An Féile 2012 programme is announced. Mary Black in concert looks good. There is also a Beach Boys Tribute Band………….maybe those nice young men from the Conway Volunteer Band can learn the words of “Sloop John B”.

Some worthy talks on the Holocaust and the Basques. Obligatory Womens Suffrage Discussion with Margaret Ward and Myrtle Hill. Eamonn McCann, Tom Hartley and Myrtle Hill will be talking about the Ulster Covenant.

Loyalist ex-prisoners will be talking about the Loyalist Experience of Long Kesh at St Marys College in the heart of the Falls Road. Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered black Londoner, Stephen Lawrence will be talking about her fight for Justice.

Low point is the risible Stephen Nolan…….our very own Alan Partridge ……hosts an event “Belfast Youth Talks Back”. For grown-ups a real journalist Yvette Shapiro hosts “West Belfast Talks Back” with Gerry Kelly MLA and George Galloway MP.

This year An Féile has some great events…….some “worthy” rather than “interesting” but two things. Big Clash with Olympics. And as someone who actually participated in the first Feile before it was actually An Féile as it is today……I am a little concerned that broadening the events into Belfast generally has taken away from the original purpose of An Féile……a non-violent and cultural alternative to the annual August protests over Internment.

It has dare I say got just a little too big……..a little too “international”.