IF YOU CAUGHT hold of the reins of power, do you think you could do any better than the incumbent government?

(Hold on, don’t answer that yet.)

A festival being held at Castletown House, Co Kildare next weekend aims to open the floor to a number of speakers, asking them to come up with ideas that might shake up our economy, culture and society. The assorted festivalgoers will then have a chance to discuss the ideas and ‘vote’ on them.

The event is spread across three days at the Big House festival, just outside Celbridge, (see bighouse.ie for full details) and includes speakers which range from immunology professor Luke O’Neill to economist Stephen Kinsella to youth activist Ruairi McKiernan, who you will remember from TheJournal.ie’s report on his ‘listening tour’ of Ireland.

The location is pretty appropriate – Castletown house was built in the 1700s by William ‘Speaker’ Conolly , who was speaker at the Irish House of Commons at the time.

Whether anyone in real power will listen to the bright ideas which it is hoped will be generated at the fest, we do wonder if you have any good suggestions of your own for how we could improve life for the everyman (and woman and child) in Ireland in 2013.

All suggestions welcome – let’s keep them constructive – and perhaps we will have enough for an alternative programme of goverment to present to Leinster House…

Meet the man hitchhiking around Ireland to listen to people’s stories>