Huartan’s first ever gig was Stendhal 2023. Now they are back in Limavady for a headline billing, with visuals, dancers, a huge banner and the essential parts of a milestone album. The mission is to rouse the people with a techno-pagan experience. This is expertly realised in a chill evening at the Roe Valley.
Huartan at Stendhal Festival. Photo by Stuart Bailie
The event’s Sunday schedule is unfortunately bereft of Sprints and Lisa McHugh. The festival planners have been shifting artists around the various stages and coping with the rain that has defied the forecasts and muddied the fields for the duration. As Huartan are setting up, a trail of soggy punters is headed back to the campsites. We hear the first rumblings of ‘Uiseog’ and the exodus is stalled. It is time for ceremony, big tunes and Cairde Gael energy.
While the previous days at Stendhal provided many reasons to celebrate (see Friday’s review here), the final day has struggled. There was some mirth with Ed Byrne, who aimed his jokes at the dads and the unspoken dread of middle age. He made light of wedding planners and the bourgeois intent of bathroom scales before recalling some ancient shagging exploits. He’s done better.
Ed Byrne, Stendhal Festival 2025. Photo by Stuart Bailie.
Bog Bodies. Photo by Stuart Bailie.
Hat Fitz & Cara channeled some tremendous juke joint boogie. Meantime, Roll With It, the Oasis tribute act was a tonic, possibly even a prosecco supernova, for the late afternoon. DJ Ruairí was playing Middle Eastern rhythms on the Homegrown Stage while the bandstand was busy with the neon-lit twang of Balcony Sunrise plus the selections of Marion Hawkes and Conor Schmutz.
Bog Bodies played affecting dread-trad and railed against the gold-extractors of rural Ireland. The Florentinas returned to Stendhal, useful with the expansive indie anthems and wibbling angst. Still, you would want them to reveal more character at this point and some of the older viewers may see the bass player’s moves and recall the Kajagoogoo wars with a shudder.
Therefore, Huartan are required for the turnaround. They have personality in surplus and a thematic battery that includes language rights, Palestine, anti-capitalism and that magical fissure into pre-Christian Ireland. The songs build with the dynamic of rave tunes, aided by the traditional finesse of Stiofán, Múlú and Catriona. It’s great – potentially this generation’s equivalent to Horslips, with the banging tunes and the rich application.
Huartan, Stendhal Festival 2025. Photo by Stuart Bailie.
‘Bean Udaí Thall’ plays out a murder mystery on stage. ‘Dúlamán’ is the signal to amp up the party before ‘Cad é Sin Don Té Sin’ affirms that the fun may never stop. The militancy of Huartan’s style is maintained with the instrumental swirl of ‘7,000’. It is upheld with the voice of Bernadette Devlin McAliskey on ‘Fián’ – such a voice, critical sentiments against the masters of war.
Huartan, Stendhal Festival 2025. Photo by Stuart Bailie.
The audience chants spontaneously, responding to the previous weekend’s work by Bob Vylan. There’s an extra band player on stage – Laura is a cellist in wolf’s clothing. All of the superpowers collide with ‘Amhrán na Réabhlóide’ – new words by Catriona to an old church hymn, pledging allegiance to the Palestinian cause, whatever it may require. The dancers Anna and Micheál unfurl a home-made banner that reads VICTORY TO THE RESISTANCE.
All the emotions peak. Goodnight, Stendhal. It’s been significant.
Stuart Bailie
The Benefactors is about grift, abuse and minor acts of kindness in Belfast. Wendy Erskine’s tremendous first novel is stacked with many voices and disparate sounds as it slices through the strata of a city in motion. There is new money in tech and hospitality. Execs in the voluntary sector are pitching for the post-conflict dollar and can play the Troubles card on demand. There is a rotten character to much of the effort, plus a teen culture in the ’burbs that sneers about smicks, free school dinners and DLA sportswear. 
Liam Gallagher is playing drums on my head. I hear a few rhythmic taps, like he’s keeping time on the snare. There’s an occasional swish across the top of the bald napper, casual and cool, Ringo-style. This is happening by the doors of the Astoria on London’s Charing Cross Road and a few music fans are watching, bemused. As they might be. They’ve just been to a feverish gig by the band Ash, but here’s Liam, the most significant face in popular music just now, on the beat with a music journalist.
Shellshock Rock – the John T.Davis short documentary film that gives this epic triple CD and DVD compilation its name – has assumed mythical status since it was first briefly released in 1979. Not surprising perhaps, given that it was initially banned from the Cork Film Festival, went on to win awards around the world, and yet has never really had a proper commercial release until now, a mere 41 years later.
Grá mór to RÓIS and her album Mo Léan. This hidden story of the Irish keening tradition has become a shared fascination. She has liberated voices, long silenced by Church, State and Empire. A wonderful coup.
You can’t accuse The Wood Burning Savages of caring less. Every track on their second album is a retort, a legitimate wail, a Ken Loach storyline. They itemise loathing, furious at the major lies and petty cruelties. It’s a parade of militant incels, grasping landlords, party ideologues and the children of immigrants who want to outlaw a system that gave their own families a point of entry. 
Dani Larkin sings ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, reeling with the fever and surprise in the words. It’s a story of intense attraction but it also hints at a love affair that may not be realised in this world.
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