Portstewart ready for the Red Sails Festival

This year’s Red Sails Festival has a packed programme of music, dancing, craft and kids events. Now in its 23rd year, the festival is supported by Radius Housing, and will see family events taking places across Portstewart over the last week of July.

The Red Sails cross community festival in Portstewart has been running annually since 1968. Initially known as Portstewart Carnival run by St Mary’s Star of the Sea Church, in 2000 it changed its name to the Red Sails Festival run by Portstewart Community Association. The festival’s roots are in Good Relations as a cross community festival with origins in bringing together kids from right across the town.

The week long festival kicks off on 23rd July, and involves a huge amount of work and commitment from PCA and brings on board at least 40 volunteers from the community. Each year more and more people are attending the festival from right across the Causeway area, and more and more communities groups and businesses are also getting involved in the events.

This year sees Radius Housing join as the main sponsor for 2023 and 2024, and this support has allowed Portstewart Community Association to provide a wide range of cross community and multicultural events and performances to entertain. This includes African music from the Wilson Magwere Band, Thai, Chinese, Ulster Scots / Irish traditional events. There will also be a wide range of family friendly activities including a Viking workshop, puppet show, bubble bike, street theatre and face-painting. The full programme of events can be seen on the Red Sails Facebook page, as well as in venues across Portstewart.

The Red Sails festival is supported by the Cappagh Green Good Relations plan for shared housing projects in Portstewart and by the Department for Communities and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive’s ‘Housing for All’ Shared Housing Programme. The Programme has its origins in the NI Executive Together: Building a United Community Strategy which reflects the Executive’s commitment to improving community relations and continuing the journey towards a more united and shared society.

Bridie Doherty, Area Housing Manager, Radius Housing told us “It feels very special for Radius to be able play a part in bringing such a widespread celebration of culture across the causeway area for the next two years. It is also great to see how the Red Sails Festival bring the community together in such a positive way, which is seen through the growth of the event and the numbers participating through volunteering. We are delighted to support Portstewart Community Association in this important community project.”

Shelia Jackson, chair of Portstewart Community Association said “We are delighted to have Radius Housing as our main sponsor this year. We have a tremendous programme for the festival which runs from Sunday 23 July to Saturday 29 July.  We welcome the return of favourite events including Willie Drennan, children’s entertainers Carnival Promotions and Mr. Hullabaloo, as well as some new acts such as the Rhythm Rascals and the Causeway Harp Ensemble”.

Sean Graham, Project Manager added “There are events for all ages. The Viking Workshop, featuring a Viking long ship will appeal to many, as will the footballing skills of Sam Madden. Wilson Magwere's Band will add a different dimension to the music menu at the Crescent and the Flying Dragons will amaze everybody with their acrobat dance routines. Old favourites such as Innova Dancers and the Alastair Scott Ceilidh Band will start the party on the last night of the festival which ends with the traditional fireworks display”.