True Story of Chicago's Celtic Fest - It Was Developed by Willie Winters

The inaugural Celtic Fest Chicago took place September 21-22, 1997 on Columbus Drive and Jackson Boulevard in Grant Park. Its lofty goal was to educate the public on Celtic music and culture from the 7 Celtic nations. Those nations are Ireland; Scotland; Isle of Man; Cornwall; Wales; Galicia, Spain; and Brittany, France. Headliners the first year included John McDermott, La Bottine Souriante, Altan, Leahy and Carlos Nunez. All true but there is more.

Willie Winters worked for James "Skinny" Sheahan who was the City of Chicago Director of Special Event, when Chicago knew how to throw a party. Once Sheahan and Winters departed Festivals seemed to turn into a PBS Pledge Drive. For a Taste of Chicago, Willie once put together the great Tom Jones and Chicago's Mambo Express headed by the great Victor Parra! That was a knockout!

For Celtic Fest, Willie Winters went out and attracted each of the brilliant talents listed above and more - The Great Big Sea of Canada and the Bing Brothers of North Carolina. Willie studied the music of the Celt and brought it home to Chicago. Now?

Willie brought in the great Donal Luny who is presented here -


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History of Celtic Fest Chicago
The inaugural Celtic Fest Chicago took place September 21-22, 1997 on Columbus Drive and Jackson Boulevard in Grant Park. Its lofty goal was to educate the public on Celtic music and culture from the 7 Celtic nations. Those nations are Ireland; Scotland; Isle of Man; Cornwall; Wales; Galicia, Spain; and Brittany, France. Headliners the first year included John McDermott, La Bottine Souriante, Altan, Leahy and Carlos Nunez.

The festival was unique in that it highlighted different Celtic instruments such as the Harp and the Uilleann Pipe, which is the Irish bagpipe worked by pumping air into it with an elbow.

Celtic dancing has been a big part of the festival since it began. Local dance schools showcase their students on their own separate stage. Fest goers were introduced to ceili dancing and eagerly participated.

The bagpipe parades through festival grounds have been a tradition at the event since the beginning. The general public is invited to parade along with the pipers.

Over the years, we’ve added the Gathering Tent, now programmed by our Presenting Sponsor, FlyNovaScotia.com; a Celtic Cultural Tent, Sheepherding demonstrations in Butler Field each day, which has proven to be a very popular family destination; a Men in Kilts Leg Contest; a Coffee & Tea Garden; an upgraded children’s area featuring musical performances and new for 2009 is a traveling exhibit titled: Come Back to Erin: Irish Travel Posters of the 20th Century.

Ted and Me - It was the Summer of 1980 and . . .I was not teaching school . . .and Drinking and Fishing in the Kankakee!

Aug. 12, 1980: In an emotional speech to the Democratic National Convention, withdraws his bid for the presidency.

I was not moved. It was politics. God, I am such a mean cynical bastard about our elected officials.

Senator Ted Kennedy died of a brain tumor, actually the brain tumor does not kill but complications to all the other organs ( renal failure e.g.) due to the tumor put out the lights. This I know.

Everyone with a thigh is moved. . .moved I say . . . to recount their tales of the Old Lion of the Senate and to somehow insinuate themselves into Ted's Tale. I have a brace of them -thighs -not tales - nicely fleshed but masculine. I got one tale of Ted.

Here goes. In 1980, I was in my fifth year of teaching English at Bishop Martin D. McNamara High School in Kankakee, my third year of dating the lovely and witty Mary Elizabeth Cleary whom I would be blessed with in marriage, partnership in parenthood in 1983 and forced to send back to God in 1998, and in my sixth year as 5-string banjo ( C tuning)/Guitarist ( Gibson J240) with Sons of Reilly's Daughter with Terry McEldowney ( singer) and Willie Winters ( Vocals Guitar). On special occasions we'd be joined by the great Whitey O'Day!

We were practiced and for the most part profesional.

Sometime that summer we were asked to play in the Auditorium of Mother McAuley High School to warm up the house for Senator Ted Kennedy who was running for President against the aimless Jimmy Carter. I was a Jimmy Boy until about two weeks into the Carter White House when the Man from Plains revealed himself to be the Bunny Phobe Bored Round the World.

Anyway, we were excited to play a freebie for a Kennedy. We had played at the Old Beverly House on the triangle at 103rd/Ashland/Vincennes for Sarge Shriver who could not pack a phone booth a couple of years earlier, but this was the Bloodline Himself.

We played Irish songs, Italian songs, Polish songs, Jewish songs, and C/W hits much to the thigh-tingling excitement of the crowd - Teddy was late. Congressman Marty Russo got there ahead of Teddy and pumped up the crowd some more . . .still no Teddy.

Terry McEldowney asked the crowd if Marty Russo were not the "Tallest Trunk-Stuffer they had ever seen?" Much to the amusement of the best Congressman the 3rd District ever had. Still no Teddy.

We were asked by impressario Boz O'Brien to do one more set. We did. I broke two strings on the 5-string Willie did guitar work for Ballads Danny Boy & Kevin Barry. I was bent over getting out strings and got knocked over by security Teddy was on!

He said "Hhhhhhhheerrrrreeeee innnnn SHA-Caw-wah-Gow!!!!!! . .. .yadda yadda" Five minutes and gone all the while I was monkeying with two strings I'd not need that day. I never saw his mug, shook his mitt or said Howdy. I was on the floor stringing my banjo. Show Over. Ah, Teddy, I hardly knew ye! God speed.

Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy - Show Over.

Catholic Cemetery's Roman Szabelski to Oversee the Horrors at Burr Oak

I was at Kean Gas this morning and heard from a Cook County Sheriff's Deputy that Sheriff Tom Dart had asked a judge to appoint someone to oversee the disaster that is Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, IL.

My Cousin Willie works for the Sheriff and he has not had much shut-eye in the last six or so days. Willie bought some fish from my son Conor at Di Cola's on Western Ave. just before closing on Tuesday. Conor said Willie looked dead on his feet.

All of the Sheriff's people have done a great job.

Today, I heard that Roman Szabelski of the Catholic Cemeteries was appointed.

Roman Szabelski the Chief of the forty or so Catholic Cemteries in the Chicago Area was appointred by a judge to oversee the horrors of Burr Oak Cemetery, years of mismanagement leading to one of the great horrors of recent history.

Two years ago, Mr. Szabelski appeared on Public Radio to talk about Green Issues in the Cemetery Industry. ( click my post title)

Brushing aside the usual smarm ( snide remarks about 'What Catholics Believe') from the soft-talkers of Public Radio, Mr. Szabelski articulated the care and concern of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese for families of the deceased:

RICHARD: The Catholic Church prefers full-body burial in consecrated ground. That’s because Catholics believe in the resurrection of the dead. The church has only allowed cremation since the mid-Sixties.

MELBY: That doesn’t mean Chicago’s Catholic cemeteries are immune to progress.

COMPUTERIZED GRAVE LOCATOR: Spell out the last name of the deceased that you are trying to locate using the touch-screen keyboard, and then press search.

SZABELSKI: So I’ve just keyed in my family name and I’m pushing search. Florence Szabelski is my mother so I’m asking it to show that record to me.

MELBY: That’s Roman Szabelski. He’s executive director of Catholic cemeteries for the Archdiocese of Chicago.

RICHARD: Roman started mowing grass at the cemeteries in 1979. Today, he presides over 2.2 million dead at 43 cemeteries around Chicago. He has a good sense of what his customers want.

SZABELSKI: We come from a very conservative tradition where people want their 3 by 8, their grave, to look like their backyard, which is perfectly manicured.

MELBY: Providing that much space won’t be a problem anytime soon. Roman says the archdiocese has stockpiled enough land not just for the next couple decades, but for the next one to two hundred years.

SZABELSKI: We’re sitting in Queen of Heaven Cemetery right now, which is roughly about a 300-acre site. About 100 of those acres are leased to the golf course next door. As we need the property, the golf course will go from 18 to 9 to zero and a driving range and that property will be used.

MELBY: Roman doesn’t expect to dig into that golf course for another 25 years.

RICHARD: Yet Roman is considering carving out a green burial section in one of the cemeteries here.

MELBY: Still it won’t be easy to do in this sea of manicured lawns. Green burial advocates prefer a natural landscape of wild grass and trees. Their preference is to keep the plots free of any monuments or markers.

SZABELSKI: So we’re trying to figure out how do you incorporate a green burial cemetery section into a traditionally kept cemetery.

Not much Green at Burr Oak, but a great deal of grief. I wonder if Chicago Public Radio will make note? Most likely not.


The families of the thousands of Burr Oak Cemetery Dead will at last have a caring and thoughtful soul looking out for them. Francis Cardinal George has a solid man being tasked with this extra duty.

Catholics cause Progressives the itch, until a human crisis like Burr Oak Cemetery seems to impact on all of us - and while the work is being done for people, the Progressives will stand on the sidelines and wait for the green light to go Bill Maher on Catholics again.

God Bless the work, Roman!