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Emerald Isle Irish Féile

Also Beaver Island Irish Féile · Irish Féile · Emerald Isle Irish Féile · Emerald Isle Irish Festival · Emerald Isle Irish Feile

Draft — sources verified, prose evolving

TypeEvent
Date2019
WithinBeaver Island
ErasModern era
On this page
Event
Date
2019
Kind
Celebration
Carried out by
Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce · Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group
Eras
Modern era
Concepts
heritageirish-arranmoremusic-folklorecommunitytourism
Within
Beaver Island

Summary

The Emerald Isle Irish Féile is an annual Beaver Island heritage festival held each September since 2019. It presents Irish-identified music, dance, currach racing, cultural workshops, sport, history, and a Hall of Fame induction while explicitly linking Beaver Island to Arranmore, County Donegal. It began under Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce sponsorship and is now organized by the Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group (BIIHG), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit incorporated in November 2023. Its own description treats the September weekend as a way to extend the island’s tourism season.123

The festival is contemporary heritage practice, not direct evidence that any particular nineteenth-century custom survived unchanged. Its documented value lies in bringing family, migration, language, performance, and current economic claims into a traceable public setting.

Origins

The Féile’s own promotional and program materials root it in the Beaver Island-Arranmore relationship rather than treating it as a free-standing invention. Beaver Island and Arranmore, County Donegal formally “twinned” on 7 October 2000: a delegation of Arranmore residents and Chicago-based descendants arrived on the Emerald Isle, gathered at Holy Cross Parish Hall, dedicated the newly named “Arranmore Park,” and heard a Gaelic-language speech by Anthony “Tony the Post” Gallagher. That ceremony, not the festival itself, is the direct institutional root the Féile later invokes; see Beaver Island–Arranmore twinning celebration for the dedicated record.4

The festival proper began nineteen years later. Angel Welke of Island Airways posted the first public announcement on 23 June 2019: “September 6-8, 2019 Emerald Isle Irish Feile on Beaver Island,” naming irishfeile.com as the event site.5 Contemporary programming for that first weekend included a screening of the documentary Home on the Island (director Shane Brennan) on the 1851 eviction of roughly 150 Arainn Mhór residents and their migration via Canada to Beaver Island; a presentation on Alan Lomax’s field recordings of island fiddlers (“The Fiddler and the Song Catchers”); an Irish dance performance by Scoil Rince Ní Bhraonáin with live music by An Dro; “Celebrity Currach Races” pitting Angel Welke and Fr. Jim against Kitty McNamara and Brian O’Brien, then Consul General of Ireland in Chicago; and a “King of the Beard Contest.” A post-event thank-you on 20 September 2019 confirms the weekend concluded and that the Chamber of Commerce sponsored it, and announces the following year’s festival for “September 11-12th” (2020).6

By July, the committee was soliciting volunteers and sponsorship, promoting online wristband sales, and explaining the festival’s expected tourism benefit. These contemporaneous forum posts are useful for reconstructing planning and public messaging, but they are organizer-supplied claims rather than audited financial, staffing, ticketing, or attendance records.7

The August 2019 forum notices show the inaugural festival moving from broad promotion into detailed operations: the committee sought and listed sponsors, explained wristbands, entry rules, venues, and transportation, and announced children’s red-hair and freckles contests and a King of the Beards competition. These are valuable contemporaneous organizer notices, but they document plans and public messaging rather than an audited sponsor roll, ticket count, final program, winners list, or independent event report.8

That 2020 festival never occurred — see Editions, below.

The “Fiddler and the Song Catchers” presentation drew on exactly this kind of material: Patrick Bonner, one of the island fiddlers Alan Lomax recorded on Beaver Island in August 1938, playing three reels.

Patrick Bonner playing “Callahan’s Reel,” “Black Tar on the Stick,” and “Up and Down the Broom” on fiddle, recorded by Alan Lomax at St. James, Beaver Island, August 1938American Folklife Center · Public domain (Library of Congress; no known restrictions)

Organization

Producer succession, as attested rather than inferred:

  • 2019-2023 — Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce, acting through an “Emerald Isle Irish Féile Steering Committee.” The January 2024 promotion and the BIIHG’s own June 2024 organizational announcement both describe the 2019 founding and the 2023 festival as Chamber-sponsored and Chamber-committee work respectively.13
  • November 2023 — incorporation. The November 2024 retrospective places BIIHG’s incorporation as a Michigan Domestic Nonprofit in November 2023, followed by bylaws, policy, and IRS work; the official “Information” page independently states BIIHG is “a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established in 2023.”93
  • 2024-present — Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group (BIIHG). The 2024 program’s welcome letter, co-signed by Festival Coordinator Kitty McNamara and Board Chairperson Paul Cole, frames 2024 as “a significant step in the growth of the Emerald Isle Irish Feile by becoming the Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group, a non-profit corporation.”10

That sequence is an organizational transition, not evidence that the festival itself was newly founded in 2023 or 2024 — the 2019-2023 seasons remain part of the same continuous series under the BIIHG’s own history. See Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group for the fuller organizational record and Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce for the original sponsor.

Venues

No dedicated Structure or Place article yet exists for most of the festival’s venues, so this record is narrative rather than a set of took_place_at targets. As attested by year:

  • 2019 — Beaver Island Community Center (documentary screening, fiddle presentation), McDonough’s Market Theater (dance performance), and Jewell Gillespie Memorial Park (currach races).5
  • 2023 — the Beachcomber, the Shamrock, and Circle M as music venues; Gillespie Park Beach for currach races; the Beaver Island-Arranmore Grotto for Mass; and, new that year, festival registration moved to the Community Center “rather than Holy Cross Hall.”11
  • 2024 — a widened venue list including Holy Cross Hall, Convent Green, Circle M, the Beachcomber/Harbour Market patio, the Community Center as festival headquarters, Whiskey Point Brewery/Wild Strawberry Cafe, the Beaver Island Historical Society Museum, the Greene family farm (a Byrne Brothers open-house performance — see Byrne Brothers performance at the Greene family farm, 2024), and the Grotto for Sunday Mass.

Editions

Years marked “no held source” have no periodical or archived-forum coverage held here; that is a coverage gap, not evidence the festival skipped a year beyond what is separately documented (2020 and 2021 were canceled).

Year Dates Venue(s), as attested Producer Held evidence Article
2019 Sept 6-8 Community Center, McDonough’s, Shamrock, Gillespie Memorial Park Chamber / Féile steering committee Forum (9 posts)56 Beaver Island hosts the inaugural Emerald Isle Irish Feile, 2019
2020 — — — Canceled (COVID-19); forum notice12 n/a — no festival occurred
2021 — — — Canceled (COVID-19); forum notice, which calls 2019 the “successful inaugural event”13 n/a — no festival occurred
2022 reported as Sept 8-1114 and separately Sept 9-1115; Hall of Fame induction Sat. Sept 10 Community Center (Hall of Fame ceremony)16 Chamber / Féile steering committee Forum + one Baroque on Beaver program advertisement (web); the inaugural Hall of Fame class is directly attested16 2022 Emerald Isle Irish Féile
2023 Sept 8-10 Beachcomber, Shamrock, Circle M, Gillespie Park Beach, the Grotto, Community Center (registration) Chamber committee (still, per BIIHG’s own account) Forum (dates, venues, sold out) + thin Northern Islander retrospective coverage1711 Emerald Isle Irish Féile, 2023
2024 announced Sept 6-7; wider Sept 6-8 calendar listing; visitor logistics spanning Thu Sept 5-Mon Sept 918 Greene family farm, Holy Cross Hall, Convent Green, Circle M, Beachcomber, Community Center, Whiskey Point Brewery, BIHS Museum, the Grotto BIIHG (newly incorporated) Rich Northern Islander coverage (4 issues) 2024 Emerald Isle Irish Féile
2025 reported as Sept 5-6 in the 2024 program’s “save the date” notice10; no independently confirmed final dates held not independently documented beyond the existing edition article BIIHG Northern Islander retrospective + economic estimate Emerald Isle Irish Féile, 2025
2026 Sept 11-12, per the official site19 not documented in held sources BIIHG (presumed continuity) No held periodical — the Northern Islander run ends April 2026, before the September festival; web-only 2026 Emerald Isle Irish Féile

Programming and participants

Named acts and features are recorded here only where a source attests them for a specific year; a name appearing once is not assumed to recur.

2019 — Scoil Rince Ní Bhraonáin (Irish dance) with An Dro (live music); a Lomax fiddle-recordings presentation; the documentary Home on the Island; the “Celebrity Currach Races”; the “King of the Beard Contest”; an inaugural Féile pin.5

2022 — the inaugural Beaver Island Irish American Hall of Fame class, induced 10 September 2022 at the Community Center: Daniel Gillespie (Entertainment), Mary Kay McDonough Masini (Arts, posthumous), Father Patrick Cawley (Religion), Sister Mary Clare Malloy (Religion), and Mary Beth Greene Nelson (Cultural Heritage); special honoree Helen Collar for her genealogical research on the island’s first Irish settlers; ceremony hosted by Robert Cole.16 No standalone KB article yet exists for this 2022 induction — see Open questions.

2023 — a dockside welcome led by the Arranmore Pipe Band for more than 125 visitors from Ireland and Chicago; David Hill’s musical play Beaver Isle and his song “Donegal Dreams,” performed as a dockside flash mob; currach races at Gillespie Park Beach; a Bishop Jeffrey Walsh Mass at the Grotto.1711

2024 — music and cultural programming including the Byrne Brothers (Greene family farm), Tartan Terrors, Pub Runners, Jerry Early and Friends, and Ardan Academy of Irish Dance; Currach races between the Beaver Island Irish Currach Club and the visiting Milwaukee Currach Club (see Currach races at Emerald Isle Irish Féile, 2024); a King of the Beards Contest, a Children’s Red Hair and Freckles Contest, and an Irish Sweater Contest; and the 2024 Hall of Fame class — Patrick Bonner, Cynthia Gillespie Cushman, Glenn Hendrix, D. Archie LaFreniere, Rodney Nackerman, and Loretta Slater (see Beaver Island Irish American Hall of Fame induction, 2024). Fuller detail, including the advance-program-only Céilí practice, Hooley in the Hall, and Irish dance workshop, is preserved in the 2024 edition article and its sub-events.20

2025 — the Beaver Island Irish Currach Club launched two newly built currachs shortly before the festival, with continuing support from the Milwaukee club (see Beaver Island Irish Currach Club two-boat launch, 2025); a performance of “Two Islands, One Soul” by Arranmore and Beaver Island musicians; and a 2025 Hall of Fame class of four — Patrick “Paid Een Og” Boyle (posthumous), Lois Sowa Stipp, Beverly O’Donnell Cantwell, and Robert Cole (see Beaver Island Irish American Hall of Fame induction, 2025).21

2026 — the official site’s announced lineup includes Altan and the Arranmore Pipe Band, among others. This is an unverified advance listing, not corroborated by any held periodical, and is retained here as attributed web evidence only.19

Community and economic context

The festival’s own account of its growth is promotional and should be read as such: 2023 “attendance nearly doubled to 475 tickets,” with “120+ visitors from Arranmore Island” and “$30,000 raised through ‘Calling of the Clans.’”22 The 2024 edition article separately records a community retrospective’s claim of more than 700 attendees, and the 2025 edition article records a BIIHG finance-committee estimate of festival-related revenue exceeding $97,000 — both retained in their own edition articles as attributed organizational figures, not independently audited counts.

Two held institutional sources situate the Féile among the island’s other recurring public events rather than treating it as unique: a 2025-26 Chamber of Commerce visitor guide describes it as an early-September event honoring “the island’s Irish roots with traditional music, dance, currach races, and cultural workshops,”23 and the Beaver Island Historical Society’s own website groups the Féile with the Beaver Island Music Festival and Baroque on Beaver as one of the island’s three recurring annual musical celebrations.24

Coverage and evidence limits

The Féile postdates the Beaver Beacon run entirely: all 625 held Beacon issues run 1955-2011, and none mentions the festival under either spelling — it did not exist yet. The held Northern Islander run runs 2024-01 through 2026-04 (18 issues) and is the only held periodical coverage; it reaches the 2024 and 2025 festivals well but ends before the September 2026 festival. For 2019-2022, the only held evidence is an archive of Beaver Island Forum community posts, kept here for preservation and research, not as an institutional record. No held source of any kind documents 2020 or 2021 beyond the cancellation notices themselves, because no festival occurred in either year.

Both “Féile” and “Feile” (unaccented) appear in the held record and must both be searched: the held Northern Islander run alone splits roughly evenly between the two spellings, and the community-forum archive uses the unaccented form and “Emerald Isle Irish Festival” as often as the accented name.

Open questions

  • The “sixth annual” arithmetic. The January 2024 promotion places the Féile’s start in 2019; the official website calls the 2026 festival the “sixth annual” one.12 Read as calendar years, 2019-2026 inclusive is eight years, which would not match “sixth.” But two independent attested counts resolve this if “annual” counts only festivals actually held, skipping the canceled 2020 and 2021 seasons: a December 2021 forum post calls the 2022 festival “our 2nd festival,”14 and an August 2024 news report independently calls that year’s festival the “4th annual.”25 Counting only the festivals held — 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 — gives exactly six, matching the official site’s “sixth annual” for 2026. This is recorded as the arithmetic that reconciles the two figures if “annual” is being counted this way; no source states that reasoning explicitly, and this article does not assert it as the festival’s own official position.
  • 2022 date discrepancy. A December 2021 forum announcement sets the 2022 festival for “September 8th-11th,”14 a 2022 Baroque on Beaver program advertisement gives “September 9-11, 2022,”15 and the Hall of Fame press release describes the same festival as “the two-day Irish Festival (Féile).”16 These are not reconciled here.
  • No standalone KB article yet exists for the 2019, 2022, or 2026 festivals, or for the 2022 inaugural Hall of Fame induction — the last is currently documented only here and in the forum press release.
  • What primary corporate and Chamber records (minutes, the BIIHG’s Articles of Incorporation, its IRS determination letter) would allow the organizational succession above to be dated more precisely than community reporting allows?
  • Where are the final programs, ticket counts, and independent attendance or financial audits for any year of the festival?
  • How do participants themselves describe the relationship between the 2000 twinning ceremony, the older Beacon-documented ceili/hooley tradition, and the Féile’s current programming?

See also

Footnotes

  1. Northern Islander, January 2024, “Emerald Isle Irish Féile Sponsorship Opportunities.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Emerald Isle Irish Féile, official website (“Home”), accessed 3 August 2026. ↩ ↩2

  3. Emerald Isle Irish Féile, “Information,” official website, accessed 3 August 2026. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Rich Gillespie, “Arranmore Celebration and Twinning,” Beaver Island Net, describing 7 October 2000. ↩

  5. Angel Welke, “New Event - Emerald Isle Irish Feile,” Beaver Island Forum, 23 June 2019. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  6. “Emerald Isle Irish Feile 2020,” Beaver Island Forum, 20 September 2019. ↩ ↩2

  7. Beaver Island Forum topics 14386, 14462, and 14477, July 12–28, 2019; see the individual source records above. ↩

  8. Beaver Island Forum topics 14506, 14588, 14609, and 14610, August 5–30, 2019; see the individual source records above. ↩

  9. Northern Islander, November 2024, BIIHG organizational retrospective. ↩

  10. Kitty McNamara and Paul Cole, welcome letter, 2024 official festival program. ↩ ↩2

  11. “Emerald Isle Irish Festival Public Notice,” Beaver Island Forum, 30 August-7 September 2023. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. Marie LaFreniere, “Emerald Isle Irish Feile Canceled,” Beaver Island Forum, 20 June 2020. ↩

  13. Marie LaFreniere, “Emerald Isle Irish Festival Statement Concerning the 2021 Féile,” Beaver Island Forum, 23 April 2021. ↩

  14. Marie LaFreniere, “Emerald Isle Irish Féile,” Beaver Island Forum, 9 December 2021. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  15. Baroque on Beaver 2022 program, advertisement placed by irishfeile.com, giving “September 9-11, 2022.” ↩ ↩2

  16. Marie LaFreniere (reposting an Emerald Isle Irish Féile Steering Committee press release), “Five Beaver Island Irish Community Members to be Honored,” Beaver Island Forum, 3 August 2022. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  17. davidhi5 (David Hill), Beaver Island Forum, 10 August 2023. ↩ ↩2

  18. Katy Hites, “Irish Feile Charter Flight TVC - Beaver Island,” Beaver Island Forum, 26 August 2024. ↩

  19. Emerald Isle Irish Féile, “Music,” official website, accessed 3 August 2026. ↩ ↩2

  20. Katie Johnson, “The 2024 Feile,” Northern Islander, October 2024. ↩

  21. Northern Islander, October 2025, BIIHG festival retrospective. ↩

  22. Emerald Isle Irish Féile, “About Us,” official website, accessed 3 August 2026. ↩

  23. “2025-26 Chamber Visitor Guide,” Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce, 2025. ↩

  24. Beaver Island Historical Society, “Print Shop Museum,” beaverislandhistory.org, accessed 3 August 2026. ↩

  25. “End your summer at the 4th annual Beaver Island Emerald Isle Feile,” 9&10 News, 27 August 2024. ↩

Sources

  1. A post reproducing a Facebook statement solicited business and private sponsorship for the inaugural Féile and described expected tourism benefits. This is organizer promotion, not an audited sponsor list, budget, or impact measure.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014477
  2. The inaugural Féile notice promoted online wristband sales and event information, with a later reply continuing the ticket reminder. This is a pre-event sales notice, not a ticket count, attendance report, or final program.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014462
  3. The Féile committee sought volunteers for event operations and described the inaugural festival as requiring community participation. Later replies discuss specific offers of help; this is a planning thread, not a completed volunteer roster or staffing audit.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014386
  4. The inaugural Féile notice scheduled red-hair and freckles contests for children ages 0–12 at the Cultural Center, with registration and festival-pin/certificate prizes. It is an organizer notice, not a winners list or attendance record.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014610
  5. The inaugural Féile notice scheduled a King of the Beards contest at the Shamrock Stage, with judging categories, sign-up time, and festival-pin/certificate prizes; a later post merely bumped the notice. The archive does not preserve winners.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014609
  6. A detailed organizer notice explained Féile wristband pricing and entry rules, transportation, venues, and practical festival information. It is a pre-event operational notice, not proof that every planned rule, route, or program occurred exactly as announced.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014588
  7. A post reproducing a Facebook statement on behalf of the Féile committee listed business and private sponsors and explained the festival's expected tourism and shoulder-season economic rationale. This is organizer-supplied promotion, not an audited sponsor list, budget, revenue, or impact evaluation.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014506
  8. A participant praised the inaugural Féile's music, local talent, organizers, sponsors, venues, and visitors; an organizer replied that 2020 planning had already begun. This is participant and organizer testimony about the event, not an attendance, financial, or independent performance report.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014653
  9. Féile notices described festival transit loops from the Hall to the Point and evening shuttles toward Circle M, Donegal Danny's, and town, with a later adjustment to coordinate with boat arrival. This is an organizer notice, not a transit log, ridership count, or permanent service.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014641
  10. The Féile notice announced Main Street closure between the museum and Holy Cross Hall on Friday and Saturday afternoons, with beach-parking access retained. This is a planned event-traffic notice, not a closure order, traffic count, or post-event report.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014643
  11. A Féile notice gave the final date to prepay for a wristband at a discounted price. This documents ticket-promotion timing, not ticket sales, attendance, or revenue.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014628
  12. A final Féile wristband-purchase reminder said musicians were arriving and setup was underway. This is an organizer update and ticket prompt, not an attendance, revenue, or complete setup log.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014639
  13. A Féile notice advertised B&G Sweets ice-cream and cookies outside the Hall, listing flavors and offerings. This is a vendor promotion, not a sales or attendance record.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014640
  14. The Community Center advertised an Irish-dance history presentation and live-music performance during the Féile, with stated admission prices. This is a first-party program notice, not attendance or performance confirmation.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014637
  15. Northern Islander, January 2024, “Emerald Isle Irish Féile Sponsorship Opportunities.”
    Contemporary festival promotion says the Féile started in 2019 with Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce sponsorship and private, business, and nonprofit support; it states the heritage and tourism-season aims. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
    charlevoix · northern_islander_2024.01
  16. Current official page calls the 2026 event the sixth annual festival, repeats its stated heritage and economic-development mission, and describes BIIHG as present organizer. The page’s countdown text contains an inconsistent reference to 2025 and is not used for scheduling.
  17. Northern Islander, November 2024, BIIHG organizational retrospective.
    States that BIIHG had been a Chamber committee since 2019 and identifies the Féile as its signature event after incorporation and IRS recognition. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
    charlevoix · northern_islander_2024.11
  18. States that the Féile “was started in 2019, sponsored by the Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce” and “is now run by the Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established in 2023.”
  19. States the group’s mission and gives 2023 milestones: attendance “nearly doubled to 475 tickets,” “120+ visitors from Arranmore Island,” and “$30,000 raised through ‘Calling of the Clans.’”
  20. The organizers’ own year-by-year history: “The first Emerald Isle Irish Feile in 2019 … After a 2-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival returned in 2022 … In 2023, the third and most recent festival … In 2024, we have taken a significant step … by becoming the Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group, a non-profit corporation.” Accessed as an archived research pass on 3 August 2026; not independently re-fetched by this article.
  21. Names Kitty McNamara as Festival Coordinator and Paul Cole as Board Chair, and calls the 2024 festival the “4th annual” — consistent with counting only the festivals actually held (2019, 2022, 2023, 2024).
  22. Lists 2026 dates (September 11-12) and a headliner lineup including Altan and the Arranmore Pipe Band. Not independently corroborated by any held periodical, since the held Northern Islander run ends April 2026.
  23. First-person account of the original Beaver Island-Arranmore “twinning” ceremony: the Arranmore delegation’s arrival, the Holy Cross Parish Hall gathering, the dedication of “Arranmore Park,” and a Gaelic-language speech by Anthony “Tony the Post” Gallagher. Held here as the institutional root the Féile later invokes; see also event/beaver-island-arranmore-twinning-2000 for the dedicated article.
    websites · www.beaverisland.net · Around_Town · Arranmore · index
  24. The first public announcement of the festival: “September 6-8, 2019 Emerald Isle Irish Feile on Beaver Island,” with irishfeile.com named as the event website. User-generated forum content, archived for research; cited here for the dated fact it records, not reproduced at length.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014282
  25. Post-event thanks from the Chamber of Commerce announcing the next festival for “September 11-12th” (2020) and naming a wristband-raffle winner. User-generated forum content, archived for research.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 14 · t014694
  26. States the 2020 festival “planned for September has been canceled” and proposes September 11-12, 2021. User-generated forum content, archived for research.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 15 · t015326
  27. Cancels the 2021 festival for pandemic reasons, calls 2019 “the successful inaugural event” whose venues were “filled to capacity,” and sets the next festival for “September 8, 9 and 10, 2022.” User-generated forum content, archived for research.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 16 · t016184
  28. Announces that “our 2nd festival will take place September 8th-11th, 2022,” explicitly numbering 2022 as the second Féile (after 2019) and not counting the canceled 2020-2021 seasons. User-generated forum content, archived for research.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 16 · t016923
  29. Press release naming the inaugural 2022 Beaver Island Irish American Hall of Fame class — Daniel Gillespie, Mary Kay McDonough Masini, Father Patrick Cawley, Sister Mary Clare Malloy, and Mary Beth Greene Nelson, with special honoree Helen Collar — inducted 10 September 2022 at the Beaver Island Community Center. User-generated forum content reposting a public press release, archived for research.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 17 · t017363
  30. Gives 2023 festival dates as “Sept. 8-10” and describes a planned dockside performance of Hill’s song “Donegal Dreams.” User-generated forum content, archived for research.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 17 · t017886
  31. Reports the 2023 festival sold out; describes the Thursday 7 September dockside welcome for “over 125 people from Ireland and Chicago” led by the Arranmore Pipe Band, the Saturday Hall of Fame ceremony, Saturday currach races at Gillespie Park Beach, and a Bishop Jeffrey Walsh Mass at the Beaver Island-Arranmore Grotto; a follow-up post says 2023 registration moved to the Community Center “rather than Holy Cross Hall.” User-generated forum content, archived for research.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 17 · t017918
  32. A traveler post gives a practical 2024 visitor window of Thursday, September 5 through Monday, September 9 — wider than the core two-day program — corroborating the 2024 edition article’s recorded date discrepancy. User-generated forum content, archived for research.
    forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 18 · t018280
  33. Visitor-facing description: “In early September, the Emerald Isle Irish Féile honors the island’s Irish roots with traditional music, dance, currach races, and cultural workshops.”
    websites · www.beaverisland.org · raw · wp-content · uploads · 2025 · 06 · 2025-26-Chamber-Visitor-Guide
  34. Groups the Féile with the Beaver Island Music Festival and Baroque on Beaver as one of the island’s three recurring annual musical celebrations.
    websites · www.beaverislandhistory.org · print-shop · index

Added 3 August 2026. Recent changes

Cite this article

Beaver Island Archive, “Emerald Isle Irish Féile”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/emerald-isle-irish-feile/, accessed [date], citing Tara Palmer-Pop and Marie LaFreniere, "Sponsorship for the Irish Feile," Beaver Island Forum, July 28, 2019, topic 14477. (and 33 further sources listed on the page).

Last revised 2026-08-03. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.

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