Bloomington welcomes first Irish culture celebration

March is Irish-American Heritage Month, and to celebrate, the Indiana Celtic community sponsored its first Celtic Culture Weekend in Bloomington.

Inviting people from St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, Wis., and the Bloomington area, guests came Friday and Saturday to attend a Gaelic Language Seminar, public events on the history of the Gaelic harp and a presentation on Irish dance.

Devin Blankenship, founder of Indiana Celtic Community and organizer of the Celtic Culture weekend, said about 30 people attended the language conference where guests were treated to classes on the traditional Irish language, as well as cultural outings to The Irish Lion and other spots in the surrounding area.

Those who came Saturday learned the history of the Gaelic harp and saw a demonstration of its use by Keith Collins. Collins played some old songs on the Irish harp he built himself out of American ash. Between songs, he spoke about the harp’s background and about one of the last performers of the old style of Irish harp.

Collins’ performance was quickly followed by the IU Irish Identity Dancers led by freshman Catherine O’Malley.

On the sidelines, IU alumna Erin Sullivan introduced the dancers and explained some of the myths about Irish dance as well as the different styles and using soft shoes and hard shoes. The performance ended with a question-and-answer forum where the dancers discussed their solo dancing outfits, which are unique to the school for which they dance.

Saturday night ended with a presentation about the game of hurling by Tim Fick, coach of the IU Hurling Club,

“If you want to learn something about the Irish passion and intensity, here are some video clips about Irish hurling,” Fick said.

Sunday’s scheduled hurling match was canceled, but despite this, Blankenship said he was impressed with the weekend’s turnout.

“I think it went pretty well,” Blankenship said. “We had a good turnout. There was a nice blend of local involvement and bringing in people who customarily come to these things.”

After this event’s success, Blankenship said he’s considering the festival in the future.

“We are definitely thinking about doing this next year,” Blankenship said. “There are a lot of local groups and organizations that we just kind of ether found out about or who just found out about what we are doing, so later there will be a lot of collaboration with other groups.”