The Bellingham Celtic Festival to return for its 10th year.
Our area’s vibrant Celtic music scene is good craic. “Craic” — pronounced crack — is Gaelic for fun, a good time. In Ireland, people say, “What’s the craic?” an equivalent to English, “What’s up? What’s the news?” But something that’s “good craic” is a great time and has an inviting and fun atmosphere.
That atmosphere is palpable on evenings during the Bellingham Celtic Festival, when bows fly in all directions, bodhráns lay down wild beats, button boxes sing brightly and bagpipes bellow a transcendent, dizzying succession of notes. Guitar and bouzouki keep the rhythm with resonant chords, forming a wall of sound that backs the dancing melodies. The company is smiling and warm. The bartender is inviting and accommodating, keeping drinks and hospitality flowing into the morning hours.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Bellingham Celtic Festival, formerly the Bellingham Irish Festival. The name was changed to “Celtic” in response to an emerging genre that represents music from seven Celtic nations: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany (in France), Cornwall (in England) and the Isle of Man and Galicia (in Spain).
Festival events, many free and all ages, will take place Sept. 17 to 21 at venues throughout downtown Bellingham, including Boundary Bay. The event corresponds with the restaurant’s last open weekend. Saturday, the taproom and beer garden will be bustling with concerts and Irish dancers, and a stage will close down Railroad Avenue outside the business for a street party celebrating the end of an era.
Growing a community
But our Celtic scene’s good craic isn’t built just on lively jams or a yearly festival. It’s a combination of things, tangible and intangible.
I first witnessed a session, the word for a Celtic jam, at Greene’s Corner in Bellingham. On a Monday night, I joined a new friend at the eatery and found a circle of 10 or 15 musicians playing tunes that all sounded about the same.
A few years later, having befriended several musicians who attended the Greene’s Corner session, I picked up my violin after half a decade. I started calling it a fiddle and going to the session as a participant. I didn’t know a single tune, but my Suzuki-trained ear gleaned a few notes. If the circle was tight when I arrived, someone would inch back their chair and offer with a smile the newly formed space next to them. Faces in the circle became familiar, and I began to feel part of something. The music started to make sense. I felt it more deeply, and I loved having a creative outlet that let me spend time with friends and make new connections.
That Monday night session had evolved from Irish and Folk Mondays, launched by Jan Peters in winter of 2014. The event started as a concert series at the Star Club — now the Orion — but soon moved to Boundary Bay’s beer garden for the delightful summer months. Peters, a multi-instrumentalist who plays and sings in several Celtic bands, including Gallowglass for 12 years, cycled through local Irish musicians each week like Derek Duffy, Lindsay Street and Peader McMahon. He also showcased Dale Russ, a renowned Seattle-based Irish fiddler, who helped spread the word to other touring musicians that Irish and Folk Mondays could be a fun stop for an off night between Seattle and Vancouver.
“There wasn’t a session yet,” Peters said of the early days of Irish and Folk Mondays. “But those people started coming out of the woodwork.”
To meet demand, Peters tacked on a session before the concert, and “it just grew,” he said.
“By the first summer, it was an institution.”
At the same time, local musician and organizer Cayley Schmid, who teaches Celtic fiddle, was growing other opportunities for people to gather around Celtic music. Schmid always strove to create spaces where her students could share and connect over what they were learning. In 2015, she organized the first Bellingham Irish Festival, which consisted of workshops and a performance on a single Saturday at the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship.
Now, Schmid is the executive director of the Celtic Arts Foundation — CAF — in Mount Vernon. Skye Richendrfer, bagpiper and former Mount Vernon mayor, founded CAF in 1997. Since then, the organization has grown to include 1,000 members and puts on about 80 events each year.
“What’s happening at CAF is pretty unique in the world,” Schmid said when we spoke at McKay’s Taphouse, the place where she first started publicly playing Celtic music in Bellingham. “We can take a chance on musicians in a way other people can’t because we have 9,000 people on our email list who have all opted in to know about Celtic music.”
Subdued excitement meets authenticity
Aaron Malcomb, bagpiper and traditional flute player, has been a participant in the Celtic scene since 2004. He said Peters and Schmid have had a big impact on the scene’s growth. Another milestone was CAF’s construction of the Littlefield Celtic Center in Mount Vernon in 2015, giving the community solid walls within which to gather.
Malcomb thinks part of what makes the scene special is that people who participate in it are enthusiastic and passionate but also laid back. They take themselves and the culture seriously but not so seriously as to seem unapproachable to newcomers like me.
Participants in and enjoyers of Celtic events are “interested in what’s genuine and what’s fun and not stuck on the cliches nor fervently stuck on the idea that there’s only one true interpretation of this culture,” Malcomb said.
One thing is certain: building a welcoming, thriving community around any activity or art form relies on leaders consistently — for years — showing up to cultivate a space where people can gather and share.
“People have to sacrifice themselves,” Schmid said, adding that she’s been hosting weekly sessions off and on for almost 20 years and sometimes only one or two people would show up. “Regularity is one of the hardest things to find and the most important piece of the puzzle.”
While Schmid and Peters are two key pieces of that puzzle, credit also lies with numerous motivated musicians and organizers who have buoyed the scene over the years, local establishments that support live music, and people who come out to participate in something genuine.
This year’s festival is packed with workshops, sessions, concerts and more. Hotel Leo will be a new venue, hosting free, all ages events on Saturday, Sept. 20. In the Leo’s ballroom, attendees can try a fiddle at the instrument petting zoo or a bagpipe at the Bagpipes for Beginners booth, ogle a currach — a handmade Irish boat — play in a session or join in the family-friendly ceili dance.
— By Rena Kingery
Also read in Salish Current:
• “Fostering the tradition of contra dancing,” Sept. 9, 2025
• “Mentoring musicians in Whatcom County,” Aug. 6, 2025
• “Recognizing folk in the Salish Sea: Lopez Uncovered Music Festival,” July 29, 2024
• “Jazz Center of Bellingham finds a new groove and growth,” Oct. 30, 2023
• “Old is new again with early music festival,” May 13, 2022