Swift Satire Festival Sunday

The Swift Satire Festival concluded with a feast of satire this afternoon at the Bite of Satire Lunch in the Trim Castle Hotel. In the annual Battle of the Books satire competition The Meath Writers Circle had a narrow but deserved win over us, Boyne Writers. They took the lead straight away and never really looked like being overhauled. Michael "Sheriff" Shiels, Frank Murphy and captain Tommy Murray had strong topical pieces full of humour and satire. Their blogs will no doubt be full of reports and maybe pictures.

Our team performed very well. Barbara Flood was called in at the last minute to read for Caroline Carey Finn who suffered a family bereavement and did very well. James Linnane and myself did our best but it wasn't to be our year.

Well done Tommy, Frank and Michael. Looking forward to next year already!

Then there was the five minute play competition with the shortlisted five being performed. This worked very well, the plays were very different but were all enjoyed by the large audience. The two plays from Bradford were ambitious, very funny and very well staged. Inspector Gulliver Calls, by Vera Cait Walsh, Wicklow Town was set in a not very attractive future and the costumes were especially effective.
 
My Gulliver's Travels, the modern 5 minute version was very well done by my three actors and went down well. The judge had some nice things to say about it. But the obvious winner was the other Trim play Gulliver at the Gate, by Gareth Mahony. Sharply satiric, great characters and costumes (the stars and stripes tie was a winner on its own) it was both the judges choice and the popular winner.

A most enjoyable afternoon! The events ended with the usual thankyous and indeed the usual question over the continuation of the festival. It certainly deserves to continue. I relaxed afterwards by attending the final showing of the animated feature Gulliver's Travels (1939) in the cinemobile. Great!

Some pictures later maybe. I was too busy to take any!!