Interceltique, the biggest festival in France gives everyone - but especially the young - a chance to celebrate their culture. Jane Coyle sees how we perform in 'the Year of Ireland'.

The carnival is over. An eerie calm hangs over the tree-lined streets and picturesque harbour of the Breton naval port of Lorient, which just a few days ago was alive to the sights and sounds of a seething throng of humanity, gathered to celebrate the 35th Festival Interceltique de Lorient. It is firmly established as the biggest festival in France, has been attended by more than 600,000 people and looks set to swell the civic coffers by an estimated €20 million.

This has been designated "the Year of Ireland", though "every year seems to be the year of Ireland", as Padraig Larkin, the proprietor of the Galway Bar, points out.

"Ironically, this year's Irish programme does not feel as full as usual and is without the really big names that we would have expected to see," he says.

Larkin has lived in Lorient for 17 years, and has become something of a local "fixer" and celebrity. Soon after the Galway Bar opened in 1988, Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains - the surprise guest at Galician piper Carlos Nunez's Monday night concert - chose it as the venue for his 50th birthday party. Since then, a procession of famous musicians has performed in its relaxed, bohemian atmosphere, where many a cash-strapped Irish traveller has found a bed and hospitality for the night.

"It's impossible to imagine such an event happening in Ireland," says Larkin. "Lorient has wide streets and a beautiful summer climate. The festival has an excellent infrastructure and, by and large, the whole town gets behind it. I wish more musicians back home knew of its existence. Maybe, if participation were linked into something like the Fleadh Cheoil network, the word would spread further. But the direct flights into Lorient from Waterford and Galway have made a huge difference and I believe they are are going to be extended to Dublin and Belfast next year. It all helps to bring Ireland and Brittany that much closer."

In this, its year of honour, the Irish delegation has focused on the language as the cornerstone of its programme, which has been delivered by a delegation of 250 Irish-speaking, largely non-professional participants from across the country. The team has been led, for the last time, by fervent Gaelgeoir Tomás Mac Ruairí, who has been at the helm for the past 25 years.

"It's time for a hand-over," he says. "But I'll still be around in the background, if needed. I have built such a strong team around me, that it's unlikely things will change very much."

But for all the goodwill and earnest endeavour demonstrated by the performers, their efforts have not generated a universally positive response. The sell-out Gala Concert - La Soirée Irlandaise - on the first Saturday was attended by the great and good of Lorient, together with the Irish Ambassador, Anne Anderson. They had turned out in style, hoping to be treated to a night of musical fire of the kind produced by last year's guests of honour, the tiny Canadian region of Acadia.

Rarely do the Irish stand accused of being too well behaved, but that was precisely how next day's headline in Ouest France newspaper summed up the evening. The reviewer went on to describe the performance (in translation): "Beautiful, yes; very well played, certainly; but, God, was it solemn! The evening was more of a serious recital than the gala that we had been promised."

But as the days rolled by, the sombre mood was lifted by memorable performances by professional bands such as Kila, Slí, Teada and Lúnasa, as well as from the seemingly endless stream of young performers cutting loose in the Irish Pavilion.

South Armagh fiddle player Paul Flynn first came to the Festival six years ago, with a group of musician friends. Now he's here in an official capacity - as traditional arts development officer for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

"The first few times I was here, I either camped or stayed at the Galway Bar. Now I'm being put up at a nice hotel. It makes me feel really old!" Flynn was in attendance as a result of having taken the initiative to make an official approach to the Irish delegation.

"I felt that in this, the Year of Ireland, Ulster was under-represented, so the Northern Ireland Arts Council offered assistance to bring over the poet Philip Cummings. The delegation had left it too late to apply to us for mainstream funding, but they have said they will do so next year. Hopefully, this will allow us to bring over a few more of the many fine performers we have in the North."

Like other seasoned observers, Flynn notes with satisfaction the vast number of young people attending the Festival and actively engaging in traditional culture. Of the performers he has seen this year, he picks out two teenagers - Niamh Gallagher, a fiddler from Jonesborough in South Armagh, and the Omagh guitarist and banjo player Ryan O'Donnell - as " . . . two of the most incredible young talents I've seen in a long time".

At the launch of Exploring Trad, a DVD produced by Flynn and Belfast musician/ composer Neil Martin with the aim of educating primary and secondary school pupils about the history of traditional music and dance, Dublin senior hurler Fergal Chambers was proudly sporting his blue Dubs shirt. Having just graduated in zoology from Trinity College, he was in Lorient to teach the uilleann pipes in one of the workshops, set up some 20 years ago by Spiddal concertina player Mícheál Ó hEidhin.

"I started out at the Festival as a judge for the piping competitions," says Ó hEidhin. "Then the idea came to me to start workshops. The students are getting younger by the year. It's great to see."

The somewhat low-key Femmes d'Irlande - Women of Ireland - concert was given a welcome injection of gutsy sean-nós singing by 18-year-old Róisín Chambers, sister of Fergal. Fondly described by Mac Ruairí as " . . . a wee Dub", her mother comes from Connemara and she was taught by the legendary Seamas Mac Mathúna. She came on early in the evening so that afterwards she could nip around the corner to Le Moustoir, the Lorient football stadium, where she was singing the overture at the Nuit Magique spectacular, live in front of a crowd of 10,000 .

Scary stuff? "Not really," she says. "It was a bit strange alright, the first time. But I love to sing, and actually you can't see very much when you're out there. I'm much more nervous about going home and getting my Leaving Cert results!"

Cummings, a poet from West Belfast, who writes in Irish and English and is a fluent French speaker, may have been a late - and unprogrammed - participant, but found his work and background attracting considerable attention. "It has been a very good experience. You can't help being struck by what a great place this is for the youth of the Celtic world to meet and exchange their respective cultures. It makes you feel optimistic about the future, in a way that no amount of European initiatives could achieve." And so the Year of Ireland has drawn to an end. And there is much to reflect upon.

While there is still a lot of love around for the Irish, there have been dissenting voices, too. Bertrand Le Nena of the Telegramme newspaper had some harsh words in his summing-up. He declared that director Jean-Pierre Pichard had reckoned himself able to offer his customers an even stronger programme than in 2004, when Acadia was in the spotlight. With Ireland as the featured region, he was surely onto a safe bet. But, in Le Nena's view, they have not promoted their culture in the way that the Acadiens continue to do and he concluded by describing the Irish as " . . . the spoilt children of the Celtic world, who no longer have anything to prove".

Next year, it's the turn of Australia to step forward. The Celts are spreading their wings and the Festival awaits with interest.