Bring back Londonderry Feis!

Good on the Derry Now website for going to town to commemorate the centenary of Fheis Dhoire Cholmcille

Derry Feis is celebrating its 100th birthday this Easter. To mark the special occasion, we are publishing a series of articles titled: Mo thuras go Fheis Dhoire Cholmcille 2022.

Today, Fearghal Mag Uiginn, head of the Irish at Thornhill College and presenter of BBC Radio Ulster’s Blas Ceoil, describes his personal journey to Derry Feis 2022.

Describing Feis Dhoire Cholmcille as the “cultural heartbeat of the city”, Fearghal said that was recognition of what the Feis stood for, in particular, the special importance it gave to the use of the Irish language and verse and song.

 

But that’s not quite the whole story. I never took part in it, although I went to a Catholic music teacher, the well know Mrs Cafolla. All her pupils Catholic and Protestant competed in Londonderry Feis the week before, in the standard light classical repertoire of singing solo and in choirs, instrumentals and small orchestra.  Eminent judges took part such as Brian Boydell Professor of Music in Trinity, Dublin and Eric Thiman Dean of the Music faculty of London University. The Feis ended in a grand Prizewinners’ Concert in  the Guildhall  on Saturday night. As a small boy I used to wonder why I wasn’t part of the Gaelic version the following week; it seemed great fun, especially for me as I played the fiddle.

Now Londonderry Feis seems completely forgotten.

Why not bring it back?  The two festivals don’t compete, they’re naturally complementary. And this time, Prods should be able to take part in both, as Catholics always  did.

 

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.