Just got home from the Atlanta Fall Irish Festival. What a crowd for an first-time event! There must be pent-up Celticism around here that needed this outlet. We listened to music, watched a bodhran workshop, took a ceili dance tutorial, mixed and mingled. I wore the SWK Irish saffron, with a green shirt, off-white hose - a walking Irish flag, no less.

I met a fellow working the Theater Gael table wearing an O'Neille tartan kilt from Geoffrey Tailor. I initially mistook it for a Gordon because it was a yellow stripe over Black Watch. But the sett width is about 7-8 inches, versus about 12 for my Gordon. He was a very nice guy, wearing his wife's family tartan because he didn't like his own, (Ford).

There was an older gentleman working one of the five stages, dressed in Black Watch, waistcoat, black velvet vest and diced balmoral (wearing it backwards, BTW, with rosette on the right and ribbons over his left ear).

As I was leaving someone trod on my heel. I turned around and there was a grinning kiltie in lovat blue jacobite shirt and 16-oz. Shaw Ancient. I introduced my family and we got to chatting. Turns out he is a lapsed X-Marker named ShawHighlander! It also turns out we share a Forbes clan affiliation. My daughter cried out "Cousin!" and gave him a hug. He seemed quite taken with her. He is the Shaw convener for the Stone Mountain Games, so I'll look him up there.

Afterward I took the family to the Harp Pub for dinner and a drink. You know, there isn't that much difference between the 10-yr Bushmills single malt and the 16-yr? Fortunately at this pub the price diff was only a quarter, too.

All in all a very satisfactory outing.