By: Jeff Meade

Reilly Ann and Poppy

The first person I ran into at the Ancient Order of Hibernians Irish Festival along in St. Michael Park in Mont Clare was an old friend, Verne Leedom, former pipe major for Irish Thunder Pipes and Drums.

Possibly the very next person I ran into was Verne’s granddaughter Reilly Ann.

Not long after that, I bumped into Sean Leedom, Verne’s son, near the horseshoe pits.

I was beginning to think that everybody at the festival on Saturday was a member of the Leedom family.

Not true, though. A hundred or so sun-shy Celts hunkered down in the shade of the picnic pavilion or browsed for Irish jewelry, hats, bumper stickers and other Hibernian tchochkes in the vendors’ tents. Most of the festival-goers, it turned out, actually belonged to other families.

That was the coolest part of an otherwise sweltering day—that so many families turned out for a day along the banks of the Schuylkill, just across the river from Phoenixville. From where I sat—at a picnic table, munching a sausage-and-pepper sandwich on a crusty Conshohocken roll and sipping an ice-cold Coke—it looked like they were having a great time.

Earlier in the day, Irish Thunder Pipes and Drums had performed, and Oliver McElhone as well. By the time I arrived, at mid-afternoon, Fisher and Maher were tearing up the place with a performance of Irish traditional music that was as hot as the day.

Emma Hanson

Not long after they left the stage, Burning Bridget Cleary—two fiddlers and a guitarist from the Lehigh Valley—jacked up the energy level even more. (They’d confessed to having consumed large cups of iced coffee before arriving on the Festival grounds. But I heard them at the Valley Forge Scottish-Irish Festival in February. If that performance was any indication, coffee has nothing to do with it. They chug along just fine on their own inexhaustible energy source.)

A little later on, a bevy of Coyle school dancers also entertained the crowd with some high stepping to match their spirits.

For those who weren’t up for high-octane Irish music or dance, there was plenty of lazy summertime slacking off to do. The horseshoe pit, for example, was a pretty popular destination. So were the picnic tables nestled among a nearby stand of trees, where people nursed icy beers and quietly chatted.

Irish weather? No. But still, a great start to the summer for Philadelphia’s Irish.