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Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations were held on Friday March 16th. this year The Festival was presented and announced at this Pre-Festival Concert in the Town Hall Square. Three groups performed on a specially constructed stage with all the professional lighting and sound equipment: 

For the first time, we celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day with a Parade through the Indoor Market in Tortosa. Prior to that, the flag throwing tea of Tortosa performed a demonstration of flag throwing using the flags of the four provinces of Ireland as well as the national flag of Ireland. This is the first time that such a demonstration was carried out either in Catalonia, or indeed on the whole peninsula of Spain! (Attendance 800+).       

The Festival was officially opened by our new Lady Mayor of Tortosa, Meritxell Roige. In her speech she welcomed the Tortosa English Festival to Tortosa and emphasised the cultural impact it was having on the people of Tortosa, especially the young. She praised the committee for volunteering to put on this Festival and she expressed her best wishes for its

This year we had three separate debates plus a special quiz for primary students. As well as secondary school students, third and fourth of ESO, we also had an inter university debate with representatives from 8 different universities taking part. The debate was monitored by Jen Welti from the University of Swansea. Eight schools from Terres de l’Ebre took part in the senior debate and five schools participated in the junior debate.

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This is the third year that the indoor food market in Tortosa hosted an Irish Concert Evening. All the association stallholders opened their stall in the evening for the general public to come and enjoy! They provided drinks and Irish Tapas and decorated their stalls with an Irish theme. All displayed their products in English language and all many learned some English words to

Lyudmila is the English Book Reading Club organizer and this year she invited Montse Suberats to present a Power Point Presentation on Saint Patrick and some old Irish superstitions. After her presentation the group discussed many different aspects of superstitions and everyone contributed with their own fears, phobias and thoughts. Even some ways to negate superstitions were suggested! (Attendance: 25) 

Like last year, this event was held in the public library in Tortosa on Saturday morning. The reading was performed in the main hall of the library on the ground floor. Many children enjoyed another short story by Silvia Panisello who has been performing children’s tales in English in Tortosa and further afield for many years. The parents and other audience members seemed to enjoy it also!

Another event this year was the English competition among the stall holders at the indoor Market in Tortosa. All the members of their association participated in promoting the English language by way of English signs and names of products on sale. Many of the stall holders used the English language in their

This was the first year that we introduced Zumba Dancing in English. It was held in front of the Market and was led the Zumba Dance Leader from EUSES University in Tortosa. As well as putting on a fantastic Zumba display, the audience and public were invited to participate and everyone joined in this activity! (Attendance: 400)

This event was presented again this year. The group of 25 participants was led by Yoga Instructor Pamela Sharp in the public library in Tortosa. (Attendance: 25)

This is one of the most famous event. It was held in the Parc Restaurant in Tortosa. Over 80 teenagers played a number of FIFA video games. The event was attended by the players and their supporters who cheered them on at every given opportunity! The duration of the competition was six hours and the eventual winner was presented with the prize of Canal Ocio products. (Attendance: 250)

The Bar Quiz Night was held in the Parador Hotel as last year There were eight different category rounds with eight questions in each round. The questions were a little more difficult this year and the thirty participating teams had to work hard to answer the questions. The Parador provided an excellent supper at a reasonable price and everyone enjoyed the evening immensely. (Attendance: 300)

This was held in the Chapel of the Teresianas School.  The El Perello Coral Decibels once again performed many wonderful Gospel songs. (Attendance: 200)

The breakfast this year was hosted in the Car Park of the Felip Pedrell Theatre. . Once again, the breakfast was sponsored by Ous Roig. The eggs were ‘free range’ from Happy Hens and were delicious! These were accompanied by Black Pudding, Bacon and sausage. The Irish Breakfast was served by our smiling young volunteers. Santi Pelejà and his happy team of senior volunteers served up a fantastic and filling Irish Breakfast for everyone who came. (Attendance: 250)

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This was another great event to this year’s Festival activity. 34 cars in total came. A mixture of native English speakers and Catalans brought their cars full of household goods that were unwanted by them. Business was excellent and all the car booters said they would return again next year. This was a new event to the people of Tortosa and once they understood the concept, they came in great numbers to look over all the interesting things for sale. This has become one of the most popular events! (Attendance 700+)

In attendance were Emili Lehmann, Tortosa Town Hall Council and many business leaders of Tortosa, including Daniel Cortijo, President of the Small Business Associate of Tortosa. All the dignitaries gave out the prizes and thanked the committee for organizing the Festival, the participants in each of the various events and competitions, as well as the