It was with suspicious eyes that I opened the curtains on Fri 13th July; it looked like the sun was shining, but with this being Northern Ireland, one can never be too sure. Sure enough though, there it was! But would it stay? That was the main concern. We were headed to the Dalriada festival in Glenarm later that day, and with the festival being 90% outdoors, the weather was pretty crucial to its success. We had my mother in law and my niece over staying with us from Scotland and were trying to show them the best of what NI had to offer, so after a morning at Titanic Belfast we headed out towards Larne, the North Coast and eventually Glenarm. We arrived at the grounds to Glenarm Castle with the sun still shining and as we quickly discovered a lot of other people had the same idea.
We navigated to the car park easily as the grounds were well signposted and a short walk later we were paying in. With under 12s free and discount for seniors it was priced very competitively. My wife and I paid £10 each. The next few hours were spent having an amazing time, but first we scurried over to the Fine Food zone for some hog roast and coffee while the Broken Strings bluegrass band played in the background, which later made way to a display of Irish dancing.
We then moved round to see the cooking display from Channel 4s Fabulous Baker Brothers. The guys were on great form as they took us through cooking a salmon en croute using all local produce, which we managed to grab a piece of to taste once they had finished. It was delicious (even though I don’t really like salmon)! The guys were super nice and stayed behind for a good 20mins taking pictures and chatting with everyone. They were handing out stickers for their website and as they stuck one on me I thought it only fair to stick some of the new pastiebap.com stickers on them.
After the cookery we saw Willie Drennan’s Ulster Scots Band playing in the beautiful walled gardens. We had some ice cream while we attempted to watch the world’s first sheep fashion show. This was absolutely mobbed but we managed to glimpse Lady Baba and Super Lamb walking the catwalk with ease.
We caught the tail end of the massive muscle men taking part in the ‘Clash of the Celtic Giants’, tossing the massive caber in the air. We had a quick go on the Segways on the way round and to finish the day off, there was the amazing dancing acrobatic display that is the AFRIKAN WARRIORS.
The Dalriada festival has some solid sponsors in the shape of P&O ferries, UTV, Calor and Audi and it’s great to see these companies getting behind what is a different kind of festival that is truly for the whole family. In an over saturated market of music festivals, Dalriada truly is something different and long may it continue!
