Video: Session at Furlong's Pub, Irish Arts Week, 2007.
For decades, records and digital downloads have trained us to be passive consumers of music. But for most of human history, music has been a collaborative effort, with plenty of sharing, jamming, and chiming in.
And in East Durham, it still is. If you're the sort who can't hear a favorite tune without feeling an urge to pick up the nearest noisemaker, you might want to check out Irish Arts Week, a Greene County tradition that's grown from a one-day event to a week-long celebration of the vibrance and diversity of Irish music and culture.
This Sunday, hundreds of musicians with skills ranging from "can pick out Danny Boy on the tin whistle" to "seasoned session master" will descend on East Durham for a week of traditional Irish music and cultural arts. Classes in a wide variety of traditional instruments, set dancing, crafts, and even storytelling will run throughout the day next Monday through Friday. In the evenings, there will be concerts on the festival grounds and music sessions at local pubs. On Saturday, July 16, the week will close out with an all-day music festival at the M. J. Quill Irish Cultural and Sports Centre.
To the dismay of many longtime Irish Arts Week regulars, local mainstay Furlong's (the cozy pub in the video above) closed this spring. But when God closes a pub, He opens a resort complex: The Blackthorne, destroyed by fire during a motorcycle rally last September, has finished rebuilding, and will be hosting many of the festivities.
Irish Arts Week. Sunday, July 10 - Saturday, July 16. M. J. Quill Irish Cultural and Sports Centre, 2267 Route 145, East Durham, NY. For more information, visit catskillsirishartsweek.org or call 518.634.2286.
