THE Finglas Festival is back again this weekend and the good news is that it’s bigger and better than last year’s successful event with even more attractions, shows and competitions.
This year’s festival will be held in The Drogheda Mall Car Park and Poppintree Mall in Finglas Village from July 1-3, and while there’s loads happening around the village, the crown jewel of the festivities is undoubtedly the Mrs Brown themed ‘Agnes Fest’.
Last year people from all over the Ireland flocked to Finglas to take part in a Mrs Brown lookalike world record attempt and the competition earned rave reviews and national media coverage.
This year festival organiser, Sean Mooney, is hoping that Agnes Fest will attract even more attention and laughs to the Northside suburb that’s home to Mrs Brown.
“Last year we basically went for the world record for the most Agnes Browns in one place,” Mooney told Northside People.
“The Guinness World Record People were saying he wasn’t iconic enough and that he has too many changes of costume, so this year rather than having a world record, we’re just having the Agnes Fest, similar to the Fr Ted Fest [in Inishmore].
“In other words, you can dress as any character from the show, but most people will come down as Agnes or Granddad.
“Believe it or not, we had people from all over the country for the lookalike event last year. The guy who actually won it was an Irishman who was living in Croatia for the last eight or nine years and we didn’t even know that until he got on stage and won.”
Mooney says last year’s festival was organised because locals felt the village had become somewhat of a ‘ghosttown’ in recent years and they wanted to hold a celebration in the traditional heart of Finglas.
The lifelong Finglas native and fellow organisers are determined to raise the profile of the village and believe this year’s festival can help put Finglas back on the map again.
“We decided to give it a go to raise the profile of the village because it had gone down big time, and the festival historically always brought it back to life again,” Mooney explained.
“It gave it that injection of life again with people and local traders involved. That was the main reason we decided to give it a crack and it was a huge success.”
REPORT: Jack O’Toole