Raisin' a Ruckus

How It All Really Started - A 26 Year Tradition

At 24 years of age, the North Texas Irish Festival has grown into a veritable institution, a national event, and a source of bragging rights for Texan aficionados of Irish music and the City of Dallas alike. A tourist reports that, while in a pub on the west coast of Ireland, she heard this from a friendly local: "You're from Dallas, then? Have you ever been to the North Texas Irish Festival?"

As with all great events, the origins of NTIF have been lost in the myths of time and, well, almost legend. With enough time and Guinness, it might soon be rumored that Oisin himself wandered into Fair Park and spontaneously began the first festival, assisted by the Little People. The real beginnings are much more mundane, but, in their own way, more wonderful.

It all started in a car, late at night, in the winter of 1983. Peggy Turner and her husband, Jim Brunke (member of the band Sungarden) had just met Ken Fleming and Peggy Davis (of Tinker's Dam) the previous fall. Each band had been performing in the area for a year without knowing of each other's existence, and it gradually came to light that there were several Celtic traditional bands in Texas, mostly performing in isolated gigs.

Clearly, just a few years after the Bothy Band and Planxty had begun popularizing Irish traditional music in the Northeast and on the West Coast, something was afoot right here in Texas. Ken Fleming mused aloud: "How can we get all these bands together, share our music, and create more public appreciation for Irish music?" Such an effort, he proposed, would benefit all the bands.

Peggy Turner, a native of Wisconsin and its renowned Milwaukee Irish Fest, immediately had an idea. "Let's have a ceili," she said, meaning a gathering of musicians and dancers that is open to the public. And faster than you can say, "My uncle's got a barn!", Nick Farrelly's Lounge was proposed as the place, with Nick's gracious permission, and the first Saturday in March the time, just to get everyone in the mood for St. Patrick's Day. What would grow the very next year into the NTIF was initially dubbed "The First Texas Ceili", and, with no budget at all, volunteer efforts were established from the beginning as the core of the festival's success.

Ken Fleming and Peggy Turner contacted bands, Ken and Jim printed and distributed posters, and Peggy Davis spearheaded publicity. Ken was point man on the planning, Jim was named treasurer, and the two Peggys spent an afternoon in the kitchen cooking enough Irish stew and baked potatoes to feed a hundred, the very first NTIF food concession. Jim had five tee-shirts (one for each organizer and a baby-size for son Zeke) emblazoned with "First Texas Ceili". It was believed by one organizer at that time that producing souvenir tee-shirts to sell would be too much of a financial risk.

Others added contributions that have had a lasting effect on NTIF. Russ Alvey, a member of Tinker's Dam, created the Star and Harp logo that has since been associated with the festival; Vickie Alvey baked soda bread and desserts to sell. Marcie Milligan, Cheryl McClure and Peggy Turner volunteered to teach Scottish and Irish ceili dancing in the early hours of the ceili, which lasted from 3:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.

The bands at the First Texas Ceili were a demonstration of the extent to which Celtic music had taken a hold in Texas: from Dallas, Tinker's Dam, Sungarden, and the late, great tenor Pat McCarthy; from Fort Worth, Connemara; from Austin, Grimalkin; from Houston, Four Bricks out of Hadrian&'s Wall; from Denton, Westron Wynde; and from Arlington, harpist Judith Romero. A "hooley", the first of what would become many sessions, would round out the evening.

The ceili was successful beyond anyone's imagining. Two hundred people were expected; 600 lined up at the door on a cold, damp night. The two Peggy's, when they weren't performing, huddled in the defunct, freezing kitchen of the NFL, heating up stew and potatoes on Coleman stoves and praying that the Health Department and the Fire Marshall wouldn't show up. The limited amount of food quickly sold out.

Something was afoot. As the result of the success of this little party at the NFL, seed money was raised for the Southwest Celtic Music Association, whose Ceili newsletter, concert series, workshops, and ultimately NTIF would have an impact far beyond the City of Dallas or even the State of Texas.

In the meantime, who would have thought that on that rainy night in a leaky pub in Dallas, Texas, a city with no indigenous Irish neighborhoods and no tradition of Irish culture, a group of traditional musicians and dancers -- meeting for the very first time -- would raise a ruckus that could be heard 25 years later as one of the largest Irish festivals in the country? Now there's a legend for you.

Article by Peggy Fleming, originally printed in the SCMA Ceili, March 2002.