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Sunday 25 March 2012

The Parade

parade at teac thomais It seems that anyone with a lorry, truck, car, motor bike, bicycle, quad-bike….. takes part in the Bunbeg procession.  It was amazing!  Just decorate your vehicle with shamrocks, flags and balloons, and you’re in!parade irish car parade little quadbikes  parade

I think I was expecting it to be rather like our Beltane parade in June, where there are masses of floats each with a theme, perhaps something locally, nationally or internationally topical.  Oh, there were a few –  parade can't pay won't pay

A local issue was the Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay, campaign against a proposed new Irish tax on Septic tanks – very unfair to rural communities.  Mrs parade mrs brownBrown’s Boys featured on a couple of floats,parade flower shop and the local Flower shop/garden centre produced a pretty nice mobile garden.

parade st pat

   parade st pat2

 

A couple of St Patricks could be found, parade snowwhite and Snow White was also there (Noelene from An Crannog); parade martin boylebut otherwise  it was mainly local businesses, one or two charities

parade sea rescue and local services advertisingtheir existence!

 parade care homeAs happens in Peebles’ Beltane, the local care home took some of their residents out in the minibus, parade curraghs and a couple of traditional curraghs, Irish long boats, were also included.

parade flute band

The flute band turned out very well and of course there were loads of wee leprechauns…..  parade bord nan og

…. and US!  I don’t know if anyone in our group knew we were actually to take part in the procession, but we had been asked to take blue and white saltire flags, and kilts, so I suppose we should have known!parade stewart   Stewart was very popular for photos as he wore his kilt proudly.   However we all joined in, some of us wearing some tartan, and waved our flags as we brought up the rear of the marchers.  It was good fun, and afterwards we repaired to the pub for some more great music sessions!  back at huidi'sAgain the youngsters were there, including young

cathal

Cathal – what a player! 

He’s going places I am quite sure!  This is the sort of sound they made.

Next morning we were up early for the journey back to Belfast and the ferry.  It was sad to be leaving, we had all had such a good time, but we hope to see Noelene  and some of the others in May when they come across to the college Celtic Festival.

Talk again soon.

4 comments:

Katrina said...

Looks like you had a great time. Did you speak much Gaelic and if so is there much difference between the Irish and Scottish or is it mainly just different pronounciation?

Evelyn/Ev/Evee said...

There are a lot of similarities, Katrina, and written down one can often be read by the other, though pronunciations of words that look similar are quite often pronounced differently. I learned a few words of Irish!

Peggy Ann said...

Looks like a grand time was had by all! Thanks for sharing it with us:) I especially liked the ship wreck picture and could figure out the meaning of the name myself. My wedding ring is a posey ring and has 'Anam Cara' written on it. So I knew cara was friend and it wasn't hard to figure out mara then:) I love to listen to the gaelic language. Its so beautiful. It must feel good rolling off your tongue!

Evelyn/Ev/Evee said...

It's a lovely language, Peggy. Pity it'so hard to learn! I think I need a total immersion course!