Republican News · Thursday 17 July 2003

Funding crisis for summer festivals

For the first time in nine years, the New Lodge and Ardoyne Festivals in North Belfast have been refused funding.

Both festivals have been turned down by their usual benefactors - the Belfast Regeneration Office (BRO) and Belfast City Council - in a shock annoucement that came only days before the festivals were to be launched.

Festival organisers were stunned when they received a BRO response to their joint application, which stated unceremoniously that their request for funds had been refused. The highly successful festivals entertain and accommodate more than 100,000 people each year.

The BRO statement read: "Unfortunately, the New Lodge Festival application did not meet BRO policies or funding criteria. The group may, if they desire, appeal this decision."

The failed funding announcement comes on the heels of revelations that money for Peace 2, which is distributed by Europe to help build peace and reconciliation, has been diverted to run public buses.

Speaking at the New Lodge Festival launch this past Thursday, 10 July, organiser Irene Sherry told An Phoblacht that festival staff had been left shocked and confused by the decision.

"We have been turned down under the same policy for the same things that have been funded over the last two years. It is a very worrying development. Where is the statutory responsibility here? These are the people who should be funding us.

"We have promises of only £33,000, which won't even cover the project costs of one festival, never mind two. As it stands, we need a minimum of £25,000 over the next couple of weeks to carry us through on any level. We are in crisis. We're sitting in North Belfast with no workers - apart from one eight-month support worker that we got from the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. Other than that, everyone is working voluntarily.

"I don't want to be negative, but I am feeling very disillusioned, very disheartened. People know the work we're doing; we should be given the money."

Sherry's frustration is understandable. After all, an enormous amount of effort has been expended to ensure that this year's New Lodge and Ardoyne Festivals - which run from 2 July to 9 August - are the largest and most successful yet. The programme lineup includes celebrity performances by such stars as Sinead Quinn, Brian Kennedy and Juliet Turner.

"Our Evening of Celtic Poetry and Song with Brian Kennedy will be held on Monday 4 August in St Patrick's Chapel on Donegall Street," says Sherry proudly, "and it will be something really special. Brian Kennedy will host the event, and alongside his guests will be students from four North Belfast school choirs - two of them Catholic and two of them Protestant. We went to the rehersal the other day and when the four schools came together for the first time, it was very emotional."

The Festivals will also include community fun days, walking history tours, panel discussions, music, poetry, and day trips. Sherry says it's hard to imagine that such positive community events could be denied to an area as deprived as North Belfast.

"These festivals arose from out of the shadow of internment," says Sherry. "A young lad, Seamus Duffy, was shot dead with a plastic bullet. The festival was formed the year after his death.

"These events have actually saved money by promoting an alternative to the rioting and trouble which often accompanies the summer months. They are about building communities, celebrating diversity and culture, and they are are growing, developing, and getting bigger.

"But somehow people think that we as a festival have lots of money, that we have lots of workers. There is this perception that North Belfast is getting pumped with money, that everybody is giving us money, and it's wrong.

"We wrote to the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure two or three months ago, telling them the critical stage that we were in and asking for an urgent meeting. They haven't even replied to our request for a meeting. It's a joke at the moment, it really is. I just don't know where we go from here. The important thing is that the festivals have to happen."

Sherry and her collegues are grateful, however, that some groups have stood firm in their commitments to the Festival.

"We want to thank those funders that have stepped up," she says, "like the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Northern Ireland Events Company - because they are the two that have come through for both ourselves and Ardoyne. This is the first year that NI Events have funded both the New Lodge and Ardoyne festivals. We applied to them back in April and they have been very supportive."

It is enthusiasm like this, as well as a strong sense of community pride, that makes Sherry and the rest of the festival staff adamant that the crisis will not stop either festival from taking place.

"We will go ahead, " says Sherry, "and we'll get stronger and bigger. We are professional at what we do. We are the same people who put together the St Patrick's Day Carnival, who brought Sinead and Malachy to Belfast, who had over 20,000 people in Belfast city centre. We aren't amateurs. You're not going to get any more skilled people than what you have.

"So we're asking people everywhere to come out to the events and support them, and we're also asking that those with businesses in the area, or people who have influence, come and help too. We'd like them to give us whatever support they can because we are going ahead, we are going to do it. This community deserves it. Belfast deserves it on a citywide basis, and this needs to be brought into context as a city wide event.

"I hope we have ten times the amount of people coming into North Belfast than any other year to support the fact that these festivals are going to go ahead - crisis or not. Forget the negativity that's portrayed in the media. Come along and see North Belfast. There is a lot of positive things happening here."