If you got a chance to catch Carrickmacross Productions show last year at Madlab Theatre - Stones in His Pockets, you know you won’t want to miss their production of The Blowin of Baile Gall which which starts this Friday and runs through the 28th. You can buy tickets at Madlab’s site – but don’t wait, last year Stones in His Pockets sold out. I’ll be there opening night – hope to see some DIF fans there!

Stones in his Pockets was touching and funny – and received rave reviews from the local press. The two main actors are reunited for this show, so it promises to be well done.

This is a chance to support a local theater group who is bringing great Irish plays to Central Ohio.

Also, watch online or in the mail for next year’s Catco line-up.  They will be presenting  The Seafarer by Conor McPherson. After being nominated in 2007 in London for an Olivier Award for best play, The Seafarer had an acclaimed Broadway run and was nominated for a 2008 Tony. 

The tickets aren’t on sale yet, but I received a mailer this week with the info and the offer to buy the season tickets.

So, I’ve recently taken up running and thought a good goal would be to run the Dublin Irish Festival 4-Miler - of course, that doesn’t follow my own advice of staff never running the DIF 4-miler b/c the rest of the week is so hard on us. Last year though, we had a staff member that I thought could handle it- and I was right!

Mike, outrunning the motorcycle

Mike Sawicki, our own web specialist, won the 4-Miler at 21:12. At the St. Patrick’s day 4-miler, he won again with a course record of 20:49.

Can anyone stop him? Make it your goal and register for this year’s 4-miler. Don’t wait too long because last year we actually had to close registration.

So, I know I probably won’t be joining Mike this year, but you can - or you can join me on the sidelines and cheer him on!

I’m getting a lot of emails from staff with some fun stories – bringing up a lot of memories for me!

This first one is about me – from Judy who among a million other things, takes care of all of our phone needs: One of the memories that I can recall is when you dropped your cell phone in the water at the start of the festival. Not necessarily funny, but par for the course, wouldn’t you say?

What she doesn’t include in this story is that this isn’t the only time I have ever needed an emergency phone, there was the time the buttons stopped working (from overuse?) or the time when I was making a quick clothing change in the bathroom that it fell in the toilet.

David, who has been on our staff recalls one of my personal favorite memories :
I loved the year that the rumor began spreading through the Festival that one of the bands had stolen one of the sheep and had taken it away on their bus.

Another version of this story was that one of the sheep had escaped by getting on a shuttle 

Dave & Pat who were co-chairs of the beverage committee at the time made up this rumour to see how many people they could get to repeat it – it worked – it’s all we heard all weekend!

The final memory for today comes from Sharon, who now works in our Court Svc. dept. but use to work for us. This is one of those that makes us remember why the Irish Festival can be so special:
I remember being crammed into the lobby of city hall with about 300 (?) people during a thunderstorm and a musician pulling out his fiddle and playing. It immediately changed the tone of the crowd and everyone was smiling and clapping.

One thing we have learned over the past couple of years, there are some really great Irish Festivals in driving distance – why not take some time this summer to check some of the out! -

July 10-11 – Shamrock Club Irish Music and Arts Festival – in our own back yard so there is no excuse to miss it.

July 24-26 – Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival - Get a sneak peak at the Screaming Orphans before the come to Dublin!

July 24-26 -Dayton Irish Festival - This will be a hard choice – Dayton/Cleveland – can’t believe they are the same weekend this year! Gaelic Storm will be making a stop here before coming to Dublin.

July 31 – August 2 – Dublin Irish Festival – Like we really need to tell you!

August 13 – 16 – Milwaukee Irish Festival - A little far of a drive – but well worth the trip! I’m hoping to make it this year with a stop in Chicago for Lollapalooza the weekend before.

September 4-6 – Kansas City Irish Festival - Again, a far drive, but it is a holiday weekend

Sept. 11-13 – Pittsburgh Irish Festival - You can go early and catch the Super Bowl champs, the Steelers play on Thursday night

Sept. 18-20 – Indy Irish Fest – No entertainers announced yet – but I am sure they will be soon

September 26-27 – Louisville Irish Festival - One of the last chances to get your fix before the winter sets in!

I’m sure there are many more to check out – I’ll try to post more info as soon as I know it

Happy Travels!

I know that we probably don’t have to tell you this – but we really need your help! It takes over 1,200 volunteers to run the Festival and that doesn’t even count the people in our beverage fundraising groups that sell the soda and beer!

I know we have some of the most amazing volunteers – we are luck to have a huge return rate and we know volunteers are always recruiting their friends and neighbors to help out – so, you ask why?

Well, it’s fun, you feel like you are part of the Festival, it helps us out - and you also get a one-day comp ticket and a cool tshirt – this year’s design is below – we liked the DIF sticker so much – we made it a shirt! These are going on the press as I write this.

We just posted the online application forms, Judy in Volunteer Services told me they are coming in really fast – so thanks for that – but don’t wait if you want a specific time or job!