It seems hard to believe given the enhanced scale of this year’s Temple Bar Trad Festival that this musical celebration is only entering its fifth year. In 2006 Dublin enjoyed its first traditional music festival in nearly twenty years and the result was a humble toe in the water to see if the growing interest in traditional music in the Temple Bar area could support an event running over several days and harnessing big venues like The Olympia and the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre. The answer was a resounding yes and now, in its fifth year, the festival has both got larger and smaller. Larger in the sense that the number of musicians performing in it can be numbered literally in the hundreds but smaller in the sense that the showcase concerts have moved to more intimate, contemporary venues like The Project Arts Centre and The Button Factory. This is a festival that looks forward as well as back.