Asheville – Not even the daunting cold and wind chill factors that kept most people home or scurrying for a warm place could keep people near and far from flocking to the Asheville Celtic Festival at the WNC Agricultural Center on February 17th and 18th.
A Year OF Firsts
This year, for the first time, it was a two-day festival, and it paid off. They didn’t yet have a final count on Sunday evening, but they estimated that there were over 4,000 people on Saturday and another 2,000 on Sunday. Festival co-founder Dave Donnell said he was told by an Ag Center employee that “our attendance numbers were second to the biggest he’d ever seen, so we’re quite pleased about that.” The largest attendance by far for all Ag Center events is the WNC Mountain State Fair.
Another first this year was that several Scottish clans were invited to have booths where they could speak with people and share their history. The clans in attendance were Clans Mackay, Kennedy, Douglas, Buchanan, and MacGregor.
Why Are These Celtic Events So Popular?
David Carrick is the North American Chief of Clan Kennedy. Carrick’s great-grandfather came to the U.S. from Glasgow in the 1880s, and his dad grew up in an area of Pennsylvania where a lot of the people were miners and still spoke with a very broad Scots accent. But it wasn’t until later that Carrick learned they were part of the Kennedy Clan, and that was when he started attending Highland Games and other Celtic events. He said, “There is a certain romantic quality to it, and people like to know where they came from and their heritage.” Sitting at the clan tent, people just come up to you and say, ‘My mother, or father, was a Kennedy.’” Carrick said the first time he went to Scotland, it was like he had been there before.
Adrian Jenkins, a landscape photographer who only takes photos of Scotland, said, “People come into my booth and actually cry; they have an affinity with it. It effects them so much; it’s a resonance. It’s part of the story—our story, our background, our heritage.” Jenkins was born in Wales, brought up in England, later lived in Edinburgh, Scotland, and now resides in Marietta, GA.
Crowd Pleasers
When asked why they attend these Celtic events, the answers are varied, but the main answers were the heritage, the music, the animals, and, of course, the heavy athletics. Kevin Mallory, with the group Scotsman of the Carolinas, said the main reason he comes is the music: “I love the Celtic bands. I like the traditional Celtic music, but I also like the way the music has been adapted to American tastes as well.”
Anita Etherton and Jean Potite were there for the first time. Etherton shared, “We’re having a ball. I love all of it—the dogs, Irish Wolfhounds, Boarder Collies, and the woolly beasts (referring to the shaggy highland cows).” She then pointed to her friend Jean and said, “I brought her to meet Albannach.”
Albannach is a band from Scotland that is a crowd favorite wherever they play and the headliner for this festival. They play the big drums with pipes and a didgeridoo. Their primal drumming and precise piping stirs the souls of anyone who hears them. James (Jamsie) Johnston, who has been one of the drummers for years, said, “We’ve been on the road since 2002. The first gig we did was in a place called Glasgow, Kentucky. From there, it just snowballed and became this monster.” Albannach only plays in the U.S. now.
There were 10 bands total this year, including two drum and pipe corps, The Grandfather Mountain Highlanders Pipe Band and Knoxville Pipes and Drums.
Another big draw is the Warriors of Ash, a group that demonstrates and teaches sword fighting, which, according to Ziggy, one of their sword fighters, “they learned from manuals from back in a time when learning sword was not for play.” The group was started by Lochlan Koulouris, who pointed out that many in the group are real warriors, veterans who have protected the realm for years and years. This group helps them find the camaraderie they lost when they left the military.
Would You Like to research Your Heritage?
If you would like to research your own family history, the best place to go is the Scottish Tartan Museum in Franklin, NC, which was started to be a reliable resource in America for Scottish attire and history. Anyone can send them an email, and they will look up the clan, tartan, and history of the name. At this time, they are the only Scottish tartan museum and heritage center in the world.
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