Craic Agus Ceol

Fun and Music

Our annual trek to Ohio’s capitol region isn’t complete without enjoying hours upon hours at the Dublin Irish Festival, and a more recent “tradition” of taking advantage of family hospitality (thanks SMS&R).

What’s a fest without food and drink?
Unfortunately due to a contract with Coors, a true Irish brew is not to be imbibed – but they have come up with a “Guinness-like” beer called Dublin Stout – supposedly brewed in Colorado just for the fest and available in a few local taverns in the days surrounding the festivities (last year they ran out even before the fest was concluded). We enjoyed this stout with traditional fish and chips from the Old Bag of Nails.

Killians Irish Red went well with very tasty Irish Salted Potatoes swimming in garlic and butter!
Last year at the end of a our meal at Schmidt’s in Columbus’ German Village there was no room for dessert, so we had their delicious cream puff as a “shared snack” with iced tea.
Oh, the games people play!
Besides “people-watching” there are so many events available it is impossible to catch them all and even hard to decide which ones to commit to attending.

Gaelic Games has been a recent addition to the fest and we found it fascinating to watch the Caber Toss and Sheaf Toss.
“Caber” is gaelic for “tree”, so as you may imagine it looks like men in kilts throwing telephone poles. After picking up the tree trunk (many contenders don’t even get this far), they have to balance it vertically in front of them before attempting to flip it so the end not in their hands lands first on the ground in what should again be vertically straight up and down as the tree had grown. These are strong men!

What appears to be a combination of gleaning and pole vaulting? Sheaf Toss! Using a pitch fork, contestants throw a burlap bag stuffed with straw over a bar. Each man had three chances at each height and was eliminated if none of the attempts threw the sheaf over the bar.
On the unorganized spontaneous side, in a frat party atmosphere, the competition ran “high” in the beer glass stacking tent late Saturday night.
Irish music, be it traditional or rock, reigns at the fest!
Bagpipers are entertaining to me in limited doses.
Old favorites like the Clancy Legacy and the Hooligans are “must sees”.
We always make it a point to watch the champion step dancers. The price of some of the girls’ costumes is exorbitant! After seeing some of the girls’ hair “au naturel” I realize how much I dislike those crazy curly wigs. That withstanding, the dances are so intricate and entertaining. Talk about being fit!
A new twist to entertainment included a short comedy about that Catholic Irish tradition known as Bingo. Of course the main characters were a priest and nuns!
Another unexpected favorite this year was “Salsa Celtica”. They described their act as a “Colombian-Irish Shotgun Wedding” - what fun! Bagpipes with salsa music, and trombones and saxophone with Irish jigs – most entertaining and international.

The Irish rockers cause me to protect my ears – I enjoy them, but find earplugs necessary if we are sitting too close. The “Prodigals” were a great final act (I’m still partial to Gaelic Storm).

We’re already looking forward to next year! – August 6, 7 & 8, 2010 --K