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The Bahrain Irish Festival soared to new heights with record crowds, a feast of Gaelic Games, some great music and a weekend of fun for all the family.

In the year that the Bahrain Irish Society celebrates its 40th anniversary it was probably appropriate that it was the ‘best Irish Festival weekend to date’.

Now in its eighth year the Bahrain Irish Festival has grown in stature not only on the island but around the region and has hosted great bands down through the years like the Commitments, Aslan, The Saw Doctors and, last weekend, Dublin band Big Generator who kept the crowd rocking into the wee hours.

The Irish Society’s partner on the weekend was local GAA Club the Arabian Celts who were hosting the Gaelic Games part of the weekend.

The Bahrain Games, which have been running now for 22 years and are incorporated into the Middle East GAA League, kicked off on Thursday down at the Bahrain Rugby Football Club.

A record number of 80 adult teams participated making it the biggest Gaelic Games tournament in the world outside of Ireland. It also included an inter-schools competition for the first time which saw 290 kids from schools around Bahrain playing Gaelic Games for the first time.

One of the highlights of the recent weekend was seeing young Bahraini kids playing Gaelic Games and this was a feature all weekend with the adult teams also including a multitude of nationalities.

Seeing my home club set a world record this weekend made me very proud and the organisation by the Arabian Celts was outstanding and all credit to chairman, Joe Melia, and his hard-working committee for hosting such a great event.

The inter-schools event was followed up with the Men’s Senior Hurling competition in the evening. Hurling is one of the fastest games in the world and one of the most skilful and it was a delight to watch it under floodlights at the club on a Thursday night and you could tell that the crowd was mesmerised.

One of the best games of the evening was the semi-final between the Arabian Celts and the Dubai Celts with the Dubai team coming out on top with a one-point victory on this occasion. Dubai went on to claim the title.

The ladies were also in on the act playing Camogie (the female version of hurling) and the final was played between Abu Dhabi Na Fianna & Sharjah around midnight with the Abu Dhabi side taking the honours.

With more than 167 fixtures to be played over the weekend the Arabian Celts also hired some extra pitches around the island to ensure all games were played in a timely manner.

Two pitches from the National Stadium were utilised along with Soccer City and the Football Academy which ensured that all teams were back in the rugby club by the afternoon where all finals were played. All the home teams reached at least the last four of the competition but, alas, no silverware but valuable league points were picked up with the Arabian Celts Men’s Senior, currently third in the league, just three points off the top and all to play for the rest of the season.

The ladies intermediate and junior teams are currently lying fifth and also showed improvement over the previous round. With such a huge turnover of players from last season there was a lot to be positive about the weekend and coaches Anthony Friel and Tom Hanratty will look to build on what they saw out on the pitch.

Throughout the day there were lots of activities for the kids including clay pot and T-shirt painting, magicians and other fun activities.

The BBQ was working overtime and with the music festival hosted by the Irish Society in the early evening, it made for a great family day out.

Big Generator had the crowd rocking all over the world and the Paddyman brought the house down with his unique style late on Friday night and at the farewell party in JJ’s on Saturday night.

With chants of ‘change your flights, change your flights’ being sung throughout the day as teams were returning back to their countries, many did and with the Arabian Celts song being sung by all by the end of Saturday it brought the curtain down on another truly great Irish Festival weekend.

New Irish Society chairperson Janet Noone and her hard-working committee can be very happy with events over the weekend as they prepare for the Bahrain Irish Society 40th anniversary dinner this weekend.

James Kennedy,
Arabian Celts President.

Bahrain Airport Company (BAC), the managing body of Bahrain International Airport (BIA), would like to advise all passengers travelling during this holiday season to arrive three hours prior to their flights departure as well as to utilise the new long-term ‘overflow’ car parks which have been designed to take the increase in passengers during high seasons.

In addition to the existing long-term Car Parks B, D, E and F, BAC opened a new overflow car park recently on the Galali Road to increase BIA’s existing parking capacity by 1,300 spaces and accommodate the expected surge in passenger movement during the holiday period.

The new car park is located north of the runway and will be within the BIA premises, featuring a complimentary shuttle service to the terminal building every 30 minutes. Navigational directions will be available with the parking attendants who will be informing passengers of the new location.

Passengers are requested to park their vehicles in the allocated BIA car parks and avoid leaving their cars on the side of the roads.

Passengers travelling during the various occasions and holidays are also advised to use the new airport express bus service available from Bahrain’s new public transportation system.

Passengers are recommended to visit BIA’s website www.bahrainairport.com to find out more about the airport facilities and flight status.

Husain Rasool,
Corporate Communications,
Bahrain Airport Company.