New TG4 series shines light on Donegal festival, music, culture and more
A NEW television series celebrating music and culture from Donegal and its surroundings has been met with widespread praise.
Earagail Arts Festival is an important calendar event in the life of the people of Donegal with artistic activities spread far and wide across the county from towns and villages to the islands, the peninsulas and Gaeltacht.
Over the past month a light has been shone on the festival, Donegal, its culture, heritage and music through the new series Féile Ealaíne an Earagail, airing on Sunday nights with TG4.
Some of the acts that have appeared on the programme to-date include Ye Vagabonds, Goitse, Diane Cannon, The Sí Fiddlers and many more.
Maureen Kennelly, Director of the The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, said the council is delighted to support the ongoing and developing work of the festival in increasing opportunities for the public to engage in the arts and express their creativity.
She said: “The importance of the festival’s work in addressing inequalities in arts provision cannot be underestimated. Over the last few years Earagail Arts Festival has worked hard to extend opportunities to a number of communities across the north-west region. Its work through the Irish language has been an essential and important resource for the area.
“We welcome the recent Féile Ealaíne an Earagail, produced by Aniar for the national Irish language broadcaster, TG4 which provides a global audience with a celebration of County Donegal itself, its vibrant culture, landscape, and rich heritage in the Irish language.”
National Irish language broadcaster TG4 is already a real force when it comes to original music programming and the new series has been a welcome addition to its programming, said Commissioning Editor, Proinsias Ni Ghrainne.
“We are delighted to partner with Earagail Arts to broadcast such a wealth of musical talent to audiences throughout Ireland and across the globe on the TG4 player’. The sharing of our music and arts is central to TG4’s existence. A huge thank you to all who have enabled this material and produced it for broadcast on TG4.”
Féile Ealaíne an Earagail continues this Sunday night, 12th February at 9.30pm, headlined by the incredible talent that is Ríoghnach Connolly with her band Honeyfeet.
Guitar maestro Steve Cooney gives us a rare treat with three guitar solos in Teach an Dúin and in Ionad Cois Locha, on a visit home from Australia, Maggie Carty and Máirtín Staunton join us with songs, banjo and flute. Singer Jack Warnock from Maghera is the young musician of the week.
All episodes of Féile Ealaíne an Earagail aired to-date are available to watch worldwide through the TG Player on www.tg4.ie
Earagail Arts Festival is kindly supported by Donegal County Council, The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and Wild Atlantic Way.
