Launch of Lough Ree Environmental Summer Festival

The 15th annual festival will be launched in a grand performance on the 27th July in the newly cleaned up Lanesborough Commons Lime Quarry. Officiating the launch will be Roscommon born, celebrated writer and journalist John Waters. The line up for this auspicious evening’s entertainment will include harpist Edel Loftus and trad musician Noel Carberry. Food and wine will be served and sky lanterns will be released on the night to mark the occassion.

John Waters

John Waters was born in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, in 1955. He held a range of jobs after leaving school, including railway clerk, showband roadie and pirate radio manager. He began part-time work as a journalist in 1981, with Hot Press, Ireland’s leading rock ‘n’ roll periodical, becoming a full-time journalist in 1984, when he moved to Dublin. As a journalist, editor and columnist, he has specialised in raising unpopular issues of public importance, including the repression of Famine memories and the denial of rights to fathers. His books include, Jiving at the Crossroads (Blackstaff, 1991); Race of Angels (4th Estate/Blackstaff, 1994); Every Day Like Sunday? (Poolbeg, 1995); An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Ireland (Duckworth, 1997); The Politburo Has Decided That You Are Unwell (Liffey, 2004); Lapsed Agnostic (Continuum, 2007); Beyond Consolation (Continuum, 2010); Feckers (Constable and Robinson, 2010) and Was It For This? (TransWorld, 2012). He has written plays for radio and the stage, including Long Black Coat (1994), Holy Secrets (BBC, 1996), Easter Dues (1998), and Adverse Possession (BBC, 1998). He has been a columnist with the Irish Times for almost 20 years and currently writes columns for The Irish Mail on Sunday, The Irish Catholic and Traces, the international magazine of the Catholic movement Communion & Liberation.