Cairde Arts Festival presents
The Shelly River Boat Race
In association with Season of Yeats
Sunday July 1st
JFK Parade, 7.30 pm
The Shelley River Boat Race is the grand opening event at this year’s Cairde Arts Festival. A massive and fun celebration of the Shelly River, the Model Boat Race is also part of the Season of Yeats taking inspiration from Jack B. Yeats love of model boats.
Jack B Yeats was known for his enthusiasm for making, sailing and sometimes eventually sinking his model boats along with his friend John Masefield on the river Gara in Devon. We don’t advise the sinking part and hope that none of your boats will sink but we do recommend that everyone gets involved in the sheer fun of building your own model boat. It’s not as difficult as it seems!
To enable the whole community to take part in this year’s boat race, the Cairde Arts Festival is running a series of free model boat making workshops in the coming weeks. These are as follows:
Sunday June 17th – The Model 2 to 5 pm. This is aimed at parents and children and runs in conjunction with the Father and Son exhibition currently running at The Model.
Saturday June 16th in Quayside Shopping Centre and Saturday June 23rd in Johnston Court Shopping Centre. Both workshops will take place from 2 to 5 pm, are free of charge and operate on a drop in basis, so pop along any time to make your model boat.
We are encouraging people to bring along their own recycled materials for making a boat – tetra pack, plastic bottles, pieces of wood and any old scraps of décor which people would like to use to decorate / adorn and personalise their boats. Boat Making guidelines can be found on the Cairde Arts Festival website or take inspiration from the images available of Jack B Yeats model boats.
The Shelly River Boat Race takes place on Sunday July 1st . Registration is from 7.30pm and the race commences at 8pm on JFK Parade. The event features live music, street entertainment and a colourful street parade and will be a truly great evening out for all the family.
Prizes will be awarded to the first 3 boats to cross the finish line and an extra prize for the judges choice of most creative boat. Prizes have been donated by Lough Gill Tours and North West Adventure Tours.
The event culminates in a free outdoor concert featuring The Katonahs, 21 Outs and Tabby in a marquee in Stephen St. Car Park. There will be refreshments available and the music will run until midnight.
The Shelly River Boat Race and outdoor concert are two free fun events for all ages so do come along, bring a friend and join in the fun. The Cairde Arts Festival will continue until Sunday July 8th with a great range of events on offer throughout the week. Check out the full schedule on www.cairdefestival.com or pick up a brochure!
