Dervish. 21st birthday at Sligo Live

The Sligo Live Festival has teamed up with Glasgow’s 18-day Celtic Connections Festival. This will see the festivals cooperating on programming and marketing. Initially, Celtic Connections will host a Sligo Live Sessions night each year and Celtic Connections will present a Scottish programme at the Sligo Live Sessions starting in 2011 and each will help to cement the cultural links and kinship between Scotland and Ireland.

Meanwhile, The Sligo Live Festival in October 2010 has stepped up a further gear.

Since its inception, the festival has been held in a warm friendly atmosphere with dozens of performances throughout the town. Artists mingled freely with the audiences and visitors found new friends among Sligo’s music lovers. The Festival exuded a fleadh-like atmosphere by holding free traditional music sessions throughout the five day event along with street entertainment on the Saturday.

This year’s Sligo Live will feature almost 100 events including trad sessions, the Fiddler of Dooney competition, street markets, fantastic street family fun including jugglers, magicians, mime, puppets, face painting, climaxing with the hilarious World Air Fiddle Championships.

Festival goers will have the opportunity to enjoy many of the year round activities Sligo has to offer; top class surfing beaches, hill and forest walks, seaweed baths, boating, fishing, sailing, camping, golf and an array of activities to tantalise young minds.

Highlights include the Dervish 21st Birthday with Special Guests. Also: Moya Brennan, Kevin Burke, Innishfree Ceili Band, Dartry Ceili Band, Our Little Secrets, Nathan Pilatzke, Cormac De Barra, Triona Ni Dhomhnaill, Republic of Loose, Tom Baxter and Jerry Fish & The Mudbug Club. And more: The Stranglers, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lloyd Cole.

Sligo Live 2010 takes place over the October Bank Holiday Weekend from Thursday, 21 to Monday, 25 October.