{"id":441640,"date":"2026-05-10T11:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T11:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/441640\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T11:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T11:27:12","slug":"bealtaine-celebrations-take-place-on-the-hill-of-uisneach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/441640\/","title":{"rendered":"Bealtaine celebrations take place on the Hill of Uisneach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of people from around the world have gathered for a Celtic fire festival celebrating the beginning of summer in Co Westmeath.<\/p>\n<p>Two days of events are being held at the Hill of Uisneach, which is dubbed the sacred centre of Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday night saw The Bealtaine Fire Festival continue a ritual that dates back over a millennium to the time of the High Kings of Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>A procession of light and fire wound through the ancient ceremonial site before an enormous bonfire was lit to welcome the summer.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Performers during the Bealtaine Fire Festival at the Hill of Uisneach\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/00245743-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nThe celebrations take place every year at the Hill of Uisneach<\/p>\n<p>Live craft demonstrations, storytelling events and traditional Irish games are taking place across the weekend alongside mindfulness and yoga sessions.<\/p>\n<p>Festival goes dressed as celts and wearing leaf head-dresses also took part in events.<\/p>\n<p>Jerry Jago from Dublin who was dressed as the sea god Manannan mac Lir said: &#8220;Look around, families are here, there&#8217;s people dressed up, they really get into it and they mean what they are doing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You walk around here you won\u2019t see a blade of grass out of place, you won\u2019t see a bit of litter and that\u2019s just the people who come here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Performers during the Bealtaine Fire Festival at the Hill of Uisneach \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/00245748-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nFire is a central part of the Bealtaine celebrations<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Performers during the Bealtaine Fire Festival at the Hill of Uisneach\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/00245745-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nHundreds of people took part in processions and celebrations on the Hill of Uisneach in Westmeath<\/p>\n<p>Fellow Dubliner Vinnie Woods, who has been attending the event for 25 years, said: &#8220;It\u2019s like the revival of the Irish language, people are becoming more conscious of our heritage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They may not be able to fully understand it, but they want to do something to participate, to say &#8216;we\u2019re Irish and this is part of our heritage\u2019.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The late broadcaster and writer Manch\u00e1n Magan, known for his love of the Irish language, traditions and landscape was remembered with a mural.<\/p>\n<p>His ashes were scattered on the hill, which is steeped in Irish mythology, following his death last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of people from around the world have gathered for a Celtic fire festival celebrating the beginning of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-441640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}