Fifty thousand people are heading for the 'Athlone of America' this weekend, to turn Kansas City into a little corner of Ireland, writes Irish festival director Ronan Collins
Kansas City has been described as the Athlone of America. There are certainly similarities. We are in the middle of the country, surrounded by prime agricultural land, and a big river runs through town. In Athlone it's the Shannon; here it's the Missouri. Next weekend the two will have even more in common, as we host one of North America's biggest Irish festivals. We're expecting well over 50,000 people - twice the population of Athlone.
It may come as a surprise that Kansas City is such a hot spot for the Irish, but one in 10 locals claims Irish heritage. The Irish were the city's largest immigrant group; many stopped off here having worked on the railways in the mid 1800s. Today, as far as I can tell, about 200 Irish-born people live in the area. The flow of Irish has dried up or, at best, slowed to a trickle.
The last significant wave to arrive here was made up of Morrison-visa holders. I was one of those dozen or so immigrants when I landed, in 1994. We all seemed to have different reasons for ending up here. I chose Kansas City because I had a network of friends after working at a local university a few years earlier. My plan was to give it six months, go to the World Cup and see what happened. Eleven years, a wife and three children later, I'm still here. Others arrived following family, with job transfers or having got off at the wrong bus stop.
Another surprising fact about the city is that it has the third-largest St Patrick's Day parade in the US, after New York and Savannah, in Georgia. Its popularity inspired a couple of people to put the festival together. Kansas City Irish Fest is now in its third year. What started as the merger of a couple of neighbourhood festivals has bloomed into a citywide celebration. We have taken full advantage of Kansas City's goodwill towards everything Irish. We also attract people starved of decent Irish entertainment from all over the region, including St Louis, Wichita, Des Moines, Little Rock and Omaha.
A goal of our festival is to avoid as much of the shamrockery as we possibly can. Many Irish festivals in the US fall into the plastic-Paddy trap, perpetuating misconceptions and stereotypes of what it is to be Irish. We want to keep our festival real, even if keeping it real has its frustrations. In the post-9/11 US, importing Irish performers for a couple of nights' entertainment can be a costly bureaucratic nightmare. We book more than 20 bands and performers for our three musical stages. Some fly over from Ireland; others are based in the US.
Many festivals are moving away from booking acts from Ireland, because of the complicated and expensive visa process. As I write, we are still unsure if Barry Murphy, Dermot Carmody and Brendan Dempsey, our comedy performers, will make it through the hoopla. We have to assume that their papers will be processed on time and go ahead with our advertising. If they don't make it the joke will be on us.
Of the three music stages, the Pub stage is dedicated to trad acts. Highlights include Old Blind Dogs, Téada and the Wexford button accordionist John Redmond. One of the headline bands on the main stage, The Elders, are based in Kansas City. Fronted by Ian Byrne, who comes from Co Wicklow, they are regarded by many as the leading Celtic rock band in the US. They play the festival circuit all summer, and their Kansas City gig has become a sort of homecoming, attracting thousands of fans. Such is the loyalty of their supporters that in November the band are taking three busloads back to Ireland, for a tour.
This year the festival has expanded to include a fringe festival, with stand-up shows, films and an Irish-dancing feis. We have cultural and educational exhibits and a children's area that includes a letter-writing programme for children who'd like an Irish pen pal. We hope to continue our expansion into Irish theatre, visual arts and GAA exhibition games.
Although Irish festivals make up a multimillion-dollar business, most of them are run by volunteers; we're putting any profit from ours into a building fund for a cultural and social centre in the heart of Kansas City. Then an Irish river will run through it again.
Kansas City Irish Fest runs from Friday until Sunday. For more details, see www.kcirishfest.com