Julie Helen: West Cork Feel Good Festival was just the outing I needed

I was lucky to attend the West Cork Feel Good Festival at the weekend with my friend Mary. She had tickets and invited me along.

The festival is running for all of October and is set to remind us that mental health is everyone’s business.

The West Cork Feel Good Festival is organised by 49 North Street and the HSE and a broad range of community partners. Dozens of workshops, sessions, film screenings, concerts, performances and peer support spaces will take place. You will find music, boardgames storytelling, open mic, yoga, zumba, choirs, a grief circle, and scarecrow building below in Leap.

Many of the activities or performances are free which gives a great opportunity to explore West Cork but also to find a little bit of connection with others along the way.

I love how it is called the Feel Good Festival. I’m nearly sure if it had mental health in the title it wouldn’t be nearly as attractive, but we all want to feel good.

In the days before Mary had invited me to the gig, I had said to David, my husband, that I wanted to try and connect into the community a bit more. It’s very easy for the focus to be all about home or being a mum or working. It takes effort and being intentional to join in on new things.

It would be so simple just to sit at home on a Sunday afternoon and relax. I often love that more than I can put into words, but it’s important not to isolate too much.

This time of year makes me feel particularly tired, with the change of seasons and an arthritic nip in the air, so I have to give myself an extra push to just get up and go.

Mary is a very easy person to tag along with, she has a great vibe about her and makes for very cheerful company. I’m lucky to call her my friend.

When she told me the Together in the Hall tickets she had were for an afternoon with the Cork institution that is John Spillane and guests, I was delighted. 

I have been a big fan of John for many years. His talent even scares me slightly, he incorporates such intricate detail about history and mythology in his lyrics and somehow gets them all to connect in beautifully.

He treated us to a smattering of his hits as well as some new work he has created, an opera all about the Lough. If anybody else said they were writing an opera about the Lough, I’d find it bizarre, but John is so steeped in all things Cork it seems to make perfect sense. His vision is astounding.

His special guests, the Claddagh Rogues and others, also gave such provocative performances and the joy of playing music and the impact it has on the brain was just so apparent.

John is great man for getting an audience going and had us singing with glee. There was great fun and banter too with moments that brought us right back down to earth with a rendition of Palestine Songbird.

As John lent his distinctive voice to remind us of what is happening across the world, I felt a bit stopped in my tracks and the moment of reflection was powerful.

Music and lyrics can say so much, can light us up and ignite an spark of action and also rejuvenate us in one swoop.

I went home feeling like I had done myself some good and look forward to attending more events in the festival throughout the month.