THE WEATHER managed to hold out on Saturday as music fans from all over the country congregated at the Irish National Heritage Park at Ferrycarrig, Wexford for a truly unique festival experience at the first ‘Heritage Festival’. There were a couple of showers, but it didn’t affect the fantastic atmosphere among the festival goers as they enjoyed music from some of the biggest names on the Irish music scene such as Mick Flannery, Duke Special, Cathy Davey and Jerry Fish to name but a few.
It was a mile apart from the hectic and somewhat stressful experiences that have become commonplace at some of the bigger festivals such as Oxegen and The Electric Picnic. While at the bigger festivals, music lovers might have to face into a mile long queue while holding camping equipment and beer, things were a lot simpler at the Heritage Festival, and it was this simplicity that provided a lot of the charm.
From the moment you got inside, it felt like a different experience altogether and a lot of the negative implications that come with the word ‘festival’ didn’t seem to apply. The series of winding forest footpaths around the heritage park almost made you feel like you were discovering something all by yourself when you came across one of the five stages that were spread around the park. After a quick stop off at the bar, I followed the pathway around to the main stage, arriving just in time to see Jerry Fish in flying form. As is often the case with the charismatic showman, the confines of the stage were
not enough for him and he was down in the grass near the crowd belting out classics like ‘True Friends’ and ‘Be Yourself’. Up next on the main stage was star attraction, Mick Flannery. While he seemed in great form, the weather unfortunately wasn’t on the same page and we had our first shower of the day, with Mick joking ‘Trust me to bring the rain!’ It didn’t take anything away from his performance however as he played through a number of his hits spanning three albums. The crowd particularly enjoyed his rendition of ‘Gone Forever’ and the title track from his newest album ‘Red to Blue’, which clearly showed just how many fans his all-conquering new album had gained him.
From there it was over to the Ring Fort stage, which was simply a fantastic setting. The small stage set up inside the wooden walls of the fort played host to a fantastic performance from Jamie Lawson, who was joined on stage by Wexford native, Ian Doyle, aka The Man Whom, to deliver some pitch perfect vocal harmonies. This gave a nice taster as to what to expect when Ian took the stage himself later on in the day 
and he didn’t fail
to deliver as performances of ‘Till It’s Gone’ and ‘Over and Under’ are sure to have won him a few more fans.
Towards the end of the day, all of the artists came together on the main stage to produce some fantastic covers, such as ‘The Weight’ by The Band and ‘Wagon Wheel’ by Old Crow Medicine Show, to the delight of the crowd assembled, with the sun even managing to stick around for the final performance.
‘All in all, I think it was a really big success,’ organiser Barry Ennis said, ‘I think everyone enjoyed themselves and we got some great feedback. Obviously there’s a few things we could tweak, but for our first year I think it went well. Hopefully now we can get back to the drawing board and start planning again for next year.’
Barry was also quick to thank all those involved in making the festival happen. ‘I’d like to thank all of the staff at the Heritage Park, Sam McCauley’s and everyone up Wexford Co. Council for all their help in making this happen. Also, obviously I’d like to thank the artists who performed. All of them were very willing and they really got stuck in on the day.’
– PADRAIG BYRNE PHOTOS BY MICK HARPUR & FIONA MCCABE
