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News - September 2003. This year his home town of Ardara, Donegal (pronounced Ar-DRAH, by the way) made Packie the guest of honour at the "Cup of Tae" festival on the weekend of 4-6 May. The festival (the first edition was last year, in honour of the town's celebrated fiddler, John "The Tae" Gallagher) featured a delayed local launch of Packie's three books, and at a special Friday night concert dedicated to Packie, performers from the local area and from England sang Packie's songs and played Packie's tunes. 2002 was a very active year for Packie. After close to 10 years of more or less staying put, he decided it was time get out and about a little more and appeared at several festivals in Ireland and England, including the traditional song festival held in the Inishowen area of Donegal, England's National Folk Festival in April, and the Sidmouth International Festival (Devon) in August. He capped this year with and a mini-tour of folk clubs in the London area in September, in the company of the young Inishowen singer Breda McKinney. These appearances were a very welcome development from a man who had refused to sing or play in public for over 10 years, and who had not travelled to England in many years because of fragile health. |