Irish festival hits right notes

The annual celebration of things Irish continues today.

YOUNGSTOWN — It’s part festival and part family reunion.

But if your family reunion features your uncle playing the accordion, you’d be in for a happy surprise at the 13th Annual Irish Festival and Cultural Celebration.

The festival, which started Saturday and continues today at St. Maron’s Pavilion and Recreation Area, 1555 S. Meridian Road, is also part concert, with really, really good bands. Apologies to your uncle.

Starting things off Saturday evening were the Shaffer Brothers out of Akron. The band blended traditional and contemporary Irish music in a spirited warm-up for the Celtic rock group Homeland, from Springfield, Ohio. That group has played all over the world — in Ireland, England, and even Japan.

The Saturday night groups are ones you’d see at bigger festivals and venues and are meant to draw out younger people, said Rob Kale, president of the Gathering of the Irish Clans, which sponsors the festival.

The Gathering of the Irish Clans, composed of about a half-dozen Irish organizations in the Mahoning Valley, puts on the two-day festival with the goal of promoting Irish culture in the Valley, Kale said.

He was expecting between 300 and 500 people to come out Saturday and more than 1,000 today, he said, with the Saturday night performers returning. County Mayo with guest singer Colleen McNally-Harris, Cahal Dunne and the Burke Stepdancers will also take the stage today.

The festival, tucked away behind St. Maron’s Church, doesn’t feature rides, Kale said.

“We try to keep it an authentic Irish festival with music, friendship, food and drinks,” he said.

“We want the commercialization out of it. You can bring your kids here tomorrow and they can play in the playground. Twenty-five to 30 years from now, they’ll be the ones here,” he said.

Indeed, the festival has the feel of a family reunion, with long, covered tables under pavilions just waiting to be filled with plates of home-cooked food.

The food, including Irish stew, shepherd’s pie, Bailey’s brownies and bangers, is cooked by members of the organizations that make up the Gathering, he said.

There’s traditional Irish beers available of course, though no Bailey’s other than what’s in the brownies — too bad, said Christine Carroll, who’s here from Cleveland visiting parents Ruth and Bill Carroll of Austintown.

She’s not a beer drinker, but she made do with a flavored malt drink.

Carroll and her parents go to the Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival in July at the Berea Fairgrounds, and they treat her to the Youngstown gathering in August.

“I come for the music,” said Ruth Carroll. For Christine, “It’s time to hang out with Mom and Dad.”

The music is also what draws in Shaffer Brothers fan Bill Calhoun of Youngstown.

He’s been to the festival in past years, but this year his wife, Amanda, joined him for the first time. The couple are celebrating their first wedding anniversary later this month.

The Shaffer Brothers are Bill’s favorite band, Amanda said.

“Absolutely,” Bill said. “I try to see them whenever I can.”

One of the youngest members in the Saturday night crowd was Robert Kinsman, 2 months old, there with his parents Nicole and Robert Kinsman of Poland.

They returned from years past. “We like the music and the vendors,” said Nicole. “We get our T-shirts and gifts.”

“We have predominantly Italian festivals in Youngstown, so it’s nice to see this,” said Robert.