The region is awash with Christmas markets and fairs this weekend, with the West End Yard in Dunmanway hosting a Christmas Market on Thursday December 4th from 2pm, with carol singing at 3pm. Further west, a Christmas Coffee Morning will be held at Cara House in Skibbereen with the Luncheon Club on Friday December 5th from 11am. The Marino Church in Bantry is hosting a fair in support of Doctors Without Borders from 11am also on Friday, while the Clonakilty Brass Band are in the Sacred Heart Church in Courtmacsherry with the Courtmacsherry Church Choir on Friday December 5th at 7.30pm.
Castletownbere is holding its Christmas lights switch-on in The Square on Saturday December 6th at 7.30pm, with carol singing and mulled wine. In Schull, the Tree of Light Ceremony is on the same day at 6pm, and down in Union Hall, the lights will switched on in the village and at Willie and Diana’s on Saturday, with a parade at 4.45pm m the Causeway led by the Balingeary Pipe Band. A very special guest is expected too, busy checking his list for the names of both adults and children in West Cork, so please behave.
Come to the Manger, produced for Bandon Parish by the late Sr Alphonsus O’Brien, is staged on December 7th at St Patrick’s Church in the town at 4pm, while the CCE Baile Núis is holding a concert in Newcestown Parish Hall at 3pm on the same day.
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A craft fair in Clogagh Hall outside of Timoleague is on Sunday from 10am, with a Christmas Craft Fair at the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen on Sunday too, and another at CECAS in Leap with a shuttle bus running from St Mary’s Church carpark. Dogs are welcome, and admission is free. The Deelish Christmas Fair takes place on Sunday too at the Garden Centre in Skibbereen, while up the road Bantry has a new on-street Christmas market from 11am on Sunday, with Santa in his grotto at the Marino Church from 2pm.
Castletownbere’s Christmas Market is on Sunday too from 11am in Scoil an Chroi Ro Naofa, with a Very Important Person visiting at 1pm. Later that evening, in Enniskeane there’s a Tractor Run at 8pm with Santa coming there too. He is naturally a very busy man in West Cork this weekend but he has assured The Southern Star that it’s no bother, as the state of the roads don’t affect the sleigh’s suspension.
Later in the week, on December 10th Skibbereen’s Santa Cycle and Silent Disco takes place at 4.30pm at the playground in the town. Deck your bike, rock around some Christmas trees, and enjoy an après cycle hot chocolate and mince pie.
