Galway, Ireland, Oyster Festival by Maureen Barry

Galway, Ireland, Oyster Festival, third weekend in September, for the craic. Join the Irish in a four-day thrash of seafood consumption, Guinness swigging and general revelry, with an oyster-opening competition down on the quays as a good excuse for the shenanigans. The Oyster Ball atmosphere at the Great Southern hotel is legendary and there’s an all-singing, all-dancing pub every few yards along the cobbled alleyways of this vibrant, youthful city where the craic has been honed to an art form. Maureen Barry