More Reports from Irish Fest 2026

 

Yesterday I took the day off of work and went to the dentist in the morning, then in the early afternoon I drove to the condo of my Shamrock Club buddy (who wants to be known as Celtic Lass), and she drove us to the hotel where Travalon used to work. I took some photos for him, and he said it was really fixed up these days.

This is the roof of that atrium as viewed from our room.

Their "Caution Wet Floor/Piso Mojado" sign looked like a banana!

Then we drove to County Clare and took the free shuttle again, and I had a free ticket someone had given me, so I should get in free all four days. We went to the VIP area again and then we watched BIIRD again, as well as another all-women band called Cailini Lua.

We had really good lamb stew with marble rye bread and butter that looked like Kerrygold from the packaging, but then when you looked closer, it was a cheap knockoff. We also ran into a coworker of mine who I also saw at Irish Fest last year. We took a relatively late shuttle back to County Clare, and Celtic Lass found someone's hotel key card on the shuttle, so she gave it to our driver, Lyman.

This morning Celtic Lass met with a friend who lives here in the Milwaukee area, so I checked out the restaurant in the hotel for breakfast. They were surprisingly quick and friendly. Then we drove back to Irish Fest, thinking we had free parking as well as free entrance due to the statewide Shamrock Club meeting, but in fact we did have to pay to park. The meeting was kind of interesting, hearing what Milwaukee and La Crosse and New London Shamrock Clubs are doing. A priest came over with an Irish bishop, and somehow I ended up having this poor bishop hear my confession as we sat by the lake.

Once the actual festival started, we spent a lot of time listening to pipes and drums.

Tiffy arrived while Celtic Lass and I were listening to an Irish storyteller named Eamon De Cogain.

And here are some more pipers with dancers.

Here are photos of the Gardiner Brothers.

We kept seeing people with these cute Aer Lingus hats, so we kept asking people where they got them, and everyone had a different answer, but they were always free. While Celtic Lass was watching a different show, Tiffy and I were sitting in the shade by the lake, and we asked a group of older ladies who all had the hats, and to our surprise two of them gave us theirs. They said they were from a Badger rally that I had never heard about in either my capacity as an alumni nor as a current employee. We thought it would be bad form to ask for a third one for Celtic Lass, and we never did find one for her. Here's a selfie Tiffy took of the two of us in our new hats.

She tried to take a second one, and I didn't realize it. This one just makes me laugh. Is it my good side?

Celtic Lass saw the Brigideens and said they were really good, so I'll have to check them out tomorrow.

After Tiffy left, I went to the Irish Language tent and ran into some people I'd met before. They were giving out cake to celebrate a guy I'd never heard of, but Tiffy and I had just had chocolate chip mint shakes. Celtic Lass met me there, and then when we were leaving, we could see the beautiful lights on the bridge above us.

Now we are back at the hotel, and we'll have to get up early tomorrow for 9:30 am Mass. Yawn! I should note that a lot of these photos were taken by Celtic Lass, since her phone takes better photos than mine.

Famous Hat