Saturday, April 26 make plans to celebrate your heritage with a fun festival for all ages. Come from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and enjoy the day come rain or shine. It is the 30th annual Celtic Festival at the 560-acre Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum.
The Celtic Society of Southern Maryland hosts the oldest Celtic celebration in Maryland. Each year, the festival is scheduled for the last Saturday of April where 50 or more clans and societies share information about their heritage with anyone who asks.
There will be performances on three stages, lots of traditional Celtic music and dance and many internationally acclaimed recording artists to add to the Celtic fun. Enjoy Celtic crafts and Scottish fiddling while listening to stories told next to historic displays. Attendees will also enjoy a Celtic marketplace offering traditional foods and gifts in an old world setting. All day long, there will be pipers, fiddlers, highland dancers, athletes, drummers, pipe bands and Celtic harpers.
For those into sports, the festival will be host to hotly contested Rugby matches as well. When asked about the Rugby, Mary Beth Dent, the Celtic Festival Committee Chairperson stated, “Rugby was a part of our first Festival at Kin’g’s Landing in 1979. When our [venue] changed in 1984, there was no longer space to field a rugby tournament. This year Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum offered to rent us an additional field and since it was level and sufficiently stable, rugby could return.”
The Bay Net talked with Jeffrey Croisetiere about the rugby team. Croisetiere stated that The Patuxent River Rugby Football Club is part of the Southern Maryland Rugby Football Association (SMRFA) and that they [are] primarily a senior men’s club established in 1990 with the goal to promote youth, collegiate, and senior men and women’s rugby in the Tri-County area.
The non-profit club provides a fun and safe field of competition for all interested athletes. “The men’s club has been the driving force for promoting the sport of rugby in Southern Maryland,” Croisetiere said. He added that the men’s club is the charter club within SMRFA. “[We] have expanded this year and begun a women’s side that is competing in the spring and summer seasons in the Mid-Atlantic region.”
He indicated that there are over 30 women athletes who have been practicing against the men’s team. “They are eager to start a winning tradition for women’s rugby in Southern Maryland.”
To enjoy a day of Celtic fun, or to watch a fierce Rugby match, head to Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum on Saturday with the whole family. Admission is $15 for adults, $7 for Children ages 6-12 and free for ages 5 and under. To learn more about the Celtic Festival visit www.cssm.org/index.php?festival, call 443-404-7319 or email Festival@cssm.org.