Spirit world will come alive for the Púca Procession

The annual Púca Procession attracts thousands of visitors every year and this year's event promises to be bigger and better than ever. Holly Alder was summoned to the other world to meet the creative crews behind the creatures that will roam the streets of Trim this Saturday.

The Púca Procession turns the streets of Trim into a magical world of Irish folklore and mythology where the veil between the spirit world and the living world is thin. While spectators and visitors get to see the finished work of art in action, I was lucky enough to get to see all of the hard work, effort and talent that goes into this incredible spectacle.

The LMETB building in Athboy is unassuming from the outside, but the art and magic that happens beyond the front door is astounding. Dozens of community members, volunteers and artists come together to create some of the most magnificent puppets and costumes that represent different stories from the folklore of Samhain.

Creative Director of the Púca Procession, Claire Morrisey from Kildalkey and Master Maker Brian Walsh from Dunshaughlin, kindly brought me behind the scenes to see how they bring Púca Festival and all of it's characters to life.

The team have worked with Failte Ireland over the past few years and there has been investment in Púca Festival to create a larger scale spectacle.

Creative director Claire said: "A lot of the characters featured in the Púca Procession are from Samhain stories and Irish mythological stories, with many of them being local stories to Meath. Samhain is everyone's story and it's so easy to tell with the help from all of these wonderful and creative people. It's fantastic to get the investment to develop the parade here in Athboy with local talent."

Claire and Brian start discussing the parade at the beginning of the summer, factoring in finances and who they can work with in the community to bring different skills to the creation of the Púca Procession.

"We have a lot of creators that have gone to college or are in college to study 3D sculpturing and creating. We have this amazing opportunity with Failte Ireland and Meath County Council to develop the arts in this area.

There's a golden egg of local landscape, story, music and nature based festival revival we are incubating in the Boyne Valley. As makers in Púca Festival, we know that hatching a dedicated creative hub for training local designers, makers, artists, will directly influence the success of national and international tourism to the Boyne Valley.

We want to make these festivals blossom beyond the Samhain celebration. We have many seasonal festivals to celebrate throughout the year with a healthy creative economy and many stories to tell."

The festival is partnered with Dunboyne College of Further Education to promote creativity and to have some arts students come in and create. Brian, who teaches art courses such as sculpture in Ballyfermot College of Further Education, also offers opportunities to students to get involved. The place is a teeming hub of creativity for all ages, with the youngest volunteer being just 11 years old.

The Púca community build workshop with Dunboyne College of Further Education.

Brian said: "It's a real community spirit with local people coming in to help out and get involved, too. Everyone has their own area of expertise."

While I was visiting, there were two creators working on one of the new characters for the parade, which is yet to be revealed, and one creator was working on the fabrics. The room was full of wonderful masks, props and costumes, with one of the creators, Elliott Dodeman, even putting on one of the costumes and showing me the mechanics of how it works.

Using different fabrics woven together by hand and a litter picker to move different joints of the creature, the costume completely came to life once it was on. Everything, from the masks to the full scale creatures, is hand crafted with such care and creative expertise.

Brian said: "One of our missions is to take on local talent for work. We have a super talented girl from Trim, Hannah McIlwaine, who is training to be a painter. She volunteered to work with us but we're luckily able to take her on for paid work and it's really wonderful that we're able to do that with the investment into the festival and to build on careers in the arts within the community."

The Puca Procession is growing to a bigger scale every year and this year promises to be the biggest yet, with a humongous Púca to be revealed on the night.

"We wondered how big we could make the Púca, almost as if it was like a big train coming down the road. It was so much fun to create and we had no limits to our imagination."

The creative process starts with sketches before going on to create small models of the creatures and costumes out of clay. The crew is then assembled before everything is built in full scale. Eco plastics are used to create the characters and costumes, using innovative sustainability to create each one.

Brian said: "It's great to have the support of the LMETB in Athboy. All of the characters that were made over the last two years were made locally in the building and it's fantastic that they're made on location and to have an input from the local people is just great."

There are professional welders and mechanics that come in to make sure that the creations are moving properly and safely, and in total there can be up to 40 to 50 people involved in the creation of the procession.

Seeing these characters from Irish mythology in 3D is an amazing experience and really brings the stories to life with the incredible engineering and creative work that goes to each one.

To put the procession into full action last year, 300 people were involved, between those moving the creations down the street, to dancers and performers, and those involved in the creation of the incredible parade only plan to grow it further.

Púca Festival runs from Thursday 30th October to Sunday 2nd of November with the Púca Procession taking place in Trim on Saturday 1st November at 6pm. For more information, click here.