Armagh will mark the start of this year’s apple growing season over the May Bank Holiday weekend, with a three-day festival against the pink backdrop of 4,000 flower filled acres.
Organisers say that the three-day festival will take place from April 30 to May 2 and it will offer visitors and apple lovers a generous helping of fun and entertainment.
The three-day festival will celebrate the county’s rich apple growing heritage with the help of three local apple industry experts – Morgan’s Apple Farm, Apple Blossom Bakery and the Armagh Cider Company.
The organisers say that the three companies will join forces to provide a series of specially-arranged tours, cookery demos, juice and cider tasting and a pig on the spit lunch on the first day of the festival.
According to the organisers, visitors can enjoy house and orchard tours, picnics and farmyard fun, music and a ‘grow your own’ workshop.
The organisers say that the Bank Holiday Monday is a real treat with events happening at Loughgall Country Park and Ardress House.
Visitors can spend time enjoying cookery demonstrations, the vintage tea tent, barbeques, food and craft stalls, music, face painting and ballooning modelling. A return shuttle bus will operate between the two locations from 12 noon.
Rural Armagh is famously and widely-renowned as the Orchard County, growing some of the finest apples in the world, says the Lord Mayor of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon, Darryn Causby.
The humble Armagh Bramley Apple has become a worldwide phenomenon, securing the esteemed PGI status in 2012.
“A hugely popular annual event, this year’s Apple Blossom Fair has evolved to become a full three-day festival and I know that our local citizens and visitors alike will be delighted with the thrilling menu of activity on offer,” he said.