18th October – 1st November 2024 – Are you coming home?
Kerry Homecoming Festival is a county-wide initiative presented by Kerry County Council as part of the Global Irish Festival Series, which is a joint initiative between Fáilte Ireland and the Department of Foreign Affairs, targeting the diaspora. Kerry Homecoming Festival at Halloween opens this Friday, October 18th with the 2 day Global Gaelic Games Social Festival, in Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney – a gathering of 1000 Gaelic Football enthusiasts from far and wide taking part in non-competitive 9-a-side Gaelic games that emphasize inclusiveness and integration.
The festival programme features close to fifty free events and activities such as Samhain spectacles, storytelling, Jack-o-Lantern carving, genealogy workshops and heritage talks, star-gazing, an American Wake at Kerry Writers Museum and much, much more.
The legendary Cailleach (Hag / Witch), will be the centrepiece of a thrilling Samhain spectacle in Listowel, Dingle, Kenmare and Tralee. The Cailleach is the goddess of the winter months. Her season begins on Samhain, October 31st, when the Goddess Brigid hands her staff over.
The Cailleach is associated with many locations across the Celtic lands. Her ability to form the landscape and mountains means that many prominent mountain landmarks are attributed to her. In Kerry she has given her name to the Hag’s Glen in the MacGilliycuddy Reeks mountains where the Hag of Corrán Tuathail (Carrauntoohill) plunged to her death in the lake known as Hag’s Lake.
The Samhain Spectacles will be supported by a series of workshops in 16 towns and villages, in the run up, led by Juli Ní Mhaoileoin, the Dingle Druid, in which people of all ages will learn how to make traditional Samhain masks and Jack-o-Lanterns and they in turn can take part in the spectacles wearing their masks or bearing their lanterns.
Genealogy and family research feature heavily in the programme with talks and workshops being presented by experts in the Killarney and Tralee libraries and in Castleisland and Killorglin.
Kerry’s tradition of storytelling, particularly of the otherworldly kind at Halloween is also honoured through a number of storytelling sessions from Niall de Búrca and Tom Dillon throughout the county.
The Homecoming Festival provides a unique opportunity to deepen our linkages with the Kerry Diaspora, Mayor of Kerry, Cllr Breandán MacGearailt stated. “Despite being a small country on the edge of Europe, on the edge of the Atlantic, we have, over many generations developed a global network of Irish-diaspora, who are embedded into business, culture and society across the world. This is our way of welcoming our first, second, third and fourth generation of Irish back home, and showcasing our culture and history”.
Programme details are available on the Discover Kerry website –
www.discoverkerry.com/live/homecomingfestival/
