ANOTHER SOLD OUT BARD 2005
The annual Bard of Armagh Festival of Humorous Verse finals, which took place on Friday 25 November in the Armagh City Hotel was once again a complete sell out. The demand for tickets this year was unprecedented and those lucky enough from all over Ireland to have secured tickets, can expect another extravaganza of humorous verse of the highest calibre. A number of new Bards have entered the fray this year to see who can emulate the great Jimmy Rafferty, Bard 2004.

The position of the versifier was central in Irish life down the ages for his humorous and satirical gifts, and bards could heap praise or ridicule with equal power on members of the tribe and community. The humour was born out of hardship and repression, it sometimes got trapped in the sub-conscious layers, but always found a means of escaping into the mainstream.

It took a few years trial and error before the Bard of Armagh Festival truly found its feet. The committee insisted that there be a high standard both in the construction of the poems and also in the recitations in keeping with the highest standards of the bards of antiquity.

But bards do not merely compose. An equal part of their art is in the delivery. They have to hold the total attention of the audience through every single verse and keep the laughter coming- no small challenge before a thousand people. They have to teach themselves the art of indentation, how to pause for effect, how to stress certain words and lines and use the appropriate body language.

Nor is it remotely enough to keep the audience happy or even smiling. The laughter educed has to be side-splitting and convulsive. People must be seen to double up. Whoops and squeals must permeate the laughing surge. A Bard has truly scored when the audience go wild for a full solid minute after a single line and end up spontaneously applauding the stroke of genius.

To celebrate over 10 years of bardic revelry a new double CD has just been released. This contains some of the great classics from such versifiers as McGeeney, O Hagan and Rafferty. Michael Quinn’s ‘The man that shot the dog’ is as popular as ever and women Bards like Joan Gaffney, Rosemary Twohig and Mary Byrne feature as well. This outstanding feast of humour would make the ideal Christmas present and as one committee member said, ‘Every good home should have one’

The performers in this years Bard finals were as follows:
Irish News Section
Brian Gogarty - Extra Extra
Mary Byrne - Way Da Go
Jim Patterson - Ulster’s Sporting Greats
Rosemary Twohig - The Electronic Belt
Kathleen Teresa - Heath No News is Good News