Plenty of high spirits at Aboo festival in city’s Latin Quarter

Date Published: {J}

By Denise McNamara

Up to 50,000 Halloween revellers are estimated to have been drawn to the city over the weekend for the annual Abooo Festival, which was blessed with unseasonal fine weather.

The free event was so successful for young and old that organisers are already planning an even bigger party for next year.

On Saturday evening at least 80% of the Latin Quarter was overrun with all measure of ghosts and ghouls for the street fancy dress party. In fact if you didn’t don the bloody makeup or sport a witch’s hat, you were definitely the odd one out, insisted event organiser Fearghal Murphy.

“Three separate groups of up to 20 people had all dressed up as Chilean miners and they decided to have their own impromptu parade and were carrying a cage they built that resembled the vessel used to transport the miners to safety,” recalled Fearghal.

“Everybody got in on the spirit. You were being served food by Dracula and a lot of the restaurants had Halloween specials such as goulash and pumpkin pie.”

Activities kicked off on Friday evening with a Demented Carnival, a throwback to the old style carnivals of the US with games like Coconut Shy, Wheel of Fortune and High Striker. A stunning show by the Cork outfit called the Fanzini Brothers with fire and acrobatics gave the crowd a flavour of why they qualified for the world busking championships.

Sunday was a real family day with a Trick or Treat trail stopping off at eight locations and a fancy dress party in Kellys Bar for the littlies. All the action then moved down to the Spanish Arch where around 50 dancers staged a re-enactment of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.