He's

worthy of it.

And I must confess, I knew nothing.

I grew up in Skibbereen and I never really heard of this man until we started the festival and did a bit of investigating.

God, he's remarkable.

And he was here at the time of the famine.

And then he went on after that to... to become Professor of Irish at Trinity College, where he taught the likes of J.M. Singh and Douglas Hyde, our first president.

later on

dress

up as as a character from any oscar-winning movie that's kind of the loose idea so that's how the festival starts it's on a Friday night we'd have as I said we close the street for traffic for three hours and there's food stalls and there's live music and there's fun and games for kids and there's people love dressing up so that and touch wood the weather will be good of course it always gives a great start to the festival it's for young and old and for everybody you know so yeah I'd encourage everyone to come in and people do come in from the outlying villages that seems to be a tradition now at this stage so that gives the festival a great start so that's how we start on Friday evening that's the only event on Friday

themes of the Arts Festival

has been to showcase the positive effect the arts can have on our well-being.

You know, that they can allow us to switch off from whatever bad news around the world.

We're bombarded with that.

And the arts give us a chance to just focus on ourselves and enjoy whether it's a painting or a song or a film or whatever.

So 10 years ago, there's an organisation started in Skibbereen, a HSE funded organisation called 49 North Street.