Celtic Society Invades UConn With Culture

Got Kilt? Men and women, young an old showing off their Celtic talents at UConn Celtic night did. Wednesday night the Celtic American Cultural Society held their biggest event of the year, Celtic Night. The Celtic American Cultural Society sold T-shirts for fundraising printed with the slogan Got Kilt? and displayed a wide array of Celtic pride. The Society at UConn was formed five years ago.

"The society was created to promote, experience and share the Celtic cultures," said Erin Wenzler, an 8th-semester communication sciences major and president of the Society. "Because so many people in the area are of Celtic heritage we feel it is important, and we enjoy it, to share the cultures."

Celtic Night shared Celtic cultures through many different mediums, including dance, music, poetry and food. UConn's Irish Dance Team performed several times, showcasing dances choreographed by members of the group.

Melissa Skoog, a 4th-semester molecular and cell biology major, just joined the UConn dance team this year, but has been Irish dancing since she was 10-years-old.

"The night was really good because it was not just Irish culture, there were Scottish dancers and other Celtic cultures too," Skoog said.

After one of the dances from the Irish Dance Team, the Mystic Highland Pipe Band performed. The Mystic Highland Pipe Band has performed at all four Celtic Nights the Celtic American Cultural Society has organized, and is made up of men and women, including some UConn students, and also adults with a passion for Celtic culture. The bagpipe players and drummers filled the Rome Ball Room with traditional Celtic songs, but also played "God Bless America," saluting the American part of the Celtic American Cultural Society. One particularly graceful gray-bearded man twirled his mallet between his fingers after each drumbeat.

Then James Francis, a 2nd-semester music education major, performed several Celtic songs on his violin, which he has been playing for 10 years. The event then proceeded with poetry readings by graduate students taking a class in translating Irish poetry, lead by the professor Mary Burke.

Three women, including Burke herself, read poetry translated by Nicole McClure, one of the students of the class. They also read the poem "Digging" by Seamus Heany, a poet who writes only in English followed by a translation by McClure of "Potato Poem" by Michael Hartnett, a poet who writes in the Irish language. Burke said they wanted to illustrate the fact that Irish poetry, although often split up in to two separate categories - poems written in English and poems written in Irish - is actually quite a unified genre and there are more similarities in poems of the two languages than expected.

Kaitlin Kelly, a 4th-semester English major, who wants to go to Ireland to study abroad, said the poetry readings "made me want to learn Gaelic."

After the poetry reading, there was more Irish dancing, as well as the awarding of door prizes and then three young Scottish dancers from Arts in Motion and Willimantic performed. There were also solo performances by UConn students who played bagpipes and the Scottish smallpipes, which look like small bagpipes but have a different, higher sound.

People of all ages attended, from very young to very old, but everyone seemed to enjoy the performances. The event was open to the community, and free so that anyone could come and experience some Celtic fun.

If you missed the Celtic American Cultural Society at this event, they will be marching in the Mystic St. Patrick's Day parade.