Reeling in Bundoran – 2013
Bundoran 2013 was another busy year for the town and saw some great TV coverage for us. a new historical festival called “Planes, Trains and Jigs & Reels” and the first pumpkin carving competition and pumpkin parade! As usual we remind you that these blogs are not a comprehensive retrospect of the town, just some memories of each year that we are sharing! Links to the other years can be found at the end of the page.
New Tourism Officer
In March 2013, Bundoran’s new Tourism Officer, local man Shane Smyth took up his role.
Camera Ready
A few TV features on Bundoran in 2013 – one of which came from Donegal TV hosted by Andrea Gilligan.
A €1.8m makeover for Waterworld
During the winter months Waterworld got the builders in and installed 5 new features including a gravity speed slide, 3 lane multi-slide, aqua children’s slide, galleon ship and for the first time, a toddler pool in time for its 22nd season. The new features were officially launched on Tuesday May 28th by Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Michael Ring TD.
Waterworld also advertised on TV for the first time
The BIG weekend
Bundoran’s Big Weekend happened across the June Bank Holiday Weekend incorporating the Belle of Bundoran, Waterworld’s 22nd birthday and the RNLI Soapbox Race.
Is the School Around the Corner just the same?
St Macartan’s National School made it on to RTE’s School Around The Corner with Ray D’arcy in May.
Live to the nation
Ahead of Sea Sessions, Ruth and Paddy hosted their Saturday Show on 2FM from outside Madden’s Bridge Bar on Saturday 8th June 2013.
Remembering.
Sunday June 9th was cemetery Sunday. The 11am Mass that day was offered for the happy repose of all in local cemeteries. It was decided that walking to the Cemetery after Mass was a good Parish activity as all funerals did the same. Bishop Liam MacDaid was here that weekend so he joined us for the blessing.
Beach party time
Sea Sessions was back from 21st to 23rd June and saw Bastille amongst others take to the stage at Main Beach.
Reliving History
On July 12th, the Historical Society’s festival “Planes, Trains and Jigs & Reels” was launched incorporating many different aspects of the town’s history.
Just one week later we were back on tv again – this time on UTV
March on!
On Sunday 11th August we welcomed the All Ireland Marching Bands competition back to Bundoran.
Heritage rules
Across the weekend of 16th to 18th August we celebrated Bundoran’s varied heritage with Planes, Trains and Jigs & Reels.
The festival also included a History Ireland Hedge School hosted by Tommy Graham. You can listen to that here
During the festival there was a listening session of the RTE Radio documentary “The Bundoran Express” with producer Brian Murphy in attendance to talk about the production. You can listen to the documentary here
Snap happy
In October 2013 we held a photography weekend with prizes sponsored by Cara Pharmacy. Below was the winning photo.
Carving time
The first pumpkin carving competition and pumpkin parade took place in 2013. The tradition lives on to this day!
Finally on Christmas day, the swimmers were out in force!
Check out the rest of our decades blogs here:
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