Feile Na Tuaithe

For the past few years the Country Life Museum in Turlough here in Co Mayo has celebrated a family weekend festival called Feile Na Tuaithe (celebration of country life). The Feile endeavors to celebrate all things good about country life, its craft and traditions. We seem to have missed some of the crafts this year but we did watch a blacksmith hard at work.

blacksmith at work

blacksmith at work

The birds of prey from the Mount Falcon Estate Falconry team are always impressive and this time around the beautiful Eagle Owl was particularly striking and very happy to pose for photographs.

Eagle owl

very impressive feet

The farming section is always popular with the children and we met a blind horse from the North Mayo Horse Sanctuary as well as some lovely donkeys from the Irish Donkey Welfare Organisation, some pigs (most were sleeping but the little fellow in the photo was busy looking for grubs), sheep and also some chickens and rabbits.

There is always some live entertainment at the Feile and as a family we really loved the Whistle Blast Quartet, who have a wonderful way of engaging children with classical music. The art trail too happens each year. Some of  the pieces didn’t do much for me this year but I did like this fishy one!

And of course a country life festival wouldn’t be much of a country festival without tractors – but it was the colourful tractor seats that caught my fancy.

tractor seats