CLONMEL JUNCTION FESTIVAL

Clonmel Junction Festival is a celebration of life and community through the medium of art. The festival is a vibrant artistic event that includes everything from theatre performances to live music, street entertainment, comedy and a whole host of child-friendly events. During the festival the town is transformed with flags and banners and there is a real creative buzz and excitement around the town. This year’s event will be run over ten days to celebrate the ten years of the festival, from Friday the 2nd of July until Sunday the 11th of July. This popular festival was first held in 2001 and so 2010 will be its 10th year. The festivals 10th anniversary promises to be the biggest and best festival yet.

This year’s theme “the circus comes to town” will include shows from Fossett’s circus (Ireland’s oldest Circus), Les Parfait Inconnus (A mixture or rock, circus and a clown show which is  an hour of sheer delight, with comedy, acrobatics, ‘unbalancing’ acts, juggling, and music that will rock your soul.), Cirque de Legume ““the greatest vegetable circus on earth!” - Irish times” and Tumble Circus. “Described as circus of the absurd, it's funny and flexible with great comic timing and even better gymnastic timing" - The Adelaide Advertiser”. Last year’s sell out comedy theatre show “Faulty Towers: the dining experience” is back for four nights in Raheen House. Dermot Bolger will present his comic outlook on Irish economic and sporting misfortunes in “The Parting Glass”. Finally, Iseli Chiodi present MYS2, a contemporary dance show which is commissioned and funded by South Tipperary County Council Arts Service and Tipperary Excel and is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland under their Commissions award.

As always there will be wide range of musical events at the festival. However, for the first time this year’s the pubs were invited to stage events for the festival. Republic of Loose will return to Bar 4 in O’Keeffes. World music highlights include De Wereldband, Nyali, Cedric Watson; Rock music from Republic of Loose, Kila and Mick Flannery; comedy from Neil Delemere and Mike Daisey. Also appearing at the festival is the infamous Robin Williamson who was the founder of the incredible string band.

2009 saw the introduction of the "Cafés Carte Blanche" programme whereby the festival took over 5 empty shops in the town centre and transformed them into artist’s spaces and cafés for the duration of the festival. This year this programme will expand and there will be 7 Cafés located throughout the town, focusing on Irish language, singing, dancing, film making, heritage, the environment and youth drama.