Well, the photo competition I have been administering for Irish~Scottish Gaelic organisation Colmcille for the last 7 months culminated in a prize giving event this weekend at the Oireachtas music festival in Letterkenny, Donegal.
The
Oireachtas is Ireland's equivalent of our
National Mòd in Scotland and, in keeping with last year's prize-giving format, Colmcille arranged a celebration of music, dance and song from the Irish and Scottish gaeldoms to accompany the awarding of prizes to the winners of this year's Saol na nGael photography competition.
I flew out to Derry on Friday morning and was driven down to Letterkenny, a small town about 40 minutes away in lovely County Donegal. I met up with Colmcille's project officer Mairi Murray after checking into my hotel room. Mairi has been in charge of the Saol na nGael competition project since its inception in 2006 when I won 2nd prize and she hired me to help run the successive competitions knowing I was knowledgeable in photography and online social media.
After getting various supplies in preparation for setting up the exhibition of photos, which would be my primary task ahead of the event, we took a wee tour of a very soggy Donegal north of Buncranna and through the Pass of Mamore. Despite the horrendous weather the whole weekend I can tell that Donegal would be a very beautiful locale in the summer, much like the Scottish Highlands.
After nine on Saturday we were down at the venue to unpack pictures, decide on room layout and put up exhibition materials. This was not without its last minute stresses when we discovered some things had gone awol in the post but we improvised and everything was ready just in time. The event was held after midday on Saturday in the Mount Errigal Hotel in Letterkenny as various other Oireachtas events were taking place as well so there was a suitably festive atmosphere as people gathered for the buffet and entertainment. Various musicians, singers and dancers performed including Allan MacDonald (singing & pipes), Brendan Beaglaoich, Lillis O'Laoire & Mairi Smith. Afterwards the photo competition prizes were awarded by Éamon Ó Cuív, the Irish Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. The event finished with everyone being given complimentary Colmcille calendars featuring some of the photographs from the competition.
After tidying up the exhibition and various administration bits and pieces I got back to the hotel and had dinner of Kangaroo steak (very nice, like beef steak) with prize winner Tim Riches before retiring to my room to sleep before flying back to Glasgow on Sunday morning.
All in all, it was very enjoyable, well attended and even better than last year's event in my opinion. The people we met in Letterkenny were just lovely and all the prize winners were great folk who came from the North of Scotland to Southernmost Ireland and places in between.
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