Manchester Irish Festival

Welcome to the 2009 Irish Festival

Manchester will celebrate its fourteenth Irish festival with a two week extravaganza featuring two hundred events, staged at thirty two different venues throughout Greater Manchester.

Lawrence Hennigan the marketing executive of the Manchester Irish Festival website said “The festival will feature Art, Culture, Comedy, Community, Dance, Music, Sport and Theatre events, making it one of Europe's biggest Irish Festivals. We have tried to include something for everyone to enjoy in the community and a warm Irish welcome awaits all our visitors.”

The official dates for this years celebration is Friday 6 March to Saturday 21 March, but there are also a number of pre and post festival events from February through to April.

Festival highlights include the award winning 'Young, Gifted & Green' show at the Gorton Monastery on Saturday 7 March, the annual St Patrick’s festival parade on Sunday 15 March in the city centre and a whole host of St Patrick’s day celebrations leading up to the feast day on the 17 March. Some of the major Irish stars appearing at this years festival include Declan Nearney, Brendan Shine, Riverdance, Brendan O’Carroll, Ed Byrne, James Cannon (son of Dubliners Sean Cannon) and the Sinners, Shkayla and Toss the Feathers.

Levenshulme which is home to the biggest Irish community outside of London will be staging its own two week Guinness sponsored Tradfest (6-21 March) to coincide with the festival and the 250th anniversary of Ireland's favourite black stout.

The official pre-launch for this event is on Thursday 26 February with the very best of the UK and Irelands traditional musicians. Just over two hundred and fifty hours of Irish Culture, Film, Dance, Music, Theatre and fun will take over the village's pubs clubs and parks.

Highlights include a five day St Patrick's weekend tradfest party starting on Friday 13 March and running through to Tuesday 17 March with its own outdoor Funfair and tradfest. Most of the tradfest events are free admission but a special anniversary two week Guinness tradfest pass will cost just £17:59 to mark the date of the opening of the first Guinness factory in Dublin. The pass will give visitors free entry to all of the major tradfest concerts and gain guaranteed admission even on St Patrick’s night itself in the village. The pass can be purchased on www.m19bar.com