Twenty years after its first appearance on the cultural calendar, Carlow's Eigse festival is living up to the grand vision of its founders.
Now one of the major arts events in the State, the 11-day festival gets under way for the 21st time tomorrow.
It would be unrecognisable to most people who remember its relatively small beginnings in 1979. Not so, however, to the five far-sighted people who got the event off the ground.
As one of them, Father Caoi mhin O Neill, puts it, the "very simple beginning" of the project "belied the largeness of the vision which attended it.
"It has taken all of these years for that vision to blossom and become a reality," he says.
If Father O Neill and his cofounders, Ms Brid de Roiste, Ms Deirdre Brennan, Dr Seamus Mac Pairc and Mr Seamus Murphy, visualised anything as exciting as this year's Eigse, they certainly were thinking big.
The music element alone includes a breathtaking array of talent across a range of disciplines, from classical to pop, jazz, traditional, gospel and folk.
Folk stars Sean Keane, Sean ) Tyrell, Eleanor Shanley and Thom Moore - the latter two as part of their Well Past Midnight tour - are just some of those taking the stage.
Street entertainment will be provided on Saturday by a Polish group Przemysl, who will also give workshops in folk, song and dance in primary schools throughout the Carlow.
Saturday week will see an unlikely pairing in action at Hanover Park, where the Artane Band and a local samba group, Incasamba, will both entertain the crowds.
There will also be a major visual arts element, with the British painter Anthony Whishaw sharing top billing with the Irish artist Pauline Flynn.
In what the festival organisers regard as something of a coup, two of Ireland's leading poets, Michael Longley and Cathal O Searcaigh, come together for a bilingual night of poetry reading on Saturday week.
There's a lot more, but the trouble about Eigse is the more you mention, it seems the more you leave out, such as the crafts exhibition, which is a major part of the festival.
No wonder Father O Neill believes that what Eigse did "falteringly" in the beginning, mixing local artistic endeavour with the best of what's available from outside the community, it "now does magnificently".
"The old committee was there for 13 years and was succeeded by a much more dynamic committee, which was our wish. They brought a vigour and an energy which in fairness we could never have hoped to achieve," he says.
"Now there's quite an educated artistic public in Carlow and I think Eigse has contributed very significantly to that."