3 days ago
African musicians join Clare traditional music festival
Hundreds of people gathered on the streets of the village of Feakle in Co Clare to witness a unique musical concert, featuring traditional musicians from Mozambique in Africa play in concert with a group of east Clare musicians.
The event is part of this year's Feakle Traditional Muisic Festival, which is running for its 38th year.
The Mozambiquan group are part of the Xiquitsi Mozambique Youth Orchestra and were invited to this year's festival in Feakle by the Cnoc na Gaoithe cultural group from east Clare.
The initiative followed a trip to Mozambique by the group of east Clare musicians last year, and was supported by the Irish embassy and the Mozambique and South African ambassadors.
Speaking in Feakle, Humberto Tandane Junior from Mozambique said it was a great privilege for the group to come to Ireland.
"It's my first time in Europe, it has been an amazing experience.
"Beside learning from a new culture in this small town in Ireland, where the culture if very rich, we are also ambassadors for our own culture.
We are really proud to learn Irish music and also to share some of our own culture with the Irish people," he said.
Gary Pepper, chairman of the Feakle traditional music festival said that the African musicians have hugely added to this year's festival.
"They have played with some of our local musicians and they are really good. They have also sang our national anthem - which they learned off by heart before coming to Ireland and they have been really impressive". Mr Pepper said.
The festival will continue until tomorrow evening in Feakle.