The story
TradFest Temple Bar in Dublin
A five-day late-January traditional music festival in Dublin's Temple Bar, launched in 2006 and self-billed as Ireland's biggest festival of its kind, combining free pub-based Smithwick's Sessions with ticketed concerts staged inside cathedrals and castles chosen for their acoustics, with more than twenty venues participating across the five days in a recent edition of the free-and-ticketed programme.
Launched with its first concerts on a Thursday in late January 2006 at the Temple Bar Music Centre and Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, plus children's events at The Ark, this festival is now self-billed as Ireland's biggest festival of traditional music, running across five days each late January under the Temple Bar Company, the not-for-profit organization representing businesses in Dublin's cultural quarter.