The annual Mountshannon Art Festival was held between 29th of May and 7th of June.

It is the time of year that we realize that there are so many talented people locally in art, music, craft and the other kind of skills. There were 2 concerts, one comedy show, a couple of art exhibitions, and the presentations by the local youth group(music, fassion show, etc). There were more about films, set dance, story telling and puppet show for children, etc. and More.

On Sunday afternoon, there was a green fair at the centre of the park, the Aistear. We participated in the activities and had our own stand. We were there to meet people to let them know who we were and what we were doing in the community so that we could get integrated in the area more.

We were selling some products that were made by our people in the weaving workshop. They brought lovely bright colors in the park and they attracted a lot of people to our stand. Another attraction was "The community mosaic" work. We asked the visitors to complete the mosaic picture with some tiles. It was a metaphor to explain about the community life. Each single piece doesn't create something special but together we can.

People just liked the mosaic activity anyway and a lot of children kept coming back to add more tiles to make the picture.

We were blessed by the good weather and had lovely time listening to nice music in the park.

It is organized by the brothers of Charity and it is for 10 weeks session. We are all very keen to go to the drumming session. Our music tutor, Michael, comes with a lot of african drums in all kind of shapes and sizes.

This is an instrument that anybody can enjoy playing. We are learning a couple basic rythms to play together. As long as the basic rythms are kept, it is quite fine to add different rythms and sound. It makes the session even more lively.

We have had our open day on 17th of April in Clai house. We were fourntunate to have very good weather and it made everbody present here happy. Our local friend, Tom Ryan came for support and played irish music.

It was wonderful to meet some new people with different interest. It happend that we were looking after a new born lamb and a goat for 2 months and they entertained the children. Our neighbor's horse, Misty, was busy taking some children for a ride.

We showed them around the community, including the new weaving workshop building and the vegetable garden. It is Martin's first year to grow some vegetables as a main gardener and we are very happy to see the result. A lot of the visitors made positive coment on the work.

Regarding the new weaving workshop, we hope that we will get some more support to finish it off.

Before the spring, we have planted about 400 ash trees on the slope in front of Clai house. As the house is exposed on a hill, hopefully, in a few years time, they can give a kind of shelter in windy days.

Eventually, they'll provide us some firewood for the hoses. We actually, thought that they might have died after the heavy frost in winter time. It seems that they have started show the signs of life and most of them seem to be well.

Just recently, we've got game tables from a friend of the community.

air hockey and football table! We're all very excited. Soon, we're going to a tournament.

We have planted about 150 flower bulbs in both clai house and inis house. Daffodils, snowdrops, tulips, muscari, etc. In spring time, they'll brighten our gaden around the houses.

We've got 200 ash trees and have been planting them in front of clai house as well. As the house is on top of the hill, it's quite exposed to strong wind in winter time. Hopefully, it gives more shelter in the future.