Frank Harte Festival – Memorial Walk 2010

The Frank Harte Festival Memorial Walk took place on the 26th of September in what is fast becoming an annual celebration of the life and music of Frank Harte, a traditional Irish singer from Chapelizod in Dublin.  The video on this website is a small part of the walking and singing tour of Dublin that took place on the final day of the weekend celebration and more videos of the walk can be found on YouTube.  The walk has been organised in recent years by members of ‘An Góilín’ traditional singers club and many of them can be found singing or orating here, here and here.

Frank Harte was a respected architect and a lecturer in DIT until his retirement in 1998.   He was also known both nationally and internationally as a singer, archivist and collector of songs and stories.  The Frank Harte Memorial Festival is an event taking place in late September of each year with the opening taking place in the Teachers’ Club on Friday 24th September and finishing up with the walk, entitled ‘By Memory Inspired’, on Sunday 26th, which started at Croppy’s Acre Park and ended up in the Brazen Head pub, site of many meetings for the 1798 Rebellion group. Harte’s songs covered events such as the Great Famine, 1798 Rebellion, Robert Emmet,  Napoleon Bonaparte and included many Dublin songs.