Paddy Cronin and Seamus Creagh traded fiddle tunes in Con's bar with the generosity of players hellbent on bequeathing a limitless legacy to their fellow session players, who had travelled from as far afield as Japan and Gneeveguilla, neither a journey to be undertaken by the faint-hearted.

Shifting their two weekend concerts to the Ivy Leaf Arts Centre was an inspired decision, and on Sunday night, as well as honouring the magnificent Kiskeam fiddler, Maurice O'Keeffe (a man who's no stranger to that fine-bowed, haunting Sliabh Luachra fiddle style), the stage was subsumed by a tsunami of sublime players. From Melanie Murphy's light-fingered playing (on both concertina and fiddle), revelling in the wink and elbow language of delight at the turning of every tune alongside her father, Dónal and bouzouki player, Brian Mooney to the ferocious eclecticism of Sligo flute player, Peter Horan, Kerry fiddler, Gerry Harrington and Dublin piper, Peter Browne, there were more magical moments in time than were ever captured by the Brothers Grimm. Niamh Parsons and Graham Dunne filled the ether with a spellbinding tale of the madness of war, John Condon, every molecule in Parsons' body vibrating in between Dunne's pinprick accompaniment.

More Ivy League than Ivy Leaf, this was a festival that distilled the essence of O'Keeffe's genius: note by shimmering note. Siobhán Long