Aidan Hickey´s poster really summed up the atmosphere at the Forum: a lot of animation! Animation from those presenting the projects, animation in the pubs and Celtic music brought animation to our toes. All this, combined with wonderful sunny weather and ocean views.
We received a warm welcome from Galway, during our entire stay. Gifts of heather to everyone as they came off the plane, the surprise of dancers during lunch, Guinness on rough sea trips, and a final evening which began with bizarre creatures led by dancing Toonies.
67 projects were presented including «Calamity Jane» produced by Contre-Allée, «King Arthur and the Dragon» from Praxinos, «Les Dieux de l´Olympe» 
from Rooster Studio, «Pettsson and Findus» from TMO Film (TV-Loonland) and AB Svensk Filmindustri, «Tom et Sheena» from Master´s Copyright and Pathé Télévision and «Tap End Tales» by Monster Productions.
The Cartoon d´Or was awarded to Tyron Mongomery for his film «Quest».
Oysters and Guinness
Our two tourist trips were memorable. Connemara, home of so many legends and mysteries, and the visit to the Aran Islands, small lands of rock where Gaelic is still spoken, and home of the famous Irish sweaters where every pattern is unique to each fishing family.
Naturally the trip ended with Clarenbridge oysters and Guinness before taking the slightly stomach churning boat journey back. Many remember lying on the deck watching the waves whipped up by the wind.
Siegmund Grewenig, Head of Children’s & Family Programmes, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)
Welcome to Ireland. In 1996, the Cartoon family met in Europe’s Wild West in Galway.
Everything was there that everyone from the continent considers to be Irish: beautiful country outside, and a great party-culture inside. It was a very «colourful» festival, too. Especially the night when we had to play «Gotcha!»: dozens of politically correct TV producers shot at each other using toy guns with coloured ammunition!
After that we had a get-together at the modest castle (!) of Ralph Christians, the producer of our animated series «Nick and Perry». Oh, Galway! It must be very hard to live there …
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