Galway Mummer Festival 2008

        The annual Galway Mummer Festival was held in the community canter in New Inn on the 5th & 6th of January. Unfortunately we had no senior group for Saturday night. Our man of the house Mike Nash is recovering from surgery and was unable to participate. We wish him a speedy recovery and hopefully he will be ok for next year. We were well represented on Sunday with two junior groups. It was great to see so many new faces taking part.
        The older group under the guidance of Yvonne Barrett, put in a great performance and came second behind Rahan. We would like to thank our guests in this group, Ronan Ward, storyteller & man of the house, dancer Brian Harris and Jacinta Beirne and her dancers, who joined us at very little notice. Individual winners in this group were Gerard Forde on B.Acc who was the anchor man of the group and Sheena Whelan, who won the best overall flute player on the day.
        The younger group had twenty five members and and were wonderful from start to finish. All this group are under twelve and performed well beyond their years. Thanks to dancer Maeve Broderick who joined us. The best performer in the group went to our man of the house Tomas Forde, who's recitation "Ger Loughnane's Prayer" was one of the highlights of the day.

The groups were as follows:
Wren Boys: Maeve Broderick, Siofra Broderick, Karena Coppinger, Sarah Cormican, Finian Dolan, Gina Fennessy, Clara & Rebecca Finnerty, Moya Flanagan, Thea Flannery, Kate & Tomas Forde, Caoimhe Gaffney, Ailbhe Gormally, Chloe Griffen, Paul Holohan, Alan Keane, Annie Larkin, Colin Leonard, Eimer McEvoy, Jackie Piggott, Ciara O'Connor, Deirdre Tully, Shauna Ward, Peter Whelan.
Mummers Group: Megan Bryan, Conor Connolly, Paula Conroy, Shauna Coppinger, Imelda Farrell, Gerard & Maeve Forde, Brian Harris, Cliona Hynes, Shannen Larkin, Sinead Tully, Ronan Ward, Sheena Whelan, Conall Whelan.