The Bread and Roses venue in Clapham will host a day of Irish music, theatre, poetry, art and more on Saturday 30 August.
The event, titled The West’s Awake, has been organised by Galway musician, Cillian Davoren.
Cillian (24) is from Moycullen and plays hurling in London with the Sean Treacy’s club.
Cillian has been in London since February and had the idea when trying to break into the music scene here.
Cillian told The Irish World: “I was trying to secure gigs for myself and trying to secure gigs for other people so I kind of just decided to just go and do it myself, just go completely take a chance with it and try and get it done.
“That’s where the idea behind it all came with The West’s Awake itself.
“My earliest idea was to have it just be Galway artists but I needed to expand the net to get an actual festival’s worth of things.
“Coming over here I knew a lot of Galway, people that were working in the arts in London so I have friends working in theatre, in conventional art, music.
“I wanted to give a bit of a showcase for them.
“I thought The West’s Awake would be a lovely name for it.”
On the festival’s line-up Cillian said: “We have a one woman show by one by a friend of mine called Emma Greaney.
“Then there will be some live music.
“Then we’ve got an art gallery.
“I’ve got Galway artists Lilymay Healy and Shona Slemon and then two other artists Liam Cunningham and Shauna Harris.
“We have poetry readings from Shauna Harris and Shona Slemon as well as Katie Fallon.
“That’s going to be a poetry and a short story segment to the evening.
“And then there’s going to be live performances from myself Cillian Davoren, Saoirse Moncrieff, Colin Andrew and Alex Gough.
“A lot of is folky but Alex Gough is a rap artist and Colin Andrew is a pop folk artist, Saoise Moncrieff is a singer songwriter and I’m also a singer songwriter.
“And then we’ll have DJs bringing us out into the evening.
“We’ll have DUGGAN who is another Galway artist and Ois! from Dublin and Dylan St John from Tipperary as DJs to bring us through the evening.”
Cillian is sure there is an appetite for events such as this one.
“There’s constant events going on and there’s always a huge support there that are happy to go to things that aren’t organised by big venues or big things, that are happy to go to smaller things as well.”
Has joining the club of Sean Treacy’s been a help as that is always good for meeting people and gaining support from the Irish community?
“It’s been an absolutely huge thing for myself.
“One of the DJs that’s going to be playing Dylan St John is a lad who’s playing hurling as well with Sean Treacy’s, I met him through that.
“Even in organising it, it’s been a great thing having the club there.
“I put on some singing nights so I’ve been bringing people in, teaching them a song and opening up a song circle for the evening.
“But it’s been through the hurling group that we managed the first week or two when trying to get the word out there, I found it was a little bit tough.
“And it was the lads in the hurling team that were adamant that they had no singing voices in them but did actually show up.
“It was great that they were able to show up and take part, and enjoyed it themselves as well.”
There is a lot of Irish talent in London..
“You would just be amazed by the amount that there is.
“I find there are different Irish gigs, different shows, gallery openings, theatre shows, music, DJs and you could be going to a different one every night of the week almost.”
Would you make this a regular event?
“It would definitely be something I would look into.
“I would love to make it more of a regular thing.
“I’d love to do that.”
Cillian comes from a musical family.
“I’ve a huge family of music
“Growing up in Moycullen my aunties and uncles were very involved with Comhaltas.
“My uncle set up Comhaltas Moycullen so I would have had a lot of Irish traditional music being played all about me growing up, all of my cousins and aunties and uncles all played some sort of musical instrument.
“I’ve had music going all through my life.
“Music and hurling, two main stays of my life.”
The West’s Awake takes place from 1pm at Bread and Roses SW4 6DZ on Saturday 30 August.
For more information and to book, click here.