downtown superpub The Arches on Saturday July 27.
Both these gigs are ticketed, with tickets €25 apiece available on Mallow Arts Collective's Eventbrite.
- Mallow Arts Festival is a community-run arts event, taking place in Mallow, Co Cork between Wednesday July 24 and Sunday July 28.
- For more info and the full programme, visit mallowartsfestival.com.
