Hallbergmoos 19. – 21. Juni 2009

A weekend of Dance, Music, Culture, Scottish madness, exotic games of hurling and Tim’s pies!

What else could one have asked for last weekend on an organic farm but a 3 day long Irish festival with top quality folk music from Ireland, Germany, Austria and Britain. Moving forward from the success of last year’s festival, we increased the number of bands taking part, covering the wide spectrum of Irish music played by German and Irish bands in Germany in addition to traditional German folk music played by native German bands and, of course, guest artists from Ireland. In total there was a total of 5 stages; 3 open-air and 2 indoor.

On a very wet Friday evening the festival opened (indoors thankfully) with the introduction of the Green Farm song by Paul Daly accompanied by Alison Moffat and Frank McGlynn. The Rose of Tralee contest followed where we had 6 beautiful and fantastic girls take the stage for the Munich heat. Shane McAvinchey and his dancers of Rince Tir na nOg provided us with the cream of Irish dancing at the intervals.


The winner on the night was Jessica Kreuz, a midwife whose mother hails from Tipperary town. Jessica will head for Frankfurt next weekend to take part in the German Rose finale. Paul Daly and his band entertained the crowds till late in the night with many hits including “Galway girl” and “St. Patrick’s day in Munich”.

After a night of rain, the weather took a turn for the better and Saturday beheld an afternoon of plenty music and Irish dancing on the 5 stages. Among other facilities the festival offered on-site camping and parking, a free shuttle bus service from the local train station to the festival site, beer tents, sessions, workshops, organised catering, an Irish market, bathing in the on site lake, kids’ playground and an open stage for visiting musicians.

The campers arrived in their droves and set up camp by the lake and Riverland stage while the overflow headed for the back where the Highland Games were beginning. The Highland games thanks to the Munich Caledonians and the Munich Scottish Association provided the crowds with plenty entertainment for the adults and kids alike with caber tossing, welly throwing, sack racing and the much loved egg and spoon race. Munich’s pipebands entertained the crowds along which was followed by sword dancing, Scottish country dancing and a ceilidh. The music continued on the various stages with the highlight at the end of the day being the Bavarian-Irish Ceili by the “Well Buam” and the “Munich Ceili band”.

While the bands took to their stages, people wandered about the many stands selling their paintings, guitars, irish ware’s, food and the DIF info stand provided all the information one needed as well as selling the bands CD’s or a bottle of chef brown sauce or even an Odlums brown bread mix. Tim’s pies went down as always a treat.

Sliotar were the last to take the stage in the Murphy’s festival hall on Saturday night and brought the roof down with their stunning Irish traditional music with a rock flair to it.

The night didn’t finish there as all the musicians from the day, along with the many campers and DIF volunteers congregated into the Saloon bar and had the biggest Irish trad session on the continent that night. Rumour has it that there was Irish dancing on the tables still going at 5.30am. Sunday morning!!

The sunshine awoke us to a glorious day with another fulfilled stage plan of dancing and music. The Sunday also provided the spectators to an Irish sports day with the München Colmcilles GAA club donning their skills of Gaelic football and hurling. The hurling turned out to be the more favourite of the two sports and spectators as young as three years of age joined in on the banter. The parents and underage hurlers provided the crowds with very entertaining demonstration games. One reporter from a local paper described hurling as a very exotic sport where they play with oversized cooking spoons!?!

The Munich rugby club took to the field after the Colmcilles to give a fine display of their sport with kids and adults alike taking part.

As the green farm festival was coming to an end, the cream of Irish and Euro Folk music was on stage with Sarah McQuaid and Irish-steirisch.

As the last encore was played in the hall, the DIF volunteers and organisers gathered their belongings and said goodbye to one another with a smile of satisfaction and the same thought …”That was one hell of a do”

Until Greenfarm Festival 2010!!!.
[further pictures in the gallery]

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 9:37 am and is filed under Articles, Events, Football News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.