August 2016

The Geesala Festival will take place in Geesala from Sunday 7th August to Sunday 14th August.

Celebrating its 23rd year the festival will include heritage events, cultural events, Là Gaeilge (Irish Day), a vintage show, horse show-jumping & classes, a dog show, a sheep show, boat racing, a deep sea angling competition, a clay pigeon shoot and a popular 10k road race.

On Sunday 14th August there will be the main event of the festival: the horse racing on the beach at Doolough, which it is said to have inspired John Millington Synge’s masterpiece, ‘The Playboy of the Western World’.

Here is a stretch of beach three miles long and is deemed to be the 'best turf' in the country by the Horse racing Association of Ireland. Visitors will find a bar, live music and delicious local food.

Since the first festival, greyhound racing on that same beach has been added to the programme and the excitement around that is built up all year with people bringing dogs from England and the North of Ireland, not to mention all over Ireland and the amount of local dogs taking part has increased every year.

The Geesala Festival is a family-friendly event not to be missed and a traditional entertainment for everybody, children and adults.