The Pittsburgh Irish Festival, annually taking place the weekend after Labor Day, is a means to bring together a community interested in learning about Irish culture. It provides entertainment in the form of music, sports, and bringing traditions to life, but it also serves a much greater purpose not as visible to attendees: to educate about authentic Irish experiences and teach patrons as much as possible in just three short days. The Festival accomplishes its educational mission in myriad ways, and its assortment of tents and attractions are a prime example of this.
One tent that stood out as fulfilling an educational purpose is called Leprechaun’s Landing. This tent is unique in that it is the only tent at the Festival that is specifically meant for children. The volunteers who work the tent are trained/well-informed on Irish folklore and traditions, and they complete activities with children that indirectly teach them the lessons from the folklore while their parents can experience the Festival’s other tents. It is interesting to think that a small craft or song can seem insignificant to adults, but to children, the lessons stick with them. By sugarcoating Irish culture with toys and games, the Irish Festival is able to instill aspects of Irish tradition into children of all ages.
Right next to Leprechaun’s Landing sits the Genealogy tent, or the place one goes to learn about their ancestry. Ancestry has become a popular venture to many people, as almost everyone hopes to find where they came from and when their family came to the United States. Ancestry gives one a more-defined sense of identity since it heightens one’s knowledge of where they come from, so the Genealogy tent is ever-popular of late. This tent is manned by four to six volunteers that have studied Irish heritage and are knowledgeable on navigating the many physical and digital resources in the tent: textbooks and journals cover every possible surface and computers are available for clients to use. One can attempt, with the help of the tent’s trained experts, to find their last name, and track what date and which relatives migrated to America.
Although the physical experience of the Pittsburgh Irish Festival does most of the educating, another prominent educational resource that accompanies this event is the Festival’s website. The website, pghirishfest.org, is less of an advertisement and more of a historical look at the Festival, its mission, and its growth. Anyone who visits the website and explores the ‘About’ page will leave with an abundance of information not only on the Festival’s attractions, dates and times, and volunteer opportunities, but also on Nan Krushinski, one of the Festival’s co-founders, and her vision for the Festival’s impact on the Pittsburgh community.
We, as a class, were given the chance to peruse the Festival’s website before attending the event, but not every attendee will have this educational sneak-peek. I hadn’t even heard of the Festival after living in Pittsburgh for three years, so advertising for the event must be mostly through word-of-mouth or social media. If you found the event on social media, then they might venture to check out the Festival’s extensive webpages, but if a friend referred you by word-of-mouth, you might just show up to the event not knowing the underlying educational mission.
What the website fails to do that the physical festival does so well is teach attendees through the most Irish medium: storytelling. Just like Frank O’Connor’s “First Confession”, a tale in which he depicts his humorous confession of wanting to kill his grandmother, the Irish Festival is so authentic in its historical and cultural storytelling. The volunteers occupying each tent are passionate about Irish heritage and practices, so when attendees interact with the workers, they are enhancing their experience. Those who volunteer at the Irish Festival all bring unique and researched perspectives to each tent, offering patrons another educational tool for their benefit. Storytelling is such a deeply-rooted trait in Irish culture, with humor and bluntness at its core, that the Irish Festival wouldn’t be as authentic without it.
A crucial educational aspect of the Pittsburgh Irish Festival is a station near the food stalls that changes annually, and this year it was a small cottage decorated with stuffed sheep and hanging sweaters. At first glance, this exhibit doesn’t seem interesting at all, but during our class’s tour, Nan told us that the cottage represented the different knots sailors would knit into their sweaters using wool from Irish sheep. The different knots would symbolize a surname or identity-marker, and if someone was found dead, their sweater with its unique knots would serve as a present-day ID. This specific example of an educational attraction at the Festival suggests just how genuine Nan and the other creators of the event are in their goal of delivering an authentic and educational experience to every person who buys a ticket either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
Through these examples, it becomes apparent that the Pittsburgh Irish Festival is more than simply a form of entertainment or an excuse to get drunk: it is an efficient and well-thought-out educational tool. Every person that walks underneath the colorful welcome banner will leave learning at least one new thing. Even the most Irish Pittsburghers can delve deeper into exploring their heritage, trying new recipes of Irish foods, and tying a wish onto the Festival’s Clootie (Wish) Tree. With the abundance of activities and live performances, the event encapsulates the liveliness and whimsy of Irish culture. The educational aspect of each tent, storyteller, and program is more inclusive to the Pittsburgh community; whether one is Irish or not, they will benefit from stopping by or spending the weekend at the expansive grounds of the Riverplex at Sandcastle, the Festival’s malleable home in West Homestead.
Works Cited
“About.” The Annual 28th Pittsburgh Irish Festival, pghirishfest.org/about.
O’Connor, Frank. “First Confession.” Stories for Further Reading. Print.