A group of 18 – young people and leaders – from the Diocesan Youth Council in Cork, Cloyne and Ross attended the Christian youth festival – Summer Madness – from 1st to 5th July in Glenarm, County Antrim.

The Cork, Cloyne and Ross group that travelled to Summer Madness 2016

Here is a report from one member of the group about the time at Summer Madness 2016:

In the early hours of the 1^st of July, the madness begun! Packing the bus to the brim with a marquee, tents, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, bags of clothes, wellies and 18 young people and leaders.

With everything on board we struck for Glenarm in Co. Antrim where we were met with dodgy looking skies! First priority was to get the tents and marquee up to save our bags from the rain. And rain it did but not before we were safely inside. But it didn’t dampen our spirits in the least. We donned the wellies and rain coats…well at least those of us who remembered to pack them!!

The next four days were jam packed with worship, seminars, games, food, tea and tray bakes in the CIYD CONNECT Cafè, chat and banter. This year we had the luxury of being fed our dinner by Alan Williamson and his fabulous crew at the Ykea camp (Sligo), which saved us a lot of stress and hassle of keeping food fresh without a fridge. We are truly grateful and thankful for all of their good home cooking and the chance to meet up with other young people and leaders from all over Ireland.

The Big Top mainstage speakers this year were Rachel Hughes who is involved in leading women’s ministry and teaching. Matt Summerfield – the Chief Executive of Urban Saints and Pastor of Hitchin Christian Centre. Adrian McCartney is the leader of Boring Wells and performed the Sunday morning service an Eucharist for the whole camp

Bluetree provided the music for the first two days before Stephen Mayes took over for the last few days. Both bands were energetic and “super cool”!!

While all of this was going on the rain never let up, well except for Sunday. By the last night my poor tent couldn’t take anymore. My poor airbed was more like a water bed and so I had to abandon ship and find lodgings somewhere else!! Thankfully on our final packing up day the rain held off so we could at least get everything back on the bus dry, including ourselves.

I would just like to say a Big Thank You to our Cork group. What a fantastic group of people, you made the whole trip a bundle of laughs and great fun. I honestly enjoyed every minute of it. Looking forward to Summer Madness 2017!