Yes its true, you can hardly believe it, but JUNE is here and that means that in this town of Drumshanbo, its An Tostal Time.
For those not in the know, An Tostal is an Irish phrase meaning
“Parade , Pageant and Display.”
The event was dreamed up in the 60 or 70′s by the then goverment at the time to bring a bit of life into rural Ireland- anything to get the tourist dollar. The hills and valleys each had their own celebration for whatever passing trade there was.
There was very little passing trade. Eventually the whole country forgot about An Tostal
EXCEPT -DRUMSHANBO up here in County Leitrim.
Every year, we have a parade, sing a few songs, have a masquerade ball and a Culchie Olympics ( culchie is the rural equal of a red neck but much funnier and sweeter)
Well I can tell you that we’re working up a fine sweat so we are, getting our parade finished. This year our theme is
“The Magical Moving Zoo”
And we have hundreds of magical butterflies and hundreds of magical fish (of all shapes and sizes) and we have big bats and little bats, and a dragon, and an elephant, a lion, a rhino , giraffe and a flying pig and Sea horses and other stuff i can’t tell you about.
It’l be lovely. Say you’ll come.
Thanks for clicking in.
Always
eileen
