Remember to Bring Your Lawnchairs!
Camping - RV's Welcome
There will be primitive camping available in the Greeley city park. Anywhere except for inside the fenced ball field area. RV campers will also be welcomed. Electrical hook-ups will be available call (308) 428-5595 to reserve a hook-up and for pricing.
The Irish Festival is located in Greeley Nebraska
Click here for parking information
Post Event article as it appeared in the Greeley Citizen September 2011
By Marty Callahan
The usual way to tell the difference between winter and summer in Ireland is to measure the temperature of the rain ... or so the saying goes. There are no major temperature differences between the seasons and rain is likely every second or third day. The average high in the middle of September in most of Ireland is 62º with the average low 50º.
Now picture an Irish bluegrass covered area draped in a surrounding of low clouds, mist and light wind. The temperature hovers about 60-64º. No sun to be seen the entire day. No, you are not across the pond…you have arrived at the 2011 Greeley Irish Festival.
Saturday was a miserable Nebraska day, by many folks’ standard. It was better than 48 hours earlier when sleet had fallen on the grounds. It was also better than the 2010 version of the celebration when everything moved indoors due to even colder temperatures in the 40’s.
Most celebrations would have been called a “washout” with hopes of resurrecting it again in another year. Not the Greeley Irish Festival. When 11 bells arrived Saturday morning the festival was in full swing with very expensive instruments and sound equipment, covered and protected, but still emitting Irish sounds that many had come from near and far to hear again.
The Irish Affair group, opening act from Las Vegas, shivered and entertained the first gathering of fans that had meticulously placed their lawn chairs up front, staking their claim to a few square feet of bluegrass covered Sacred Heart Church grounds for the day.
The hoods, caps and gloves were donned by the lawn chair residents and that beat, that Irish beat, went on.
The aroma of Irish stew, corned beef and cabbage and barbequed foods swirled around the grounds. Men in kilts, that surely were feeling the occasional brief cool breezes, were seemingly everywhere. And there were bagpipers, dancers and leprechauns, oh my!
The culture center was expanded this year with everything from Celtic music lessons to orphan train stories to Irish history and more. Interested attendees were seen in the area all day long, reading the enlarged Irish history placards and thumbing through Irish family name histories.
What looked like a waiting room with moms and kids filled the Sacred Heart gym lobby as each youth patiently waited for a spot to have their face painted with an Irish theme. As a result the festival grounds were filled with “little people” displaying snakes, Irish princesses, flowers and Irish emblems, etc. on their faces.
The Irish Festival Committee recognized early on that “Big Red” outdoes any amount of green on a Nebraska football Saturday. The only non-green attraction, the “Big Red Tent”, was once again in place, although much larger than the previous year. Dozens and dozens of fans were sitting, standing and cheering in the tent as their beloved Huskers carried the day over the Washington Huskies. Once the game finished, the grounds filled again.
The Brennan Irish Dance team appeared again this year with their special presentation of Irish dance. Along with them was Marty Dowds, an absolutely amazing former Riverdance lead. Many of you may have witnessed a Riverdance performance, but until you witness a professional like Dowd in this close of a setting, you can’t even imagine how many extra joints this Ireland raised young man must have in his body. And if this wasn’t enough excitement, the smaller dance stage that was being used by the fancy footed entertainers partially collapsed. Without missing a beat, the dancers moved to another ground platform and the show went on.
Immediately, volunteers and specialists appeared with power drills and parts and the stage came back together almost as quickly as it had collapsed. And why would you expect a response of anything less at the Greeley Irish Festival.
The only thing more precise than the notes of the Irish music echoing the Sacred Heart grounds was the way this festival went from start to finish. It is as if any possible glitch, any bump, any “Murphy’s Law” event is thought about and prepared for.
Volunteers and more volunteers graced the grounds doing the “less” important tasks, all in special volunteer t-shirts. They take tickets, pick up trash, erect fencing, assist in the building of the large entertainment stage, man the rescue squad equipment, help recharge the bank of portable commodes and assist the talent. They are serving beverages, taking surveys, driving tractors pulling people shuttle carts, and on and on. And none of it would work without them.
Once again the entertainers that arrived are amazed to find this “tucked away” little Irish town that most have never heard about before. They come to Greeley expecting something more of large church bazaar only to find a well planned event placed in an Irish/American town where everyone that comes from Ireland to visit comments on how this town looks exactly like the small towns in Ireland. And they are even more amazed to find that over 40% of town’s population is still deeply tied to Irish ancestry.
One of the performing band members, Heather Searson of the Searson group, an all-girl band based in Canada, stated, “Everyone told us that you can perform everywhere, but you will never find a friendlier place or friendlier group of people than in Greeley and at the festival. And they were right!”
Several comments came from the entertainers from the stage commending the planning and operation of the Greeley festival. Those kinds of comments speak volumes when you consider how many festivals these Irish entertainers see in a year.
Oddly enough, the “Irish” weather is gone in the area as the conditions are now predicted to be mostly sunny and in the 70’s and 80’s for the next ten days. No matter what the forecast is, you can always predict that the Irish eyes will once again be smiling in Greeley next September….rain or shine! It’s now a proven fact!
