Despite a very wet morning, the gates to the 2nd Annual Irish Festival opened under sunny skies at 11:00am this morning to a waiting crowd of approximately 2,000. By 2:00pm, the crowd had swelled to more than 15,000. Coupled with the pre-festival concert on Friday, festival Director, Eddie McGowan, estimates that 22,000 were in attendance.
Festival goers reported that during the peak time, traffic on Generals Highway was backed up from the fairgrounds to Westfield Annapolis with travel time between the two points ranging from 45 minutes to an hour.
From the Busch Gardens sponsored Little Leprechaun Land to the three stages bring Celtic bands such as Scythian, The Rogues, Albannach, The Screaming Orphans, and local favorite, The Rovers–everylne was having a wild-Irish time!
More than 70 vendors lined the pathways of the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds and found business to be overwhelming. Jimmy Frisco of Lisa’s Luncheonette said that the crowd last night “nearly wiped me out of food. I had to go re-provision this morning. ALl in all, not a bad problem to have.”
Here are some snapshots from the festival. To see more, please visit our online gallery where you are free to right click and download as needed. We also took lot’s of video, so please check back.