ALL OF the lights are flashing and the band is in good voice. The crowd is swaying, singing along to the chorus – “Your love is surprising/ I can feel it rising/Hallelujah” – which is not a million miles away from the spiritual malarkey with which Bono enthralled the Glastonbury crowd on Friday night.

This, though, is a smaller festival: one of the many fringe events that have mushroomed around Ireland in the last few years and the scene is typical – a marquee, a hellacious sound system, strobe lights, young people lost in music. But there is one important difference: this is 9.23am and everyone is stone-cold sober.

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