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It’s Back from the Booley festival time again. The village of Hilltown, Co Down, is once more taking a long deep breath before plunging into its annual rural heritage festival this weekend.
With good weather on the horizon, it will be a fun-filled family celebration of culture, music and heritage. And old-time dress is the order of the weekend.
Booleying is an ancient Irish practice of transhumance. Families drove their cattle up to the high mountain pastures and lived there alongside them for the summer months. At this time of year they would have been returning home to begin the hard work of the harvest, after a long summer of milking, churning and cutting turf together, and sharing songs, stories and news around the campfires at night.
The festival begins on Thursday 21 August with an evening of song and storytelling at ‘Take Me Back’ which tells the stories of growing up in south Down in the Sixties and Seventies. On Friday 22, There’s foraging for adults, a forest school for kids and the symbolic Long Walk Home from the mountains. The opening parade, with marching bands, vintage tractors and the Armagh Rhymers will culminate in an opening ceremony with NMDDC vice-chair Geraldine Kearns. Wonder Bubbles, an open-air céilí and dance demonstrations follow.
Saturday 23 begins with more outdoor activities with walks and a Booley Bears Picnic, wild swimming and a tournament of Fidchell, the two thousand-year-old Irish version of chess. The afternoon brings a farmers market, a busking competition and the hilarious fundraising auction ‘Trades For Maids’.
The Big Booley Hooley is on Saturday night, with special guests All Folk’d Up, supported by up and coming local singer Anna Rose McCabe.
Sunday 24 is the big day in the field, outside Hilltown, at Doran’s Bar. Come along to play in a replica booley hut and try out heritage events like building a dry stone wall, panning for gold, rope twisting, thatching, fortune telling throwing the welly, tug-o-war, cutting stone, stooking and threshing corn, churning, baking, smithing, sawing the log. There is a sheep exhibition, crafts, events for children, food trucks, music, a bar and all the fun of the fair. Mayobridge country singer Gavin Gribben and Disco King are the entertainment that night.
A free shuttlebus will run between Dorans and Hilltown Square all day Sunday and into the night, so there will be no bother getting back and forward.
Monday brings forest bathing, the pulling of the Booley flax harvest, a blackberry ramble, pop-up Gaeltacht, Booley bingo, a discussion on Booleying and a special event at ‘Tumilty’s Bar’ on the Yellow Road, where everyone is invited to visit a little museum dedicated to Booley organiser of many campaigns, Micky Tumilty. The big music event on Monday is the fabulous Irish singer Mary Coughlan.
Everything begins to wind down on Tuesday with some Yoga for relaxation and then the festival finale that evening. The Parting Glass is a 20 singers 20 songs event where the local musical talent of Hilltown is showcased and the hard-working volunteers get to relax.
The weather is set to be good and the streets will be full at this last big family hurrah of the summer. Back from the Booley runs from Thursday 21 August to Tuesday 26 August. Festival programmes are available in local shops or online at facebook.com/backfromthebooley.
