Archive: Around Town

Once a year the Celts descend on the Cortland fair grounds only a half hour from Lansing.  Last Saturday even the rain held off so people could enjoy the sixth annual Cortland Celtic Festival.  The event is a celebration of Celtic (pronounced "keltick") heritage that the Cortland Celtic Cultural Association hosts each year.  "We try to represent all seven Celtic nations if possible," says Cecile Scott who co-chaired the event with Colleen DeGouff.  "We do get mostly Scottish and Irish as far as displays and exhibits."  The other five are  Brittany, Galicia, Cornwall, Wales, and the Isle of Man."


Celtic Festivals are held all over North America.  The Cortland festival included lots of music including internationally known bands and local performers.  There were bagpipes, Celtic dancers, food, tents where you could meet members of Socttish clans and possibly trace your own heritage.  Celtic wares and musical instruments were for sale in an enormous tent, and burly men and women competed in traditional Celtic sports.  The festival attracted people from all over.  "We have people from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, all parts of New york State," Scott says.  "We had somebody come all the way from California to hear Greenwich Mean Time.  He follows them wherever they go, so that was quite a treat that he was here in Cortland."


Danny Ross of McGraw has been at the festival every year to tell people about his clan.  "Clan Ross is one of the original clans of the Highlands in Scotland," says Ross.  "I set up a booth, I have books to help people trace their ancestries."  Ross is a former president of Clan Ross North America.  He's been to Scottish games from Maine to Georgia and attends various Celtic festivals around the U.S. and Canada.  He had books, Scottish tartans, battle shields and armor on display in his tent.

Clan Ross has three to four thousand members in North America.  "We have a castle, Balnagowan, in the highlands," he says.  The castle dates from the late 14th century.  Ross has traced his family in the United States back to 1770.  "My ancestor was the first postmaster in Homer in 1790.  His name was Townsend Ross.  He was born in in Connecticut in 1770."


Ross's brother Dean also had a booth where he was selling hand made walking staffs that he had crafted specially for the Cortland festival.  "A walking staff is a lot handier than the crutches they gave me at the V.A.," said Dean, who is paralyzed.  "I can climb stairs, and do anything.  I can even reach for things."  The staffs were carved with dragons and Celtic art work, and some had runes embedded in them.  He spends 10 to 20 hours on each staff, and also makes customized staffs for people, some of whom bring him the wood to carve them from.  "The wood talks to me," he said. 


Anne Habermehl has also displayed at the Cortland festival since it began.  The proprietor of 'The Harp and Dragon,'  Habermehl is well known around the world for selling Celtic Harps and performing on them.  She sells musical instruments, Celtic jewelry and gifts and Welsh crafts on the Internet and from a showroom in her Cortland home.  Because of the humidity she only brought pictures of harps, but plenty of other instruments and gift items were on display for sale.  "We do the penny whistles and the bodhrans , and whistles and flutes, and also do some bagpipe things."

"I usually sell some bodhrans (pronounced bow-ron)," she said.  "You don't pronounce the 'D'.  It's a Gaelic word and the Gaels love to throw in all these letters you don't pronounce.  It is probably about the easiest instrument to pick up and have some fun on.  This doesn't mean that it's easy to play it well, because the experts really do some complicated things.  And next to that the penny whistle, which if you are going to play it lightly, it is easy to pick up the basics.  If you're really good like James Galway it sounds like a million dollars."


In the sports arena, contestants were competing in traditional games of strength such as the caber toss, where a giant log is thrown as great a distance as possible.  Other events included heavy and light weights, where the contender turns in a circle to get momentum to throw a heavy ball and chain, open stone throw, Braemar stone throw, and sheaf toss in which a bag is thrown from a pitchfork for height.  "We also have a pretty famous international competitor for the heavy athletics," Scott said.  Harrison Bailey competed Saturday.  Bailey holds the third place overall record.  Scott says that at larger festivals his fans are so numerous that it is hard to get near him to see him.  "So this is quite a treat to be able to get right up there and see Harrison Baily."  Bailey was going to try to break a record at the event, and managed to do it with 54 feet, 10 1/2 inches in the stone throw.

Meanwhile kids competed in their own caber and sheaf toss events.  With cabers made of cardboard tubes and sheafs filled with straw, they competed for distance and trophies were awarded.  They could also look for treasure -- candy, ribbons and such, in a pile of hay.  McGraw's Maybury Brook Stables offered free pony rides for kids, and there was face paining, Celtic farm animals, and other activities throughout the day.


Martha MacNeil West, of Rome, and Katherine MacNeil Taylor, from Skaneatlas were telling people about Clan MacNeil of North America at their booth, where they displayed placards showing countless spellings of the name.  "We come from Barragh, Colonsay and Ghia in the southeastern portion of Scotland," West explained.  This was the first year the sisters had a booth, because the clan commissioner who usually does it was at a Celtic festival in Vermont that day.  "My favorite thing is meeting the people," said West.  "And trying to find clan names for people."


Music is a large part of the Celtic festival, even more so this year than in the past.  A concert on Main Street Friday gave a taste of what was to come at the festival the next day.  "It was a great turnout," Scott said.  "It was a chance to bring the whole Celtic flavor right down to Main Street Cortland.  People had a ball.  An awesome group, Greenwich Meantime, was rocking Lucky's bar."  The main event Saturday night was international touring and recording band, 'Enter The Haggis.'  Other musicians preformed in the pole barn, concert and dining tents, including 'The Town Pants,' Donal O'Shaughnessey, 'The Mohawk Valley Frasers, Pat Kane and 'West o'Clare,' 'Trouz Bras,' and 'Fiddlesticks.'

About 60 volunteers made the festival go smoothly under Volunteer Coordinator Pam Ross.  "She does an excellent job," Scott says.  "She has a lot of returning volunteers every year that come back again because they enjoy the festival so much."  Volunteers were scattered all over the fairgrounds conducting games for kids, coordinating musicians, answering questions and selling tickets.


One of Scott's favorite parts of the festival is the pipe band.  "I end up crying every time they play because it is just so emotional to hear the pipes," she says.  "That is a big treat."  There was something for everyone.  Joe Ellis drove all the way from Warsaw, near Buffalo for his first Celtic Festival.  "It took a few gallons of gas to get here, but it was worth it.  It's been a fun day.  I'm glad I came."

----
v2i33