29th North Texas Irish festival

Hundreds of visitors recently descended on Fair Park to participate in the largest Celtic festival in the southwest.

Every year, during the first weekend in March, the Southwest Celtic Music Association (SCMA), headquartered in Dallas, hosts the North Texas Irish Festival.

Even if you have never been to the festival before and just want something fun to do, the Irish festival provides entertainment for all ages.

From a wide variety of Irish music bands from traditional Irish dance performances put on by local Irish dancing schools, to the vendors and booths to the petting zoo and food kiosks, there is plenty of activity to keep visitors busy for three hours or the whole three days!

One of the festival highlights each year is the Saturday night "ceilí" (pronounced "kay-lee,") which is Gaelic for an Irish folk dance party.

Many local, national, and international Irish bands come to perform for their fans and the crowds around the festival grounds each year. This year, some of the headliners included Behan, an Irish band out of Belfast, Ireland, The Irish Rogues, a local Celtic/rock pub-band, and Seamus Stout, another locally-based traditional Irish pub-band.

According to the SCMA Web site, the group hosted its first festival on March 5, 1983.

Now known as the First Texas Ceilí, the event was nothing more than a large ceilí held at Nick Farrelly's Lounge in Oak Lawn. As the SCMA expanded the ceilí into a festival, the organization used two other locations before it moved to the current venue at Fair Park in 2001.

Since then, the North Texas Irish Festival continues to grow each year as more visitors and businesses come to share in its culture and help promote it.

However, if you missed the North Texas Irish Festival, there are other similar festivals around Texas and the rest of the Southwest region.

Some of the upcoming events within the Dallas area are the Texas Scottish Festival & Highland Games in Arlington, which opens June 3-5, 2011, and the Cowtown Celtic Festival hosted by the SCMA in Fort Worth.

Currently, the SCMA does not know what the exact dates for the Cowtown Celtic Festival will be for this year, but they should decide on the exact venue and dates by the end of March, according to Jim Miller, a public relations representative. According to Miller, the SCMA will post everything on the Cowtown Celtic Web site as soon as possible.

Next year will be the 30th Anniversary of the North Texas Irish Festival. Celebrations will take place March 2-4, 2012 at Fair Park.