Page 3 - The 16th Percy French Festival: Our Great Disconnect

‘Where there’s no connection, there’s no protection.’
the 16th percy french festival 2024
Will Storr, The Status Game: On Social Position and How We Use It, William Collins, Glasgow, 2021
No country can survive without a national identity and for centuries, Ireland’s Honorary President of the Festival, the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins
identity was inextricably connected with Catholicism/Christianity. The rulers of Informed Social & Cultural Discussion of Ireland Today
Modern Ireland, all its agencies including mainstream media are at war with our
country’s past and its belief systems, yet have failed to come up with a positive
vision for what Ireland actually is or should be. As a result today we now define
ourselves more by what we have rejected and why? The truth is Christianity will
survive without Ireland, but Ireland without Christianity looks doomed.* Our Great Disconnect

Transhumanists see the natural biological limititations of man as problematic and
advocate instead the use of technology to advance or supercede human effort and
suffering, deifying its advances in the process. Despite advances we are becoming 17th | 18th | 19th | july 2024
more and more discon nected from one another suffering energy depletion levels
as a result, primarily because we have substituted interaction for social media. Our
bodies exist on vibrational levels, love being the highest vibrational level. To maintain introduction page 2
our energy levels we derive it not only from each other or food but from what, where wednesday 17th page 15
or whom we centre our edification upon; the environment, workplace, education,
enter tainment and so on. If our energy levels are low our bodies suffer and low energy thursday 18th page 17
levels are directly related to stress and disease; computers, TV, bright screens have
a negative impact on our energy levels and consequently our mental health. friday 19th page 17

‘Our hunger to think and talk about the moral and the transcendent will never be sated’ speakers & performers page 18
according to Augustine. Elevated language; poetry, songs , epic stories, prayer all exist
on a high vibrational level, raising our consciousness and improving our mental health.
When the great books are re-contextualised into the sociopolitical and cultural worlds Please be seated 15 minutes before the first talk each day
of their time, by straining them of their mythical language they become more meaning -
ful, powerful and accessible to all. castlecoote house

Percy French captured some extraordinary landscape scenes around Ireland, all involv -

ing the light in all its cycles; rising, setting, bursting forth or spilling down on what castlecoote •co. roscommon
would often be a very mundane or ordinary setting, like a simple stream or wildflower info@castlecootehouse.com • +353 (0) 90 666 3794
gorse; it was as if he was saying ’this is who we are. this is the backdrop that begot us, www.percyfrench.ie • www.castlecootehouse.com
hold onto our connection with it. In the midst of some bad planning decisions during
the boom,we at the festival raised the question ‘what has happened our honourable The Percy French Festival 2024 acknowledges the major support
relationship with the land?’ Today we may well ask ‘is our discon nec tion from nature of Excel Industries; Whyte’s; CastleAcre; C&F Quadrant Ltd;

linked to a corresponding spiritual diminishment as well?’ Alongside the climate Davies Group; Hidden Ireland.
crisis is there not also a spiritual crisis, one directly related to our stewardship of nature? The Percy French Festival, registered address: as above
Brochure created, compiled, and edited by Kevin Finnerty ©2024

Many centres for leadership and group conversation have disappeared throughout Since 2009 The Percy French Festival has taken place annually
Ireland, post offices, churches, community centres, acutely so in rural Ireland. The nature at Castlecoote House, the home of the festival founder,
of our daily connection and communication has changed dramatically with technology Kevin Finnerty, whose father was a founder member
and social media overtaking interaction. People now live alone, work alone, entertain of the Percy French Festivals of 1957 and 1958.
themselves alone, travel alone and are more fragmented and atom ised than ever before.
As a result loneliness has become one of the silent taboo epi dem ics in Ireland with its
impact on our mental and physical well being some what equivalent to diabetes
or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Kevin Finnerty
Update Heating Limited, Unit 104 Millennium Business Park,Cappagh Road, Dublin 11.
01833 9394 / 01833 8676 / sales@update.ie
* See James Bradshaw, ‘Ireland’s divorce from Catholicism has created a massive cultural vacuum’, Position Papers,
28th October 2023, https://positionpapers.ie