One Love At Burnaby Park

Happy!

he latest Multicultural Festival to hit Burnaby Park was blessed with sunny weather, and even sunnier people…

Chief among them, of course,  being our roaming photographer and cultural sponge John McGowan.

The Africa Irish Society of Wicklow brought the Multicultural Festival back to Greystones to once again celebrate diversity and cultural richness in County Wicklow.

Prat does another makeover

And once again, it was a magical melting pot of dance, music, educational workshops, world food tasting, comedy and exhibitions of various countries, beatboxing and beyond.

Fabu-D

The fabulous Fabu- D (aka Black Paddy) returned as MC for the day, overseeing – it says here – a day of laughter and banter with the world-known DJ Spaqz getting the crowd on their feet. Gomba Educare facilitated cultural programmes through music, drumming, storytelling and entertainment, whilst eclectic band Anichie played their unique grooves and Balafons got almost everyone dancing. The amazing Moving Skirts and Zoryana were also present, dancing up a storm with their majestic moves, while the No Wahala Dance Crew performed various African dances with Afrobeat and Amapiano dance workshops.

There was also an education and interactive learning tent – facilitated by Cakamu and KcITU – giving everyone of all ages a chance to learn various phrases in numerous languages as they get to understand and feed their curiosities about different cultures and practices. This included Irish, Swahili, Arabic, Mandarin, Igbo, Polish, Ukrainian, Bengali, Hindi and more.

Patrick Mboci, chair of AISW says, “We as an organization are grateful to have the opportunity to organize and bring this festival of celebrations to Greystones. It is amazing how we have grown as a community and to be able to celebrate that in itself is a blessing.”

AISW team vice-chair Anne Waithira Burke added, “We are so happy to be bringing this unique event back again this year. It has been in the planning for a year and we wanted it to be bigger and better than ever. The multicultural festival is a family fun day and it was great to see so many present celebrating the people and diversity in our county, bringing all these Wicklow cultures together.”

Susan Ngereso McDarby says, “After COVID and lockdown, last year we were delighted to do the event in person though at a smaller scale. We were so happy to go all-out again this year…”

“Without the support and funding from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth through the Community Integration Fund this event would have not been possible,” says AISW member Catherine Kayya Murphy. “Also supporting us are the Greystones Municipal District, Wicklow County Council, the Greystones Town Team, Eternity Jeweller’s, SuperValu and Café Gourmet. And for this we just want to say, Thank You.”

Thanks too to the great John McGowan for capturing the day for us. Full gallery of 150 pics in hi-res are here, free to download.

You can find out more about the Africa Irish Society of Wicklow on Facebook here and on Instagram here. You can also check out last year’s shindig here and May’s Africa Day here.

Full gallery of 150 hi-res John McGowan shots – free to download – here. Last year’s shindig is right here.