By: Shane Bagot
South Jersey is home to a strong Celtic community supported by the South Jersey Celtic Society. To help celebrate and promote Celtic culture, the society created the Celtic Festival. The fifth annual festival will be held at the Burlington County Fairgrounds in Columbus on October 10 and 11.
The nonprofit South Jersey Celtic Society was formed in 2014. The society sponsors events and parades to support Celtic heritage. It also hosts events, including whiskey tastings, poetry readings, and other cultural gatherings throughout the year.
The festival was developed as a way to bring the traditional Scottish athletic competitions of the Highland Games and other Celtic traditions to South Jersey. At the time, people interested in attending comparable Highland Games had to travel to New York or Maryland, according to society president John Adams. Through the festival, the society also puts other aspects of Celtic culture on display, including music and dance.
This year, alongside the main attraction of the Highland Games, participants will also be able to enjoy Celtic food, beer, and whiskey tastings. There will be knife and axe throwing, while children can enjoy face painting.
The community enthusiastically embraces the events, according to society member Leo Dungan. Attendees come prepared in costume, even putting their dogs in costumes, including one dressed as a dragon. Many come to enjoy the atmosphere and sing songs associated with the culture.
“Everybody in the crowd will be singing, and we know the lyrics to all the Irish songs, so we’ll be singing as, you know, as a vendor there, pouring beer. The Renaissance fairs have their own little community, and they have certain songs that they do amongst themselves, and the whole crowd takes part in those that have been religious attenders of the Renaissance fair. That’s a nice time of just being together and hundreds of people singing,” said Dungan.
The inclusive nature of the community is also reflected in the variety of members and participants at the festival. A number of attendees do not have Celtic ancestry. The same is true of the society’s approximately 150 members, according to Adams. The society attracts people who are interested in learning more about Celtic culture, regardless of their heritage.
Adams said the society welcomes people from many backgrounds.
“I mean, we support what the Celts believed in: freedom and liberty and things like that, but you don’t have to have any kind of pedigree or show us anything in order to become a South Jersey Celtic Society member. Canadians that are in our group, we have people from a bunch of other states, Texas, Georgia, Florida, but they’re all South Jersey Celtic Society because they like what we stand for,” said Adams.
Another driving factor for the society in starting the festival was to create an event for its community. Adams said that while Irish festivals and other events are common in South Jersey, the region did not have Highland Games or a broader Celtic festival when the society developed its event. The society’s mission is to show that Celtic culture encompasses more than Irish traditions alone.
That appreciation for different cultures can be seen around celebrations such as St. Patrick’s Day and, more recently, in the enthusiasm surrounding international events such as the World Cup, according to Dungan. That mutual enjoyment of cultures is what the society hopes to encourage through the festival.
“The Scots loved America, and we loved the Scots, and everybody was just about falling in love with that kind of community because their joy is so infectious, and so that’s what we want to do. We want to connect with that Celtic community and just kind of make everybody have a good time and have infectious joy,” said Dungan.
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This article was produced as part of Follow South Jersey’s student journalism program, which provides aspiring journalists with practical experience in professional news reporting and writing.
