A festival for kindred spirits

Tickets on sale for Healing Spirit Festival on sale now

After he brought last year’s Healing Spirit festival to a triumphant close, Liam Ó Maonlaí is set to return to play the Milltown event this August.

The phrase ‘back by popular demand’ comes to mind, but one of the chief organisers Lorraine Teevan says the legendary pianist and frontman is also back by artist demand!

“He’s coming back to us,” reports Lorraine. “He was brilliant last year, magical.

“He enjoyed the ethos of the festival and he would be very spiritual. Liam actually asked us if he could come back and we said, ‘Yes of course you can!’”

The countdown to the festival running August 2-4 starts in earnest now as the line-up has been confirmed and the tickets are on sale at drummanyspirit.com

Aside from Ó Maonlaí, other musical acts on the bill include Bog Bodies, Marcus Magee & the Hollaw Men, the Armagh Rhymers, Dr Slacke & the Palpitations, Slí na Croí, Kiruu, Jon LaFleur Jazz Band, Fiona Maria Fitzpatrick and also the unique Marcin Didgeridoo Jedi.

“He kind of does a bit of techno music, with a didgeridoo,” Lorraine illuminates, “and he also does sound baths with his didgeridoo, which is very, very interesting.”

They will also host the band Xiuh featuring Yaneli Meztli and Oscar Tekpatl playing ceremonial native Mexican songs. The couple will be familiar to those who attended last year’s event as they arranged a forest fire healing ceremony to help launch it, and also ran a sweat lodge.

Saturday’s musical headliners meanwhile are the amazing Blutack and the Greenhorns.

“We’re thinking of renaming it ‘The Darragh Slacke Festival’ because we have him in many guises over the course of the weekend,” joked Lorraine of the gifted guitarist who is one of Magee’s Hollaw Men and is also Dr Slacke.

In terms of holistic workshops they have the meditation, yoga, grief circle and sound baths workshops.

“And this year we will have a ceilí at Brigid’s Cottage,” says Lorraine.

Amongst those confirmed for the programme of talks are celebrated writer Shane Connaughton; author and national sage Michael Harding; Dr Dilis Clare, who is a GP from Galway and one of Europe’s leading herbalists; Tom King ‘An Gobha’ (the blacksmith) who makes hand-crafted pieces using Iron Age techniques and is also a font of knowledge on Celtic myths; and labyrinth expert Tony Christie, who designed the labyrinth in the Drummany.

While the drug and alcohol free festival is inspired by Gearoid Teevan’s journey from addiction to sobriety, last year’s event held a further poignancy. Lorraine had been diagnosed with cancer earlier in the year and was undergoing chemotherapy at the time.

“I was in the middle of the really really strong chemo last year and I remember thinking to myself I wouldn’t even make it down the field [to the performances], and I just got lifted by everybody. Completely lifted.”

Then when Kila enthralled the crowd, not only did she make it down the field, Lorraine was actually able to get up and dance along.

“I felt the energy of the festival was so healing. The people who were here, the vibe the whole lot. Everyone came with such good intentions, and everyone was so kind.”

While couple Lorraine and Gearoid are driving forces behind the festival it is run by a voluntary community group called ‘Drummany Spirit’. The drink and drug free ethos is central to both the motivation to stage it, and to its success.

“His [Gearoid’s] aim is to try to get a community centre here - he has his eye on developing the land - as a safe place for people recovering from addiction and their families - so any money the festival eventually makes will be ploughed back into the work here.”

To help make these ambitions a reality they hope to find festival supporters and sponsors.

“If there is anyone out there interested in being a sponsor for the new sober Electric Picnic - I’m looking for them, because it is only going to grow and grow, in my opinion.”