PICTURES: Roscrea rocks for inaugural Castle Street Festival

Roscrea was the epicentre of live music in the Midlands last Saturday when some of the top musicians from the region took to the stage for the first Castle Street Music Festival.

Held in the shadow of Roscrea Castle, the inaugural annual event drew crowds of revellers to the heritage town for a day-long festival showcasing some of the finest up and coming talent and well-established acts from the area and beyond.

Concerns the weather might not hold for the event were not realised and a sultry and unseasonably warm day and night saw people dancing on Castle Street and make the best of what was a very impressive first run for what the organisers say will become an annual highlight for Roscrea.

Roscrea comedian and MC for the festival, Donna Fletcher officially kicked off proceedings and was followed by Roscrea artists Eddie Simmons and Michael Hutchinson who respectively played very entertaining acoustic solo sets and had the audience singing and dancing on Castle Street.

Roscrea stars Jack Keeshan and Edel Pender brought the house down early in the day with a rousing performance of their local hit ‘Roscrea Sky’ and many other catchy original numbers, with much of the evocative lyrics inspired by Jack’s experiences growing up and living in Roscrea.

‘Roscrea Sky’ received a second outing later that night when Jack and Edel were joined by the members of several of the bands on the bill for what was one of the highlights of the show.

They were followed by local rock bands Essence of Blue and The Grapevine, who kicked things up a notch and paved the way for Ennis based Nirvana tribute band With the Lights Out and local band Nomads who are comprised of members from across North Tipperary.

Closing the festival on a high note were Abba tribute band, Abba Gold, who performed a set filled with all the classic Abba anthems and brought the crowd to fever pitch for the grand finale; replete with matching costumes, Swedish accents and all the energy and passion one would expect from Ireland’s top Abba impersonators. 

Chair of the organising committee, Alison Hynes Lee, thanked all the performers and the audience who travelled from far and wide: “We genuinely couldn’t have done it without every single one of you”.