This weekend in historic Roswell, you can experience the rich traditions and joyful music of Ireland. IrishFest Atlanta is a two-day annual festival celebrating all things Irish culture, and the festival director Teresa Finley joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom along with Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, fiddler for the band Altan, to talk about the music and events planned for IrishFest’s 10-year celebration.
Interview highlights follow below.
A festival to celebrate traditional Irish song, dance and stories:
“We started back in 2013 and created a festival that we wanted to appeal to all community members of all ages, with varying familiarity of all things Irish. Core to it was, of course, the traditional Irish music and dance, and then we continuously added on more of the culture of Ireland as we grew,” said Finley. “Really, the inspiration came from many of us, that were the original volunteers that created it, had young children in Irish traditional music, and we wanted to bring the very best of traditional Irish music to Atlanta for them to be able to meet and network with some of the best in the world.”
“We have a great diaspora across the US of Irish, and so much talent in music and dancing right here in the States, but I feel it’s really important for us to maintain a strong connection to Ireland,” said Finley. “Sometimes it’s our kids that are playing music, their first time that they go to Ireland is because they’re going there to compete. And the competition, really, is less important after a while than all the people that they meet and the connections they meet. I think it’s the same for the Irish step dancing community… That’s why we make it our priority to bring people, always, in from Ireland.”
On Altan and Mhaonaigh’s specialty, the Donegal fiddle tradition:
“Donegal is fairly isolated. If you look at it politically even, the six counties of Northern Ireland separates it from the rest of the Republic. So that isolates it a little from the rest of the Republic, and also there’s the Derryveagh Mountains [that] split it up into a two-part county… You couldn’t access it very well, so that kept the music very much intact, in that it had an accent of its own,” Mhaonaigh explained. “Then there was a lot of immigration to Scotland… so a lot of the people in Donegal would go to Scotland for seasonal labor, and they would bring back tunes and songs, which were very much like Irish music. And that’s how we all got, you know, we have that distinctive Scottish music in our music as well.”
“We started playing music because we love it, and I think if you love what you’re doing, people pick up on that. And if you’re honest and discerning when you’re playing, and stay honest to yourself, people also pick up on that,” said Mhaonaigh. “We didn’t want to dilute it or make it anything else other than traditional Irish music. I think we did something which was quite unusual – we focused in on Donegal music, tunes that I was brought up with, that we got from my father, from my neighbors, from people that we knew around Donegal – and it was kind of a different type of music to the usual Irish music that you would’ve heard up until then. And it just gave an aspect of Irish music that showed how varied a music it is, in such a small country.”
Plenty of chances to eat, drink and try some Irish step dancing:
“We do have a lot of Irish dancing happening through the weekend. We’ve got lovely Irish step dance schools here in Atlanta. They will all be performing throughout the afternoon on Saturday, and of course we’ve got this year – which is new for us – we’re going to host an Irish Kayleigh, where everyone can join in this social dancing experience,” said Finley. “Now, if you’re smart, you will take advantage of the workshops that are offered Friday afternoon and Saturday morning to learn the dance steps. But if you don’t get a chance to do that, we’ll pull you off to the side of the group and get you dancing before you know it.”
“We try and make sure that we take advantage of our Irish chefs and others in the community,” Finley added. “We have a cocktail and food pairing that’s hosted by Judith McLaughlin, and she is of the Shamrock and Peach, and she’s one of our local favorite Irish-born chefs here in Atlanta, and we have a whiskey tasting and things of that nature… We also have a demonstration of our Gaelic sports that will happen in the family programming area along with things for the kids, like face painting and things of that nature, and little arts and crafts.”
IrishFest takes place in historic Downtown Roswell, Nov 4-5. Tickets and more information are available at https://www.irishfestatlanta.org/
