2024 Emerald Isle Irish Féile

Summary

The 2024 Emerald Isle Irish Féile was the fourth annual Beaver Island festival organized around Irish music, history, culture, dance, and the island’s Arranmore-linked heritage. The core program was announced for September 6-7, 2024, while a September community calendar listed the wider event as September 6-8; September 6 is therefore retained as the start and September 8 as the end, with the discrepancy recorded rather than one program length silently chosen.

Program and participants

The announced program included music, contests, historical and cultural displays, games, and the induction of six Beaver Island Irish community members into the 2024 class of the Beaver Island Irish American Hall of Fame. The induction recognized contributions in cultural heritage, arts and entertainment, public service, religion, and business, and was framed as a way to remember the island’s traditional Irish community and its link to Arranmore Island.¹

The festival brought back and introduced performers from Beaver Island, Michigan, Canada, Arranmore, and elsewhere in Ireland. Returning acts named in the September announcement included the Byrne Brothers, the Pub Runners, Ruby John, John Warstler, the Gavin family traditional musicians, and Island musicians Danny Gillespie & Friends, Glenn Hendrix, and the Stay Happy Band, alongside Arranmore fiddler Caoimhin Mac Aoidh and the Tartan Terrors, a Canadian group making its Beaver Island debut.² The October retrospective’s own performer list adds Arranmore artists John Gallagher and John Flannagan alongside Jerry Early and Anne Conaghan, and describes Caoimhín Mac Aoidh’s traditional fiddle playing as a highlight of the weekend.³

The September announcement also listed four Thursday, September 5 “bonus” workshops at the Convent Green, free and taught by Arranmore visitors: an Irish Mummers drama class from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. covering characters, rhymes, costumes, and performance; a basic Irish group-dance class from 2 to 3 p.m. taught by Anne Connaghan; and a Gaelic football workshop at 3:30 p.m. taught by Jerry Early. The same announcement records planned Céilí training by festival board members Linda Wearn and Bridget Martin for two “Hooley in the Hall” evenings.²

The October retrospective describes the Currach Club of Milwaukee returning for currach races at the beach, cultural activities with Arranmore visitors on the Convent Green, and a presentation by Kevin Green, “Arranmore Emigration: The Rest of the Story,” accompanied by music from Jerry Early & Friends. It also records a new tradition: a pear-wood baton handcrafted by sixth-generation islander Barry McDonough was presented to Jerry Early of Arranmore in a ceremony framed as passing responsibility for the islands’ music, history, and storytelling to the next generation, with Early to pass the baton back the following year. The retrospective calls the weekend’s highlight an invitation from the Greene family to host the Byrne Brothers at their ancestral farm, where festivalgoers were taken by hayride to sing, dance, and tour a homestead originally built by Arranmore settlers “White Dan” Greene and Bridget (O’Donnell) Greene.³

Attendance and significance

The November retrospective reports that more than 700 people attended, with some traveling from Arranmore and other parts of Ireland and Scotland as well as Michigan and the wider Midwest. It says the organizers expanded the event with Irish music, drama, and sports workshops and offered approximately 50 activities over the festival weekend.⁴ These figures are a community organization’s retrospective and are retained as probable rather than as an independently audited attendance count.

The Féile is a contemporary heritage practice, not a direct primary record of the nineteenth-century migration. It is held here as evidence of how the Irish settlement and the Beaver Island–Arranmore relationship are remembered now — through performance, family history, language, sport, and tourism.

Date and source limits

The August announcement describes a two-day September 6-7 festival, while a September calendar listing describes September 6-8. The October and November retrospectives confirm the event and its program but do not resolve whether the third calendar day represented a full festival day or associated programming. No independent ticket ledger, final program, or attendance audit is held here.

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Added 31 July 2026 · revised 3 August 2026. Recent changes