39th Annual Dublin Irish Festival

August seemed so far away back in June when my wife's family first started talking about all of us heading down to the Dublin, Ohio area to spend some time at the Dublin Irish Festival. @mrsbozz wasn't so sure about attending, but once it was determined that the rest of her brothers and sisters would be going, I figured I should just take the chance and book a hotel room. I was able to get us a nice room at a decent price that was within walking distance to the festival grounds.

We pulled into town the afternoon of the first night and we spent some time at her sister's house who lives down in the area. It's funny, because they live smack in the middle of town, but sitting in their backyard you wouldn't really know it. Yes, there are houses all around them, but there are also a lot of mature trees and luscious green space that draws in all manner of wildlife including deer.

The festival takes place in Coffman Park and from what I understand, it is one of the largest Irish Festivals outside of Ireland. There were definitely a ton of people there despite the oppressive heat. It was sticky to say the least with the humidity topping out over 80%. My mother and father in law got dropped off at the gate before they made their way to a spot at the edge of the main stage.

With their chairs all set up, the "kids" decided to do a bit of wandering. There is honestly a ton of stuff going on at this festival. There are food vendors all over the place, some of them with traditional Irish fare and others with not so much. There is also beverage vendors all over the place with a nice selection of beer and spirits including Guinness and Jameson of course.

In addition to that, there are multiple stages with different kinds of Irish/Celtic music being played at each one. They also have spoken word stages and traditional Irish field games.

Despite the miserable heat, we had a pretty good time. I think the thing I found most amusing was the number of guys walking around in kilts. I said to @mrsbozz aren't kilts a Scottish thing? After a quick Google search it turns out I was mostly right. I wasn't going to be the one to tell everyone they had the wrong country though.

Over the course of the evening we got to see three or four bands perform. We mostly hung out at the Temple Bar Stage and that gave us a lineup of Brave the Sea, followed by The Prodigals, then The Narrowbacks, and finally Gaelic Storm.

I'll be honest and admit we left before Gaelic Storm took the stage.

I did my best to enjoy a Jameson, but they only gave me like two ice cubes and it melted within seconds. It's safe to say it was just too hot out for whisky, so I ended up switching to beer for the rest of the night.

As you can see, there were a ton of people at this place. It was absolutely packed. I'd probably split it up into two different groups for the most part. There were the school aged kids running around huddling up in groups with their friends doing who knows what, talking about who knows what. Then there were the people my age who were basically just there to get drunk it felt like. Which isn't a bad thing, it's just interesting. My niece who is just about 20 made the same observation and confided at her age that the festival just doesn't have the same draw as it used to.

If someone can explain to me what an Irish sausage is, I'd be interested to hear it. Is it like a Polish sausage?

After observing a bit of action at the dart tent, I did end up heading back to the main stage and "splitting the G" with a nice mug of Guinness. Despite the heat, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a pint or however much comes in the plastic cups they were using.

Eventually, the sun started to go down and that helped cool things down slightly, but not too much. With rain in the forecast for the next day, there was a hope that the humidity would eventually break. It wasn't happening on Friday night though. After making sure her parents were packed up and safely back where they were going to spend the night, @mrsbozz and I decided to call it a night as well.

On the way out, we stopped at one of the food trucks and shared some amazing cheese and potato perogies. I'm not sure that is a very "Irish" dish, but potatoes right? I was really looking forward to finding a place that was serving traditional, Colcannon, but that apparently wasn't in the cards. The perogies would be the closest I would get.

Given next year is the 40th annual festival, I have a feeling they will do quite a bit extra to make it a little more special. I don't think we will probably attend though. If you are in the area though, you definitely should. It's worth going at least once to hang out and check out all the festivities!

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