Ukrainian families living at the Innisfallen Hotel had invited their new friends, the local community of Killarney to visit, and together they celebrated Easter.

The crowd enjoying the concert at the Innisfallen Hotel over the weekend.

Nataliya Krasnenkova and Nikola Lynch pictured in the Innisfallen Hotel enjoying the Easter activities.

Young gymnasts Milana Byrdina and Yeva Pashchenko holding the flag for Ukraine at the Easter celebrations in the Innisfallen Hotel.

Tetiana Neliepova singing and Yevheniia Omelchenko playing guitar at the concert which was arranged to celebrate Easter and thank the people of Killarney for their support.

Milana Byrdina and Yeva Pashchenko and Yaromyr Zastup enjoying some treats.

St Brendan's College student Nikolay Kornienko pictured playing the flute at the concert in the Innisfallen Hotel.

More than 50 guests, including Consider it Cakes volunteers, teachers from schools in which Ukrainian children study and local friends came to the holiday concert and party.

“We wanted to spend Easter with our new friends from Killarney, introduce them to our Ukrainian traditions and get to know each other better. And most importantly, we wanted to thank the whole community for the help we receive. Every guest on our holiday was special for us,” Valerya Mashkovska from Odessa said.

Each guest left the holiday with a gift. After all, Ukrainian women and children had prepared many handmade souvenirs: traditional dolls, hearts, necklaces, brooches, and drawings. These yellow and blue souvenirs in the colours of the Ukrainian flag will remind our guests about Ukraine.

Thanks to volunteers and Mary O'Carroll of the Consider it Cakes charity, our children received more than 60 chocolate eggs and several hundred handmade cupcakes. Another 40 eggs went to the Ukrainian children in the Killarney Hotel.

Bonding experience

Consider it Cakes made up of a group of people living around Killarney prepared the charity pastries.

“We had a group of about 20 women from around Killarney and one 13-year-old girl named Kim O’Doherty from Kilcummin who baked for Innisfallen and Hotel Killarney,” Mary O’Carroll said.

“The group Consider it Cakes started at the beginning of COVID with an idea that nationwide every child deserves a birthday cake. It was a great bonding experience for the people of Killarney to the people of Ukraine. Our bakers are all moms and we wanted to show you moms and children some love. We think Ukrainian moms are incredible, strong, dealing with incredible hard times. For me personally my daughter Faye also helps with the baking. We made friends in the Innisfallen Hotel and promise to help our new friends."

The children were visited by an Easter bunny, who gave presents to everyone, hugged everyone and took a photo. The lady who was the Easter Bunny is an Irish language teacher Gaelscoil Faithleann in Killarney. She is very loved by all the kids she teaches and is known as 'Muinteoir Lisa'.

Emotional concert

The main highlight of the meeting was a concert to thank the local community for the support of Ukrainians. It was filled with Ukrainian classical and modern music, gymnastic performances, dances and poems. The organisers of the concert, Yevheniia Omelchenko and Alevtyna Rutto, have experience in organising events in Kyiv, so they willingly joined in the preparations. They devised a script for the event, selected suitable performances and prepared the entire audiovisual series.

Yevheniia Omelchenko, a graphic designer, has edited all the videos that were shown on the screen during a show. She says she wanted to introduce Irish guests to different parts of Ukraine, to show that we all have a place to return to and why to fight for our country.

"Yes, it is not appropriate to talk about the war on Easter. But we kept the balance between sad and funny topics,” Alevtyna Rutto explained.

All the guests were especially moved during the performance of the song 'I Have No Home'. The piano part was played by amateur musician Timur Al-Bayati, who spent two weeks in the basement of the occupied town of Irpin, near Kyiv. He miraculously escaped and is now in western Ukraine. Timur recorded the video of the piano part on his phone and sent it to Ireland. Yevheniia performed a live guitar part at the concert and Tetiana Neliepova sang. Yes, the song 'I Have No Home' turned into a real emotional culmination of the concert and brought together musicians from Ukraine and Ireland.

Mary O'Riordan was impressed by Timur's story. "The story of this guy from Irpin struck me to the core. There were tears in my eyes.”

The women's choir performed an ancient military march of Ukrainian insurgents 'Oh, Red Viburnum in the Meadow' (“Ой у лузі червона калина”). By the way, recently the legendary Pink Floyd played 'Oh in the Meadow Red Viburnum' together with the Ukrainian musician who is currently fighting in the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andriy Khlyvnyuk. This song became famous all over the world.

“We have been preparing and rehearsing for a long time, because it is difficult for us to compete with Pink Floyd, but I think we managed to raise the fighting spirit in the hall. For greater understanding, we made subtitles for the lyrics in English,” added Victoria Volkova, a musician who played the tune on a synthesizer.

15-year-old Mykola Korniienko performed several parts on the flute. The world-famous 'Melody' by Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk was first performed in Killarney.

The concert was closed with the Ukrainian folk dance 'Potato'. The Ukrainians quickly taught the Irish the movements of this dance - and the locals immediately picked it up and started dancing with us.

Making friends

Local guests talked to Ukrainians for a long time after the concert. Everyone has a lot of shared photos on the phone now, as well as many memories.

“We went to the concert to show support in any way we can to all Ukrainian people and to offer them a hug," Nicola Lynch said.

"The concert was very emotional and we cried a lot. I think it made us all closer to see how now the situation is in Ukraine. We need to open up our hearts more and offer more emotional support to people from Ukraine. It was clear to see how you miss your own home and your families that were left behind. The worry and anxiety attached to that is immense. It was so lovely to see how talented everyone was and how loving and close you all are. It was great for my kids to see the video and the devastation that war creates. They asked questions the whole way home in the car. Irish people are very similar to Ukrainian people. We all have big hearts and wear our hearts on our sleeves. Irish people have always been a kind and caring race. We always support and rally around someone who needs help. Ukrainian people are always so grateful for the smallest gestures. They always have a smile,” she added.

"After the success of our concert in Killarney, we are planning a tour around Ireland," joked the organisers!