Top Irish piano accordion maestro Alan Kelly will take his band to the Celtic music festival in Barbados this June. And along with Alan will play the beautiful Irish singer Heidi Talbot and fiddler John McCusker at guests at a very special show on Wednesday 13th June.

 

A week long music festival, with a fusion of flavours on the food menu provided by award winning Edinburgh chef Paul Wedgwood, the Celtic Festival Barbados starts on 7th June, and takes place across this tiny Caribbean island that was once a British Colony. A history of white indentured servants sent from Ireland during Cromwell’s time 350 years ago, gives the island many Celtic connections, and today there are many successful Irish businessmen living and working on the island.

 

Supported by the Barbados Tourism Authority, the festival is one of many attractions for the large number of visitors who make the island their holiday destination, and it has always been very popular with the Irish.

 

Other events will include bagpipers playing at Sundown, the very popular live Scottish Band, the Peatbog Faeries, Sandra Macbeth’s Shoogle Sisters and food demonstrations with Edinburgh Chef Paul Wedgwood in the newly opened Relish Epicurea on Saturday 9th June. The island’s only Irish Pub, McBrides will host some live music on Monday 11th June, and a Canadian dance troupe from Nova Scotia will perform Irish dancing and Scottish dancing at various venues throughout the festival.

 

Included in the itinerary will be options for a five hour lunch cruise on board luxury catamaran Cool Runnings, a rum shop tour which takes guests deep into the sugar plantations and over to “Scotland District”on the east coast of the island, and a walk in the Flower Forest, a tourist attraction run by an Edinburgh University graduate David Spieler. Flowers from the Flower Forest have formed part of the award winning displays from Barbados at Chelsea Flower Show.

 

Holiday packages with departures from London and other points of departure are available from Intimate Holidays on 0800 633 5582 who are offering 7 nights in self catering accommodation with flights from Gatwick from £698 per person based on two sharing.