Irish Lebanon Project - Saint Patrick's Week - Eddé Sands - Byblos

The Irish Lebanon Project Charity are looking for volunteers of Irish Musicians, Irish Dancers and Irish Singers to join them on an Irish Themed St. Patrick’s Week in Lebanon in 2009. The efforts of the volunteers will contribute to the building of a Hospital in the South Lebanese Village of Tayr Harfa which will service twenty eight surrounding villages.

The Irish Volunteers will be based in the Eddé Sands Beach Resort in the Biblical City of Byblos which is North of Beirut and boasts to be the oldest inhabited City in the World. The volunteers will be asked to raise €3000.00 in fundraising events in Ireland and they will enjoy the support and help of the Irish Lebanon Project in any of their fundraising activities.

Our group will comprise of about 100 to 150 volunteers made up of Irish Dancers, Irish Singers and Irish Bands. Our intention is to have the biggest “Fléadh Ceol” that the Middle East has ever seen.

Our week in Lebanon in March 2009 will be planned to have street festivities of story telling, Irish music, Irish singing and Irish Dancing. We will deck out the streets of Byblos with Irish bunting. We will compliment St. Patrick’s Day with a Parade.

Clonakilty Foods have kindly offered to sponsor the breakfast for the group for the week so we are sure of a good start to the day with a lash of Clonakilty Black Pudding !.

All expenses from flights, hotel accommodation, meals, insurance and transport, will be paid for our volunteers from their own fundraising. The balance will purchase blocks, cement, doors, windows etc for our Hospital Project.

Our volunteers will have the opportunity to visit the site of our first Hospital in South Lebanon to observe their fundraising efforts at work. They will also have the chance to associate with the building contractors of the Hospital.

It is also our intention to take our volunteers to visit some of the archaeological sites in Lebanon. We will visit Jeita grottoes ( both galleries ) then proceed to visit the Lady of Lebanon in Harissa by cable car. Our volunteers will also visit the Cedar's forest of Lebanon & Gibran museum in Bcharreh. Our journeys will also take us to Baalbeck Via Beit Eddine Palace in the Chouf Mountain & Via Ksara Winery. Our travels will also include Maghdouche in Sidon where Our Lady waited for Jesus while he preached in the Pagan town of Sidon and also Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle. We will also do some sight seeing in Beirut to include the National Museum. Our volunteers will also have some free time for shopping.

This promises to be a very unique event and the Irish Lebanon Project invite applications from the public for the trip of a lifetime. If you can play a bowrán, tin whistle, Illean Pipes, guitar, banjo etc or if you can lash out "The Banks" or " Christy Moore" or if you can "River Dance" the "Walls of Limerick", or if you are a member of a pipe band, please let us know and help us make the biggest "Fléadh Ceol" that the Middle East has ever seen.