Okay, so I'm about a week and a half posting this, but August 24-26th was the annual Buffalo Irish Festival. (Actually, I mentioned this as a potential SOKS gathering, but not in this forum.)

Anyway, every year about the third weekend in August, the local Irish societies (of which there are a lot of in Buffalo) hold this festival which starts on a Friday night, and goes through Sunday night. There are the usual booths, t-shirts, buttons, jewelry, knick-knacks and such (didn't see anything too cheesy), but the main draw is the music. In addition to local and regional talent, they also have nationally and internationally named talent.

It started (officially) with the parade of the 32 counties:


and then the musicians started playing on the three separate stages.

Of the sixteen different musical acts, I only caught a half dozen or so.
Top of the list was Paddy Keenan. I had heard recordings of Uilleann pipes, but I had never seen them played or heard them live. I was lucky that the first time I experienced both, Paddy Keenan was the person playing them. I caught two of his shows. I have never seen a piper finger so fast, and the music was amazing.



This next bit has nothing to do with the music, but you can't have an Irish festival without Irish Wolfhounds, can you?

This little fellow was 12 and a half weeks old. He and his older (and bigger) brother took part in the Parade of Counties, and he came back again Saturday. I'm waiting to see what he'll look like in a year.