Cat Laughs

The Cat Laughs Comedy Festival is a comedy festival held over the first weekend in June each year in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1994.[1]

History

Cat Laughs was envisioned in 1994 by Lynn Cahill who ran a theatre in Kilkenny. Due to a lack of business, she considered with her business partner that Kilkenny was great for a festival. After originally planning a choral festival called "Cat Sings", her business partner Richard Cook suggested a comedy festival instead.[1] For the first two editions, no Irish comedian closed the festival due to the audience preferring British comics.[1] The first edition was sponsored by Smithwick's before being sponsored by Murphy's Irish Stout until 2015 when Smithwick's returned.[2] It is traditionally held over the weekend of Pentecost.[3] Each comedian is previewed at other shows by the festival directors before being invited to perform at Cat Laughs.[1]

Several comedians throughout the British Isles attended including; Dara Ó Briain, Ed Byrne and Eddie Izzard.[4][5] The festival became referred to by RTE as the "Best Little Comedy Festival in the world".[6] The festival has also been used as a way to launch the careers of comedians from outside the British Isles in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.[7]

A tradition developed over the years that as a part of the festival, the Irish comedians would play a football match against comedians from the rest of the world for the Cat Cup.[4]

gollark: Hmm. I think I'll come up with a nicer design.
gollark: Why do the ducts run on the outside‽
gollark: Yes.
gollark: Why the 2-high roofs?
gollark: The ship you demoed is VERY cramped.

References
  1. "My big week". Irish Times. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  2. "Stellar line-up plays for Laughs". Irish Times. 2005-05-07. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  3. "Smithwick's Cat Laughs Comedy Festival". Irish Independent. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  4. "Comedy festical cats out of the bag". Irish Independent. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  5. "Kilkenny Cat Laughs 2019 announced". Buzz. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  6. "Cat Laughs celebrates 25 years with all-star comedy line up". RTE. 2019-03-20. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  7. "I was a psycho always blaming other people- comedian Bill Burr". Irish Independent. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
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