ScarecrowFestivalThe annual Scarecrow Festival is almost here! Durrow Development Forum volunteers have been hard at work over these past few months planning and working towards bringing another brilliant week of festivities to our town which will run from July 27th to August 4th. The opening day promises to be busy with lots going on – an Outdoor Market will begin from 11am. The gates to the village will then open at 2pm with a fanfare of Music, Street Entertainers, and good fun! Watch out for the Aghaboe Carriage Driving Tours and don’t forget to visit the Arts & Crafts Exhibition and Sale in the Community Centre which is open daily.

During the week there will be lots going on including Demonstrations, Workshops, Teen Zones, a Hurling Match, a Nostalgia Night, Laois Walks Festival, High Nelly Cycle, Duck Derby, a Family Fun and Sports evening, Dancing at the Crossroads, Drama Group, a Woof-and-Wellie walk and WWE Wrestling amongst lots and lots of other activity. The Festival Brochure hits the streets this coming week and has all the details in full – keep an eye out!

There is still time to enter a scarecrow for this years All Ireland Scarecrow Competition and to increase participation the organising committee have restructured the awards system. The overall prize winner will now receive €500. The reduction from last year means that there will be more prizes awarded this year to encourage diversity. New prizes will be awarded by the judges to scarecrows that are funny, original, topical, catchy and for materials used – so get your thinking cap on as the time is near! Contact Noeleen on (087) 9636460 for more.

The festival is expected to bring in over 15,000 people to Durrow over the nine days and this will take a lot of managing to ensure everything runs smoothly. The forum committee is small, just ten members – so we appeal to the wider community to help out – to make our town’s festival an enjoyable, well run experience for each and every visitor. A volunteer evening will be held in the Library at 8.30pm on Tuesday evening, July 22nd. Please attend if you can help out with the festival in any way, so matter how small.