Aran islanders to resolve Fr Ted dispute with five-a-side football
by Una Sinnott
We will fight them on the beaches, say warring islands
The organisers of the Friends of Ted festival, due to take place on Inis Mór next month, have called on the residents of Inis Mór and Inis Oírr to sort out their differences over the location of the festival by taking part in a five-a-side football match.
A row this week over which of the Aran islands had the most claim to the cult TV comedy Fr Ted has sparked media interest as far away as New Zealand, and Tourism Ireland now plans to bring a press delegation from the UK to the sites associated with the programme during the festival in what is being hailed as a major move in terms of generating tourism for the places associated the show. The festival will take place on Inis Mór but the press tour will include Inis Oírr and parts of Co Clare associated with the programme.
Ted Fest, the festival announced exclusively in the Galway Advertiser last month, became the subject of an inter-island spat this week when an Inis Oírr B&B owner complained that the island had more of a claim to the programme than its larger neighbour. The credits of the programme, which was launched in 1995 and ran for three seasons until the sudden death of Dermot Morgan in 1998, opened with an aerial shot of the coast of Inis Oírr and the wreck of the Plassey, which ran aground at Carraig na Finise in 1960.
“We’re saying why don’t they settle it with a game of five-a-side football,” said committee member Peter Phillips, who runs an annual Elvis festival in south Wales. “They can settle it in pure Ted style, and the winners will have the right to call themselves Craggy Island.”
Mr Phillips described this week’s row as “a storm in a teacup” but said it has generated huge publicity for the event. Indeed, the festival’s official website at
www.friendsofted.org has been unable to cope with the number of visitors it has received this week and the group is currently working to increase the bandwidth to the site.
The festival committee — which includes UK-based Galway natives Fergal McGrath and Rowena Hennigan — have organised a Ted Trail in conjunction with Tourism Ireland as a means of ensuring that all locations associated with the show will benefit from the festival. The Ted Trail will bring journalists to the locations associated with the programme, including Inis Oírr and the festival on Inis Mór. Most of the outdoor scenes were shot in Co Clare — the parochial house is located close to Kilnaboy — and journalists will tour the areas used in the show.
“They will be shown the places of interest from Fr Ted in Clare and on Inis Oírr, including the Plassey wreck,” Mr McGrath said. “They’ll also cover the festival itself. This means all the locations should get the recognition and acknowledgement they deserve. I think this can only be beneficial in generating visitors to all the locations.
“Ted Fest will be a celebration of something wonderful, a time for merriment and song. I hope we can now focus on that. We chose to go to Inis Mór because of the hotel and the community hall there, and because it has a population that’s game for a laugh. We're delighted by the reception and the level of co-operation we've been given.
“Bord Fáilte and Tourism Ireland have given fantastic support to us,” he added. “They've acted very quickly in supporting us all the way down the line with our preparations. I'm very impressed by their commitment to showing our part of Ireland in the best possible light.”
Just 100 tickets were made available for the festival, which sold out in three days, and a proportion of the proceeds will go towards Croí. The committee may even extend next year’s event — which will mark Dermot Morgan’s 10th anniversary — to include two islands.
“We thought it would be a handful of people, but now it’s turning into a media circus,” Mr Phillips told the Galway Advertiser. “The demand is unbelievable. We could have sold it out several times over. Next year it could be possible to run it in two locations.”
Ted Fest, which includes a range of Fr Ted associated activities such as a Fr Jack cocktail evening, Buckaroo speed dating, a cleaning fluid drinks reception, the Inis Mór lovely girls competition, a fancy dress guided walk around the island, and a performance of scenes from the series in Irish by the students of Inis Mór Vocational School , will take place from Friday February 23 to Sunday February 25. Further details are available online at
www.friendsofted.org or
www.myspace.com/friendsofted
www.galwayadvertiser.ie/content/index.php?aid=4680