The Festival will throw a mammoth ceili blast after Saturday night’s concert. Joining us this year will be our most popular visiting band: FullSet. Other favorites returning to take part in the festivities are Jerry O’Sullivan, Sean McComiskey and Mairtin de Cogain, representing our Irish contingent; Margaret Bennett, Alison Bell, and Ed Miller, representing our Scottish contingent; and Festival anchors, Adam Agee and Jon Sousa with special guest Jessie Burns, the acclaimed fiddle soloist who toured for six years with the American-Irish supergroup Gaelic Storm. This lineup is guaranteed to keep you singing, dancing, and playing music for four straight days and nights!

This year, we also pay tribute to an important Colorado anniversary, the Ludlow Battle in 1914 between the striking coal miners and the militia. In the early years of the 20th century, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and continental Celts made up part of the over 30 different nationalities represented in the Southern Colorado mining camps and ultimately the Ludlow tent colony. The tragedy of Ludlow was the massacre of a group of mothers and children who were trapped when their tents were set ablaze. The whole of Huerfano County will commemorate “The Year of Ludlow” on the Saturday before our Festival in September. Our contribution to that commemoration and to our own Festival will be the presentation of an original musical play based on the autobiography of Mary Thomas, a beautiful Welsh singer and young mother of two small daughters. The play tells her story of life in the Delouga Mining camp – when the strike began – life in the Ludlow tent colony, the close friends she made, the horrendous hardships endured, the good times the mining families enjoyed as they sang and danced together, the battle, and Mary’s subsequent visit to the White House.