"IT'S ONE of the best independent festivals I've been to," said Sam Kelly from Tullamore from his perch at the back seat of the aptly named Castle Baloobus yesterday, painted up and parked on the grounds of the Castlepalooza two-day festival.
The bus provides shelter for passing revellers and is an alternative venue for all-night parties away from the campsite.
"The castle, the woods," Kelly gestures expansively to take in the majestic surroundings, home now to this tiny boutique festival for three years running. "It's our place."
This sense of ownership is part of the Castlepalooza plan, with organisers intent on keeping things intimate even as the numbers grow annually. "We deliberately keep it small because you can look after people that way," said Cillian Stewart, the festival's organiser and nephew of Dudley Stewart, current resident of Charleville Castle and a member of the Charleville Castle Heritage Trust. "It's more like an intimate party."
Party headliners this year included Republic of Loose, Fight Like Apes, Kormac and a DJ set from UK powerpoppers Mystery Jets, all of whom appeared on the slightly larger of the festival's two tiny, frill-free stages.
For an €85 entrance fee, festival-goers also got to wander about several rooms in the 17th-century castle itself, with a plush ballroom emptied out to cater for those taking a break from the sounds or the weather.
The latter, however, was on Castlepalooza's side this year, with sporadic showers blowing over quickly to make way for blue skies and some unexpected appearances of sunshine.
Despite the merciful conditions, many still made their way indoors to avail of the sundry services in the Purple Morning Spa, where the sun streamed in from the early hours. "There's no recession according to these books," said Adrienne Sweeney, the spa manager, who extended her opening hours to cater for the manicure- and massage-hungry clientele.
While many arrived for the bigger names on the eclectic festival line-up, surprise hits of the year included South African rockers The Parlotones, singer-songwriter Joe Echo, and Kilkenny drum maestro Rarely Seen Above Ground. Others were happy to entertain themselves, with a SingStar tent providing karaoke opportunities for wannabe rockers.
Yet it clearly wasn't just the music, or the massages, that kept campers happy. "It's brilliant because it's so small and so intimate," Dubliner Rachel Rispin explained. "It's like a baby Electric Picnic."
High praise from hardcore festival-goers who wandered cheerfully among the tents and tottered the small distance between stages, enjoying the surroundings and the magical castle that the money raised from their entrance fees will help maintain, hopefully, for plenty of Castlepaloozas to come.