Over the weekend I attended the 26th Annual Church Hill Irish Festival.
Apparently it's always held the weekend after St. Patrick's Day, which is
kind of nice because this block party is more about Irish Culture than green
food dye in your cheap American light beer. In fact, the beer trucks sold
Guinness, Harp, Smithwick's... you know, IRISH BEER. Imagine that.
And how could you possibly have an Irish Festival without Irish Coffee?
Don't worry, they had that covered, too.
And then there was the food... not so vegetarian friendly, but hey, I didn't
come to eat. I still haven't figured out this meat and potato on a
stick thing... even after watching the vendor make 3 or 4 of them. All I
know is it involves a hot dog, a whole potato, and some kind of grilled
meat. The line was ridiculous, so it must have been good.
I really enjoyed the whole cultural aspect of this festival. After all,
my great grandmother, Minnie Dunn was Irish. Minnie wasn't a nickname,
either.... it's on her birth certificate (I'm really glad she was petite). Anyway I
suppose that makes me a tiny bit Irish and it explains the freckles. So here I was,
among my fellow Irish-Americans, celebrating all things Irish. I was happy to see
that the bitter cold didn't keep the kilts away. I've never seen so many kilts
in my life. I even saw a cop in a kilt. That sort of made my day.
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| borrowed this image.. my camera had already died. |
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| something very androgynous about this photo | | |
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My camera was less than cooperative (2 mysteriously dead batteries
despite the fact that I charged both overnight), but once I got past
the frustration that I missed a gazillion amazing photo ops, I just took
time to focus on enjoying myself.... taking mental pictures of hot men
in skirts. Never imagined I'd ever see any, but they were there.
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| not pictured: hot men in skirts |
The vendors set up booths full of celtic art, jewelry, raffles, T-shirts,
bootleg whiskey barrels, even kilts. I found tons of things I wanted to
buy, but I purposely left my wallet at home. My shopping will power sucks.
I did score some very un-celtic earrings thanks to my buddy Paul.
He was buying jewelry for his girlfriend and she made him buy
me something so I wouldn't feel left out! I think I may have
to hang out with these two more often.
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| Clearly these have no connection to Ireland. |
There was a Kid Zone complete with remote control cars,
a giant slide, a jump castle, and carnival games. Three different
stages hosted performances from 40 bands over 2 days,
plus Irish dancing and, of course, bagpipes.
Here are some video clips from a few of the performances on the
second day. Some of the dancers didn't wear their fancy costumes
because it snowed/rained all morning, but I they were
still a fun performance to watch.
Cross Roads Irish Dance Team
Greater Richmond Pipes & Drums
Then there was the people watching....
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| no idea. | |
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head shave to raise funds for cancer research.
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| This kid ditched his Bieber 'do for St. Baldrick's head shave! |
There were also street performers, one of which was a juggler
who thoughthe was pretty funny. I wasn't really interested in pushing
my way throughthe crowd to watch him, but the others in my
group seemed enamored with his skills. It's not that I wasn't
impressed, it's just that I knew what
was coming; he would eventually need an "assistant."
One thing you should know about me is that I always get picked for these
things. It never fails. Despite trying to hide behind my friends, the time
came when Mr. Funny Juggles calls for a "lovely assistant." He
walks directly over to me and the next thing I know, he's lit a torch
and told me to hold on to it for him. Oh great. Here we go.....
My friends immediately start snapping pictures with their cell phones.
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| Crap.. am I wearing hairspray today? |
He then proceeds to grab two "strapping young lads" from the crowd
to help him mount his unicycle and hand him two more lit torches.
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| I want to go home now. |
Then it's just me, Mr. Funny Juggles, and 3 lit torches. Yeap, you guessed
it. He instructs me to THROW HIM THE TORCH I'M HOLDING. I was
mortified. The crowd grew quiet. My stomach was doing flip flops and my
palms were sweating in the frigid spring air. He was kidding, right? This was a
joke.. part of the act... he'd never actually trust a stranger to throw fire
at him.WHY?!?! Suddenly I knew I had to do it. This was it. I had to do it. I
had to throw this lit torch to a man on a unicycle who was holding two other
lit torches in front of a giant crowd.
He counted 1....2....3! I tossed him the torch and probably (definitely)
muttered the F-word... all in slow motion, of course...
but it was a success! A perfect torch toss, if I do say so myself.
I don't remember the rest of the act because I was to busy trying to
control the shaking of my limbs.
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| I could have killed you Mr. Funny Juggles! |
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| Success. |
