By Brendan Clay
“There’s a huge Irish population in Havertown and Delaware County,” said Tom Kelly, the chairman and executive director of Kelly Music for Life. “Havertown is often referred to as the 33rd county of Ireland.”
That’s one big reason that Kelly Music for Life, a Havertown-based event organizer and non-profit founded in 2012, decided to organize a festival to celebrate all things Irish. On June 23rd from noon to 9 p.m., the grounds of the Manoa Shopping Center became the location of the second annual Havertown Irish Festival. According to Kelly Music’s website, net proceeds from their events go to charities and initiatives in the community.
Stepping into the festival area, it was clear right away that the reason people showed up was to celebrate Havertown’s Irish heritage. The signifiers were all there: Irish music accompanying the consumption of beer and shepherd’s pie while vendors sold green T-shirts and Celtic jewelry.
In addition to the typical trappings of an Irish-American event, attendees could notice evidence of less specifically Irish (but no less fun) festival experiences: the smell of fried food of no specific ethnicity, the sight of children jumping (safety-harnessed) on a trampoline, and the sound of vendors cajoling passersby.
When organizing a festival, Kelly said they start with the music and then move to food and other cultural signifiers such as, in the case of Ireland, Irish dance. For the music, the John Byrne Band played their typically excellent repertoire of rocky Irish trad, original Americana, and folky Pogues covers, and the band Barleyjuice rocked out hard to their own selection of Celtic tunes. Other musical acts included the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band, the Dylan McGuire Band, and Maura McKinney Mastro.
A collection of folding chairs in front of the stage held the mainly adult audience while parents with their (many, many) small children occupied a big open space to the right of the chairs where the kids could dance and run around. At interludes, various young Irish dance groups performed just in front of the stage, which gave plenty of inspiration for the children to imitate the high steps and kicks of the Irish style.
Standing out amongst the crowd was Amanda Wessel, a woman with pale blonde hair in a green, clover-bedecked dress and an appealingly cartoonish leprechaun hat. As the festival’s emcee, she announced events all day and posed for pictures with attendees, among other duties.
“I’m a Leo; I like to stand out I guess,” said Wessel. “I wanted to be as festive as possible because I know from this event last year we have a lot of fun people who come out and they probably want some photo opportunities.”
“As you probably have heard Havertown is the 33rd county of Ireland,” she adds.