The Rathlin Sound festival 2024
This year we were invited to attend The Rathlin Sound Festival May 2024. The festival offers a rich array of activities celebrating the culture, heritage, and natural beauty of Ballycastle and Rathlin Island. Among the many engaging events the team from Wild Walk demonstrated outdoor bushcraft and nature-based activities including flint knapping, spoon carving, fire craft and fibre craft.
The festival, inspired by the Rathlin Sound—a body of water connecting Rathlin Island to the Ballycastle mainland— included live music, artisan markets, traditional crafts, and various ‘have a go’ activities such as paddle boarding and traditional boat making.
In addition we held wild cookery demonstrations using locally foraged and caught food. all the dishes were prepared and cooked using primitive methods. We used flint as cutting and scraping tools, clay pots to cook on the fire and we made a rack and tripod from willow as a smoking device.
Here are what dishes were available on the day!
- line caught eel stuffed with common sorrel, sea aster and sea kale leaves, wrapped in its own skin and butter burr leaves which was then cooked in a ground oven.
Ponassed Pike served wrapped in sorrel leaves,
Smoked Dolaghan ( lough neagh brown trout) with hairy bitter cress leaves, sorrel and rose bay willow herb.
Irish red deer venison casserole which included chicken of the woods fungi, rose bay willow herb, burdock roots, ladies smock and nettles. A splash of home made mead was added for good measure!
Gary baked bannock in a clay pot over the fire using flour made from ‘Emmer’ one of the first grains used in Ireland in the neolithic.
Incidentally the pots are reproductions from actual Bronze Age pots found in Ireland. They were made by my good friend and extremely talent artist John Martin.
We had a fantastic weekend and hope to invited back again next year. Thank you to Causeway coast and Glens events team for having us and for organising such a great festival!
For more detailed information and the full 2024 festival run down, visit the official Visit Causeway Coast and Glens website  https://www.causewaycoastandglens.gov.uk/news/2024-rathlin-sound-festival-brings-seaside-fun-to-ballycastle-and-rathlin