The Chesapeake Celtic Festival will transform the Furnace Town Living Heritage Museum in Snow Hill, Md., this weekend, Oct. 4-5, as a variety of Celtic-flavored music, vendors, dancing and demonstrations are offered in the annual event.
The festival will take place each day from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a special Ceilidh/Fest Noz music, storytelling and dance session on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
Admission to the festival, including site admission, costs $12 per day for adults, $3 per day for children ages 2 to 18. Admission to the festival and ceilidh on Saturday costs $16 for adults and $4 for children. Admission to the Saturday ceilidh only costs $5 for adults and $2 for children. (Special discounts apply for Furnace Town adult members.)
New this year is an expanded Celtic Marketplace, with more vendors selling a variety of Celtic-related items, ranging from jewelry and clothing to toys and collectables, including When Pigs Fly and Shyanne.
A special highlight this year is the Saturday celidh – an offering of informal music, song, dance, storytelling and revelry. “Ceilidh” comes from an old Gaelic word for “visit” or “companions,” organizers noted. “Fest noz” is the Breton version of a ceilidh or an “ad dro” – a grand, informal gathering for music, dancing and good cheer.
“It is a good word to describe the ‘hale fellow, well met’ spirit that encourages each other to sing a song, do a jig, or tell a joke,” organizers noted.
Ethnic food, culinary delights and imported historic ales will also be available for purchase in the food court, where several specialty vendors will purvey ethnic foods, as well as Eastern Shore delicacies that can be enjoyed at tables set under trees, in the Wren and Titmouse Tea Room or in the Pub Tent, where the entertainment will be lively.
The Tempting Tap will serve up historic ales and specialty beers. And the Bottle and Cork will offer a taste of Celtic spirit at the afternoon whisky tasting.
“This year, we’re featuring Lombard Distillery products from the Isle Of Man, presented by Richard Lombard, heir to the 300-year-old company,” organizers noted.
In the Wine Tent, five Celtic-inspired Maryland wines will be available.
Attending this year’s festival will be representatives from all seven Celtic nations: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Asturias and Galicia in Spain.
Representatives from the clan tents for the Donald, Keith, MacDougall, MacIntosh, Murray, O’Brien and Stewart families and the Gaelic Language Society will be on hand to talk with visitors about genealogy and to teach them a few words in one of the Gaelic languages, including Breton, Gaelic and Manx.
Full slate of music and entertainment
Performers and presenters at this weekend’s festival will include Seamus O’Reilly, Iona, Moch Pryderi, The Clan of Man, Cheryl Blackman, Dancenter, Shyanne, Footsteps Irish Dancers, Breton Dancing, Culleymont, O.C. Pipes and Drums, Highland Athletics, The Clan of Man, Richard Lombard, Kelly Crenshaw, Scott Morrison, Jeanne du Nord, Sharon Himes, Medieval European Martial Arts Guild and the Society for Creative Anachchronism.
Continuous entertainment will be offered on the Festival Stage, The Ceilidh Stage and in the Pub Tent and in several other locations around the festival grounds. Seamus O’Reilly, master of ceremonies, will announce the events and perform as the Irish pub comic.
Iona is an acoustic weave of the traditional music of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany (France), Isle of Man, Asturias and Galicia (Spain) and American Celtic cultures, blended into a tapestry of vocals, instrumentation and dance.
Moch Pryderi (Welsh for “Pryderi’s Pig”) perform the music of Wales with occasional excursions into the other Celtic nations of Brittany, Galicia, Cornwall, Ireland and Scotland. Among Moch Pryderi’s exotic instruments are Breton bombardes, pidgorn, uillean pipes, Celtic bouzouki, small pipes, bodhran, dumbek, Welsh biwbo, highland pipes, whistles, flute, fiddle, guitar and harp.
Kelly Crenshaw, whose Gaelic vocals earned accolades at past festivals, will be joined by the Clan of Man Celtic Dancers.
In July 2006, the kids of the Clan of Man Celtic Dancers received the North American Youth Manx Award. Awarded by the Isle of Man Department of Education and presented by the North American Manx Association at their annual meeting in San Francisco, this award recognizes those young people who best promote Manx culture throughout North America. The Clan of Man Celtic Dancers received the trophy at an Oct. 22 presentation ceremony with the president of the Washington Area Manx Society on hand to present the award.
Closing out the music and dance offerings, the Dancenter Irish Dancers will present traditional dance and clogging.
The Society for Creative Anachronism is always a popular attraction at the festival, with their creations of ancient lifestyles and arts that include fighting in armor.
Half-hour Celtic humanities presentations in the Chapel have been very popular, organizers said, and they will continue this year with series of new half-hour discussions, including “In Harmony with Nature,” in which artist Sharon Himes will demonstrate nature painting in watercolor.
“Bird of Rare Plumage,” a dramatic tale written and told in the old bardic tradition, will also be presented.
With its location at Furnace Town’s historical site, the festival will also offer artisans in period garb, including a blacksmith, broom maker, printer, weaver, gardener and woodworker.
The festival’s Flowers of the Forest memorial will remember loved ones, and those attending can send the names of loved ones they want remembered during the memorial by e-mail to celticfest@comcast.net.
Corduroy Road connects all of the sites at Furnace Town, which handicapped accessible. There is plenty of free parking and a shuttle service. For site information, e-mail or call (410) 632-2032.
For more information on the Chesapeake Celtic Festival, including a schedule for this year’s events and directions to the site, visit the Web site at www.celticfest.net.