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Home > Employment > Working at MITRE > Community Involvement > | ||||||||||||||||
| Keeping the Celtic Culture Alive November 2002
"One of the big differences from other Celtic festivals is that the Potomac Celtic Festival is a Pan Celtic festival, meaning that the art, music, and culture from the seven recognized Celtic nations are all represented," says Jim Finegan. The festival is held each year, during the second week in June at the Morven Park's International Equestrian Center near Leesburg, Virginia. Jim and his wife have been the Clan Society Coordinators for the past six years. As with any large event, the work starts early, and Jim begins in July to prepare for next year's event. One of his jobs is to solicit participation from the various Scottish clans and societies (e.g., St. Andrew's Society of Washington, Hibernian for the Irish, and St. David's for the Welsh) to set up tents for clan representation. This year 63 clans and societies attended. For two days, festival attendees can visit these tents and look up their genealogy. Experts are on hand to teach workshops on Celtic languages, storytelling styles, and knotwork. There's a reenactment of Celtic history from the 1st Century B.C. through the 20th Century. Even the food is Celtic with hamburgers made from Scottish highland beef along with haggis and Scotch eggs. In addition, there is continuous live ethnic music and dance on eight stages, standard Scottish highland games of tossing of the caber and the lead weight toss, five pipe bands, dancing demonstrations, as well as some UK/Scottish border clan antics of sheep stealing (stuffed animals only). Jim remains committed to this festival because "there's a lot more to the Celtic heritage than most people realize. Every nation in the world has an ancient history that has been lost and this is one way to help preserve ours, while educating others."
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