The festival in question was the Inishowen Ballad & Folksong Seminar, which has been running for about 14 years. This year, due to problems with funding agencies, it was officially cancelled. Thanks largely to the efforts of Liam's Brother, a regular for many years, the festival happened anyway, under the working title of "The Wake"! People simply turned up from all over the world, as usual, and sang. No lectures, no concerts - just excellent impromptu or gently-managed sessions of a very high order. Maybe a few fewer people than normal - but none the worse for that!

As a sidelight: Among those present were two of a well-known English family of singers, The Wilsons. Chris Wilson told me that he only decided to come to Inishowen, for the first time, because he had heard nothing from the organisers of the English festival to which he normally went this weekend. Two days before he left for Ireland, he got a phone call to say the other festival was all set to go - and his name was on the posters! He came to Ireland anyway... So instead of being at an English festival which was officially on but told nobody, he ended up at an Irish festival which officially wasn't on - but told everybody!

Regards