Big viking picnic takes over grove gardens

Aoibheann’s Pink Tie charity's biggest ever fundraising event to date, The Big Viking Picnic, takes place this Saturday, 29th August at Grove Gardens, Kells,  (home of the famous Halloween Spooktacular).

It is a Viking-themed day featuring a Viking village and settlement, the participation of the cream of Ireland’s Viking re-enactment groups, food, crafts made on site by skilled traditional craftsmen, SFX make up and Viking hair styling, charity auction featuring items from Claire Garvey among others. extra’s straight from the Set of History Chanel’s 'Vikings' TV series, Hudson’s famous funfair, and a first Guinness Book of Records attempt at the world’s largest 'Shield wall' requiring over 1,000 Vikings with shields. Live acts will perform from 11am until 1am on Sunday, camping is available on site.

Travis Fimmel, better known as Ragnar Lothbrook from the critically acclaimed TV series which is filmed in Wicklow, has come on board as an ambassador for the charity.

Acts include Riot Tapes,The Celtic Blondes, Supernaught (Black Sabbath Tribute), The Two Dubs (Folk), Shoe The Donkey (Irish Trad/Folk), Red Hot Copy Peppers, Sunset Strip 80s band, Simply Sinatra, Christy Moore tribute, Penrose, Donna Marie and Michael , Christy Kavanagh and the Patriots (Luke Kelly tribute), with many more. The majority of acts have come courtesy of Starsearch Ireland.

Attendees are encouraged to dress as Vikings as this is a family friendly event with all proceeds going directly to Aoibheann’s Pink Tie Charity, set up by Jimmy Norman, father of Aoibheann for whom the charity is named who sadly lost her battle with cancer.

Jimmy Norman recently received the Pride of Ireland Award for his hard work and dedicated fundraising efforts in his daughter’s memory.

It is an all ticket event - tickets are available from www.eventbrite.ie; The Big Viking Picnic on  Facebook and twitter @vikingpicnic