“This is a safe space. You can let loose. You can relax and everybody is happy,” says Tura Arutura, a Zimbabwean-Irish step dancer when describing the atmosphere of boutique music festival Beyond the Pale in Co Wicklow.
Taking place at the Glendalough estate, the first Irish camping festival of this summer is being enjoyed by 12,000-plus music fans. Headliners include Primal Scream and a rare performance from Mike D of the Beastie Boys ahead of his debut solo album later this year.
Arutura is speaking after a week of violent racist riots which took place in Belfast, where he lives and works.
“As somebody who lives in the North, I actually get that this instability that is happening in the North, and even this flag-waving fake patriots, because men need to define who they are in a dynamic, ever-evolving world.”
He says that in contrast, the atmosphere at the festival is joyful.
“Táim ar muin na muice – I am on the back of the pig. There are people from all over the world here and we are just looking to have a bit of craic.
“Everybody is happy to compliment you and talk to people that you have never spoken to and be randomly pleasant. The weather is amazing.”
At 19 degrees and sunny, and after a dry Friday evening, Beyond The Pale is an anomaly in Irish music festivals.
Ali Dunworth, who programmes Beyond the Plate, the food section of the festival, says they have been “blessed” with good weather.
Beyond the Plate’s programming includes a series of talks and workshops as well as an on-site restaurant which seriously elevates festival eats from chips and burgers to full sit-down meals by restaurants Host, Reggie’s pizza and Ibile.
[ Beyond the Plate: Festival food goes fancy as punters book for sit-down diningOpens in new window ]
One logistical issue affecting the festival has been an acute lack of phone reception for data, which Dunworth does not mind.
“It has that old-fashioned feeling of a good time,” she says.
“I am old enough to have gone to festivals when you would not have had mobile phones. It’s back to that, so you bump into people and you do the old-fashioned meeting point.”
For Marina O’Connor, while she believed the festival has been well organised, the phone coverage had proved to be “atrocious”.
“It’s impossible. There’s no coverage. They really could do something about that. Even the security said to me they can’t make phone calls because the coverage is atrocious.”
Overall, however, she was delighted with the facilities, having opted to book the festival’s glamping package.
“I went the whole hog glamping. It’s like a retreat – not a holy retreat but a retreat,” she says laughing.
“Everyone is so kind and nice. It’s a nice small festival.”
Her favourite act so far has been a new discovery from the Outpost tent, Roe Byrne, whom she judge to be “excellent”. “So passionate.”
A Beyond the Pale novice, Byrne says he was “very nervous” playing the small outpost stage.
“It’s a bit more of a dance-y festival and coming up with just an acoustic guitar I just went into it thinking every gig is Wembley.”
