Celtic Cowtown

Scroll down to content

The Kansas City Irish Festival is the town’s biggest party, I have the pictures to prove it.

Each Labor day KC turns its fountains green closes down several blocks to traffic and lets the Music, whiskey, and Kilts flow free. The Festival features both traditional and Celt-rock performers as well as comedy, theatre and even a Gaelic Mass and full-on Irish Breakfast on Sunday. This is the 15th year for the festival which merged from two smaller neighborhood Irish festivals. This year a crowd of over 100,000 visited the festival over the course of the three day weekend. 

kcckp
This year the Festival featured two Headlining Acts Gaelic  Storm and the local favorite The Elders. The venerable Elders are ending touring this year and their concert Sunday night was their farewell performance at the festival.  I’ve lost count of the times I have seen both The Elders and Gaelic Storm and it was nice to be present on the evening of their swan song. 

Another band that I had never seen before but really impressed me were The Red Hot Chili Pipers. The played a lot of classic Rock songs with a chorus of bagpipes which blended seamlessly.

The festival has four smaller stages, a comedy stage, and mainstage.  Usually, the stages all had something going on simultaneously so there was always plenty to enjoy.

kci29kci23kci4

There was also plenty of food and drink to be had in both traditional Irish as well as food from all over the world.

kci17kci25kci24

kci5
A lot of this looked Good but being a recently converted Vegan a lot of it was voluntarily verboten. oh well, I could have some Pub Chips. 
kci15
There were also discussion groups on issues relative to Ireland.  The festival also featured classes on the Irish language, violin playing, and Irish cooking and Art.

Some random shots from the festivalkci27kci26kci21kci16kci1kci19

kci3
Kilts were everywhere. Every year when I go to the festival I would always say ‘Next year I’ll wear a kilt. But because of my weight, I don’t currently feel comfortable about it. I would I always tell myself that I will lose enough weight that by next Labor day I will be ready for a Kilt. But next year, I think it might just happen.

kci18

kci20
Green fountains everywhere.
kci6
The Sun sets on another year’s Irish Fest, but not before the Grand finale concert.

 

kci7
The crowd for the Elders final Irish fest appearance was massive. 
kci8
Each year’s festival caps off with a massive Jam of all the bands who performed on the main stage.

The Elders will definitely be missed but the festival lives on. I have a year to Kilt shop. I plan on wearing my cowboy hat and Kilt and celebrate my Irish heritage and the Celtic Cowtown I have grown to love.

Published by Globetrotting Grandpa

2 Replies to “Celtic Cowtown”

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: