Easygoing Features

When you look at how much fun revellers seem to be having at the Boryeong Mud Festival, you’d have to wonder why we don’t have this sort of thing in Ireland.

The 15th edition of the annual mud festival took place in Daecheon beach in Boryeong, about 190 km southwest of Seoul, yesterday, with up to 3 million people reported to have been in attendance.

It’s not just people frolicking about in sh*t either. There are mud pool, mud slides, mud prison and mud skiing competitions, there’s a stage set up for live performances and the festival closes with a big fireworks display.

This isn’t just regular mud, however. According to the festival’s Wikipedia page, the mud is taken from the Boryeong mud flats and trucked to the Daecheon beach area, where it is used as the centrepiece of the 'Mud Experience Land'. The mud is considered rich in minerals and used to manufacture cosmetics, so it must be good for the skin too.

Pic via Getty Images

All of that seemed irrelevant to those in attendance yesterday (see above), but seeing them enjoy themselves to such an extent makes us yearn for something similar in this country.

In this of all summers, we’d certainly have the conditions for it.