Celtic Cowtown

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 This is a re-post from the Pre-Covid days of 2019. But the festival will be back (fingers crossed) this September

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. 

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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.

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

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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. 
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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

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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.

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Green fountains everywhere.
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The Sun sets on another year’s Irish Fest, but not before the Grand finale concert.
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The crowd for the Elders final Irish fest appearance was massive. 
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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

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