The Midleton Food & Drink Festival 2009 Saturday 12th September
Feast of the East a Fabulous Success !
Midleton Food & Drink Festival 2009 took place in the East Cork town on Saturday 12th September and it was a fantastic feast of food and fun for all. With over 70 high quality food and drinks stalls and record crowds of 25, 000 visitors, the town came alive with a colourful carnival atmosphere. On what was one of the best days of Summer, people soaked up the sun, strolled at their leisure around town and enjoyed the wonderful food and other exciting festival actitivies on offer.
The Festival Committee would like to thank its Main Sponsor, Market Green, for their kind support. The Market Green Competition to win €200 of Shopping Centre vouchers attracted great interest and the lucky winner was Kevin O’ Donoghue, Castlemartyr. The 30 traders in the Shopping Centre, Retail Park and Plaza provided a range of in-store discounts and special offers in recognition and support of festival day. Quoting Andrew McVea of Tesco at Market Green, “ we were delighted to sponsor and be associated with Midleton Food & Drink Festival 2009”.
Special thanks and acknowledgement to our other Key Sponsors including Conoco Philips, Ballymaloe Relish, Imokilly Webs, Failte Ireland, Dairygold, SECAD, East Cork Tourism, Midleton Chamber of Commerce and Midleton Town Council. And of course our Media Sponsor 96fm for their support in promoting the festival.
Other valued supporters of the festival include The Court Services, The Jameson Experience, Bite Size, O’ Conaills Chocolates, Denbar Jewellers, O’ Donovan’s Off Licences, Raymond’s Restaurant, Wiser Bins, Midleton Gardai, East Cork Early Music, East Cork Camera Club, Mary Daly & Associates, Billy Buckley, Crowley & McCarthy.
The new rail link to Midleton was a wonderful facility to bring visitors to town for festival day and the Committee provided free shuttle buses to and from the town centre. The Committee would like to thank Andrew Roche of Irish Rail for his support in helping to promoting the festival and also in providing extra trains on the day. Irish Rail also kindly provided two Family Rail Ticket prizes for festival visitors and the lucky winners were Una O Sullivan, Midleton and Maeve McGovern, Dungourney.
Midleton Farmers Market was in its usual location on festival day, with over 15 quality food and drinks stalls. The Market was the first of its kind in the region, set the standard for other Farmers Markets to follow and this wonderful facility is on our doorstep each and every Saturday, providing the very best of local produce in season. The Country Market marquee was popular with a selection of delicious home-made baking and home grown vegetables to be enjoyed.
The festival programme boasted two professional cookery demonstrations by Sheila Kelly of Bord Bia, which were a great success and attracted full audiences. Gary O’ Donovan of O’ Donovans Off Licences gave a Wine Talk & Tasting, tempting the crowds to a relaxing glass of wine in the afternoon. The Festival Committee would like to thank Gerard Beausang for the use of his premises in Distillery Lane for these demonstrations.
One of the festival highlights was the Waiters’ Race, where waiters and waitresses from local bars and restaurants donned the traditional black and white attire, balanced a tray of wine glasses and made mayhem, trying to get to the finish line with a dry tray! The Committee would like to thank Raymonds Restaurant who sponsored the prizes and especially the residents of Thomas Street for the use of their beautiful street for the race.
Almost 20 traders in town joined in the festival spirit by entering the Window Dressing Competition, decorating their windows in a wonderful display of food and drinks products or in the festival colours. Prizes were kindly sponsored by Denbar Jewellers and the Cork Rose, Amy Moran judged the windows and presented first place to Vintage Homewares, second to Blooms Florists and third prize to Split Ends Hairdressers.
There was fun and excitement for the children too, with face-painting, stilt-walkers and the balloon-man adding a splash of colour to the streets. The Puppet Shows were as popular as ever, kindly supported by Cork County Council and Environmental Partnership Fund.
Midleton Library opened its doors to the festival and had a fabulous feast of food stories and mouth-watering tales at Childrens’ Story Time. Special thanks to the hard-working story tellers Mary McDonald and Lucia Chisholm, who gave so generously of their time and talents. The Library also organised a food and drinks-themed poster colouring competition. The proud winners were Caoimhe Murray and Belen Galligan, who were thrilled with their prizes, kindly sponsored by Leahy's Open Farm.
The festival could not happen without the hard work and dedication of all its volunteers and the Committee would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of all those who generously gave of their time and efforts. In particular, we would like to thank the Civil Defence, the Irish Red Cross and the Emergency Services for their kind support.
South and East Cork Area Development (SECAD) and the Festival Organising Committee would like to thank the people of the town and surrounding areas, as well as all our visitors, for their kind support of Midleton Food & Drink Festival and for making it such a huge success.