What's on in April

 A double bill of festivals in April means you won’t be stuck for things to see and do and taste, writes Dee Laffan.

Festival season well and truly ignited this month, with the fourth annual Galway Food Festival kicking things off last weekend over the Easter bank holiday weekend. The five-day festival celebrated all things foodie in Galway and by all accounts was as successful, if not more, than previous years.

Next on the calendar, we travel south east to the coastal town of Dungarvan and surrounding countryside for the West Waterford Festival of Food, taking place from Thursday 9th to Sunday 12th April and celebrating eight successive years.

Following on last year’s theme of ‘Pioneering Women in Irish Food’, the theme of this year’s festival is ‘Generations in Irish Food’. Focusing on the rich family tradition of food on the island, the festival will shine a spotlight on some of our home-grown heroes and the generations of families who continue to produce, cook, sell and run some of Ireland’s greatest and best-loved restaurants and food businesses.

One of the key events of the programme will be hosted in Dromana House, which incredibly this year celebrates 800 years of ownership by the same family, and is created by local chef (and regular contributor to our ezine) Eunice Power as a tribute to local West Waterford food families.

Called ‘Celebrating Generations of West Waterford Food Stories’, Eunice’s menu celebrates the food stories of the McGraths, Flahavans, and Barrons by showcasing not just the continuing history and narrative of these family businesses, so important in the region, but their delicious ingredients too!

Other festival highlights include:

• The legendary Darina Allen and her equally talented brother Rory O’Connell of Ballymaloe Cookery School, giving their unique family insight into the food story of Ireland.

• ‘The Emerging Generation’ series of demonstrations from up-and-coming members of established food families features the next generation cooking, as the older generation lends a hand, with Jack & Tim McCarthy, the award-winning butchers from Kanturk, Richard and Duncan Blair (and their mother!) of Georgina Campbell’s Pub of the Year 2014, Blairs Inn, and charcuterie master Frank Krawczyk with his talented son, chef Rob Krawczyk, who will demo together for the first time with the title Charcuterie from Father to Son.

• The Tannery continues as a cornerstone of the festival as they host tasting menus on Friday and Saturday called ‘Generations of Food Producers’, and on Sunday they host a duck feast for lunch, in association with Silverhill, the internationally-renowned family business of duck producers.

• The hugely popular Farmer’s Market will held in the main square on Sunday 12th.

• Busanna Bia will return, with three different routes this year, giving festival goers the opportunity to visit as many producers as possible on each route.

• Visitors can expect bike buffets, seaweed seminars, 50 Shades of Tae, Irish craft in a glass which offers a series of opportunities to taste and learn about the increasingly popular craft beer, gin, cider and whiskey of Ireland, and much more!

Tickets are on sale now, visit waterfordfestivaloffood.com.

The final festival in April takes us back to the capital for the inaugural Dublin Wine Fest from Monday 20th to Sunday 25th April. This is one of five new city-wide festivals from Great Irish Beverages – a celebration of the exciting range of drinks that the best Dublin bars, restaurants and hotels serve today.

Twenty-five of the city’s best bars and restaurants came on board for the first two festivals from Great Irish Beverages, Dublin Cocktail Fest (October 13th–18th) and the more recent Dublin Whiskey Fest (February 16th–21st). Plus, later this year sees a further two festivals – the Dublin Gin & Tonic Fest in June and Dublin Cider Fest in August.

The Dublin Wine Fest works in a similar way to a music festival in that festival-goers buy a wristband for the event, which costs €5 – from participating venues or www.Entertainment.ie – and gets you a 30% discount on at least two festival wines at more than 20 Dublin bars and restaurants.

Each bar/restaurant will also offer a ‘Dublin Wine Experience’ for the week of the festival to complement their festival wines. This might be an aperitivo hour (e.g. 5pm-7pm), featuring a wine-based cocktail; it might be a flight of wines; or maybe wine with a tapas-sized food pairing etc. Festival-goers will vote online for the festival’s ‘Best Dublin Wine Experience’, with a cash-prize for the winning venue.

Participating venues will be promoted in neighbourhood and transport-based hubs (e.g. Georgian Dublin; Luas, etc.) to encourage festival-goers to engage in self-guided wine trails – the aim being to experience each venue in a new way and encourage return visits, rather than simply promoting cut-price drinking.

Participating venues include: Ely HQ, Ananda, Balfes, The Butcher Grill, Camden Kitchen, Chameleon, Coppinger Row, Diep le Shaker, Drury Buildings, Dunne & Crescenzi, ely winebar, Fade St Social, l’Gueuleton, Koh, l’Officina, Rock Lobster, Rustic Stone, Stanley’s Restaurant & Wine Bar, Super Miss Sue, Tribeca Winebar, The Woollen Mills and more.

Follow all activity for the event and future ones at www.facebook.com/GreatIrishBeverages or on Twitter @IrishBeverages. Look out for #DublinWineFest for all festival news, including details of the Dublin Wine Experience offering from each participating venue.

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Dee Laffan is a freelance food writer and editor. Formerly editor of Easy Food magazine, she has written for the Irish Independent and Sunday Independent. She is a proud supporter of Irish producers and their products, and takes part in judging for food competitions including Blas na hÉireann and the Great Taste Awards. She is a member of the Irish Food Writers' Guild and secretary for Slow Food Dublin. Twitter @deelaffan