When was Ireland’s first-ever rock festival?
With music from Ireland, there’s the tendency to think only of lilting folk melodies or gentle jigs. The reality is so much louder than that.
After all, the rock scene coming out of Ireland is no small force to be reckoned with, and this is something that has not come out of the blue. Yes, today it’s as forceful as it’s ever been, with bands like Fontaines DC leading the frontier, but it equally stretches back all the way to the times of U2, The Pogues, and far beyond.
This is all to say that the country had a powerful roster of talent bursting from its seams, and in 1976, it felt only right to translate that into the stages of a festival. As such, the Macroom Mountain Dew Festival was born. There was no modern-day glamping or shining allure that you get with Electric Picnic here: it was rough around the edges, but instantly ready to go.
Admittedly, the County Cork market town of Macroom, which at the latest count had a population of just over 3,700 people, may not be the first prime location you think of when putting on a rock festival. But this was kind of the whole point – publican John Martin Fitz-Gerald wanted to bring an air of excitement to the place, and had all the right contacts to do it.
By roping in the services of Rory Gallagher’s brother and manager, Donal, the pair truly got the show on the road, hosting the first ever Macroom Mountain Dew Festival, named after the town’s mass production of Poitin, at the local GAA club. Things only kept getting bigger and better from there.
Who played at Ireland’s Macroom Mountain Dew Festival?
The first festival took place on June 17th, 1976, with the headline acts creating a fairly impressive draw in the form of Horslips, Marianne Faithfull, and Julie Felix. The year after, migrating to the town’s focal point of Macroom Castle, it was Roland Van Campenhout, Joe O’Donnell, and Gallagher – likely at the persuasion of his brother – who took to the stage.
Macroom Mountain Dew Festival continued to go from strength to strength in the years that followed, with names like Van Morrison, Mike Oldfield, and Elvis Costello gracing the market town. Yet in 1982, there was a final flourish with Roy Harper and Phil Lynott, and the festival closed its gates for the final time.
It may not have been the most enduring festival to ever take place, but the foundations laid by the Macroom Mountain Dew Festival were nonetheless seismic in how they paved the way for the rest of the Irish rock music canon to grow. This was no longer just in sounds floating around the ether – now they had a stage to perform it on, and a festival to call their own.
And so, for every tale of raucous drunken nights in front of Ireland’s biggest festival stages, all roads lead back to Macroom. It may not have seemed like much on the outside, but this was truly a key to unlocking a new venture, and a whole new juggernaut speed train, for the country to let rip.
