Africa Day 2008 - Dublin Castle

Ireland's black community was embraced at the Africa Day festival in the grounds of Dublin Castle. Sinead O'Connor, Kila, Mundy, and Republic of Loose performed at the free family event alongside Ugandan drummers, Kenyan acrobats, traditional Nigerian dancers, Congolese folk singers and gospel choirs. More than 40,000 people born in Africa are living in Ireland, with the majority coming from Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Congo. Census figures showed that 20,000 of those were living in the capital.

The Minister made a short speech explaining how welcome Africans are in Ireland and that Africa Day was first celebrated here three years ago. He said that the party is getting much bigger and that it is hoped that it will be even bigger next year with better entertainment an bands (I assume that he was not saving that the entertainment available today needed to be better because it was excellent).