The Tipperary Fleadh Cheoil was a hit, thanks to the strategy of bringing local history alive. Jill Mabbott of The Tipperary Living History Project said "In the best tradition of the Druidic Bards, we want to bring history back into communities so that they don't forget their sense of place and sense of the past." That is just what the group did last weekend at the County Tipperary Fleadh in Bansha. With the help of drama groups in the Tipperary area, the Project staged an historical street theatre pageant on the life of the host village's most famous poet and songwriter, Darby Ryan, who wrote the song "The Peeler and the Goat". The pageant proved to be the star attraction at the Fleadh, drawing a crowd of more than 600 spectators."
Anyone who passed through Bansha village on Sunday afternoon may be forgiven for thinking they had entered a time warp. On the Main Streetstood people who could have walked out of a scene from the last century.There were ladies in long dresses and shawls, men in long coats and peasant garments; RIC officers and even some horses, carts and carriages. The quaintly attired group were all members of The Tipperary Living History Project, who were bringing history to life for visitors to the County Fleadh.The street pageant began by the graveyard wall in Bansha's Main Street & moved to the grounds of the Old Protestant Church of Templeneiry Union, where there was a re-enactment of Darby Ryan's trial in Clonmel, inside the ruined church. Ryan's life story was told through song, music, poems and recitations, moving all over Bansha's Main Street & ending in a requiem."
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