27th Annual North Texas Irish Festival

By 10AM Saturday morning, I was on my way to the 27th Annual North Texas Irish Festival at Fair Park in Dallas, Texas.

It took about three and half hours to get there (three hours if I didn’t miss the Fair Park exit). Nevertheless, after paying $8 to park, I was there!

         

 

Admission fee was $15 plus $1 for the NTIF souvenir catalog.  I wandered my way around the Adopt-a-Dog register, (There were a  lot of people who had dogs with them at the festival…you would think you were at a dog show competition.)

 

 

I headed to where there was food (well actually, my stomach was my guide at this point of the trip). There was plenty of things to see and people to meet.

      

 

There were various arts and craft shows and music programs going on:

 

Civil War re-enactment

 

Woman drinking from Irish Drinking Horn

 

Design your own coin or medallion (This is how the device worked:  You would choose a design for your bronze coin or medallion.  The lady at the impression machine would put the coin or medallion in the black box under the design template located on the silver cylinder.  She would crank the large cylinder weight up, ring the bell, release the crank, and BOOM!  after $10 later, you have yourself a custom designed coin or medallion.  Ha! I saved $9.49 and got myself a souvenir penny at a nearby museum. 🙂

  

Jackson Irish Dancers…

    

I was very impressed by these young dancers; their dancing similar to River Dance!

 

 

I went to a couple music workshops which featured Donna Fitch, who taught us the history of Celtic Music in America, and a percussionist duo…

   

 

Over 100 Irish Bands were featured at NTIF this year.  Here are some of the bands I heard:

 

Tullamore featuring Mary Hanover on the hammered dulcimer, Mark Clavey on guitar, and Rachel Gaither on fiddle…