Kildare canal festival 'a huge success' in its third year
Arthur Voigt's Fenview Tours on their way Photos: Jimmy Fullam
“WE live in a beautiful village, and it was a great day…a huge success!” said Pearl Voight, chair of the organising committee for the third annual Milltown Canal Festival held recently.
“There were hundreds who came, from far and wide. There was a large number of entertainers all day long, from local girls like Eimear Shannon and Jenny Doyle, as well as singers from Edenderry. The local art group exhibited, and there must’ve been 12 or 13 stalls selling these wares. Brian Dempsey from the Allenwood Historical Society had photos of the first ever All-Ireland turf cutting competition in Lullymore in 1934.
“He had a photo with Dev (Éamon de Valera) and local TD Tom Harris, but also Sean Lemass. By chance his grandson who now lives locally was at the festival and spotted the photo of his grandfather, and while he has loads of photos of the former Taoiseach he had never seen this one before.
“Along with the history, we had a display of cut turf and sleans, while Brian Dempsey and Colm Harrigan answered all the questions about cutting turf by hand, and we even had a willow weaving demonstration.
"We were celebrating our heritage, and Water Safety Day where two local men gave boat trips up and down the canal.
“They were a huge success, people were queueing up to get on them, and the men who took part are both Friends of Pollardstown Fen, so were very knowledgeable about the area.
“We couldn’t have done it without the volunteers from our local GAA, the Kildare Town Volunteers under the stewardship of John Murray, and the Civil Defence.
“As you can tell from the photographs, we really got the weather from early morning to late at night … and along the canal is beautiful. Kildare’s Heritage Dara Wyer even visited and he was very impressed. This was our third festival as part of Heritage Week, and I think we capped off a very successful Heritage Week in Kildare”.
