Highland Dancing, Bagpipes & Drums - and this Year Fiddlers, Too
By Julie Perine on March 16, 2014 via Connect-Bridgeport.com
This St. Patrick's Day weekend, it's all about the luck of the Irish. In just six weeks or so, the community will be immersed in Scotch-Irish culture as the 13th Annual Scottish Festival & Celtic Gathering gets underway at Bridgeport City Park.
As happens annually, the park will be transformed as representatives of Irish clans – some dating back 1,000 years – set up and display their official tartans featuring various colors and patterns There will also be a EUSPBA-sanctioned Solo Bagpipe competition, FUSTA-sanctioned Highland Dancing Competition and MASA-sanctioned Heavy Athletic competition.
The professional individual bagpipe competition is among fairly new festival features, said Chair Kevin Anderson.
“We’ve always had bagpipes, but we’ve added this competition and we’ll also be having Scottish fiddling competition this year, as well as expanding our children’s games and activities,” he said. “With the festivals along the East Coast which my wife and I have attended in the last three or four years, we’ve noticed there are more and more families staying close to home, finding things to do. We see a lot of mothers and fathers and their elementary-age children walking around and enjoying the festival – and that’s true with our festival, too.”
Additional activities will include Scottish country dancing, heritage musicians and living history presentations. Scottish vendors will sell food and wares and there will be exhibits and demos of genealogy, Scottish dogs, sheep and duck herding, Shetland sheep, ponies and Highland cattle.
Featured entertainment for the 13th annual celebration includes American Roads and IONA (of the U.S) The groups will perform throughout the day of the festival and again that evening at the Bridgeport High School auditorium.
Preceding the May 3 main event will be a Fri., May 2 Ceilidh at Via Veneto, where attendees will receive an intimate opportunity to see and hear the festival's featured entertainers and sample Scotch-Irish fare.
The festival will wind up Sunday, May 4 with a special Scottish Heritage Church Service and Celebration in downtown Clarksburg.
The festival is hosted annually by the North Central West Virginia Scottish Heritage Society. For more information, visit http://www.northcentralwestvirginiascottishfestival.com/.
