The Queen’s Birthday long weekend is celebrated, in Victoria, over the second weekend of June and for all but one of the last 17(?) years I have been heading to the little Bellarine Penninsula town of Portarlington to attend the National Celtic Festival. I am not Irish, Scottish or Welsh, though my ancestry has strong Irish leanings, however we are talking four generations back, if not further, and nobody in my family has a musical bent.
I only attended my first festival because my boyfriend at the time was a roadie for one of the bands, yet I find myself returning year after year. It is permanently marked on my calendar. I organise my Saturday work shift months in advance so that I am free that weekend and I have been a volunteer for a number of years now.
I’m not the only one who returns to this festival every year. There are dozens of us who, even if it is just for one day, make the annual pilgrimage to Portarlington.
Why do I do it? Why do we do it? Why does this festival have such meaning to so many people?
As I edited a selection of the 1500 photos I took over the weekend (I’m a volunteer and an official photographer) the meaning of the festival became clear.
It means friendship.
It means dancing.
It means fun.
It means music.
It means singing.
It means sore feet and losing your voice.
It means learning that you can attend a festival on your own and not be alone.
It means magical moments such as watching strangers lose themselves in movement.
It means a room full of people of all ages and abilities dancing a jig or a reel with joyous abandon.
It means men in kilts and women in hand knitted beanies.
It means fiddles and bagpipes and guitars and flutes and harps and pianos and banjos…..
It means seeing four generations of the one family enjoying a weekend together.
It means finding your ‘tribe’.
It means hearing ‘Whiskey in the jar’ a dozen times and loving every rendition.
It means discovering new artists from Australia and overseas and becoming fans for life.
It means seeing cultures that seem to have no connection come together in music and love.
It means seeing the same faces from last year and being so delighted that they are there again.
It means having bands you know stop their set mid-song to have you take their photo.
It means watching craftsmen in action, passing on their knowledge of the old arts.
It means watching young musicians flourish and develop.
It means witnessing a room of adults sit in silent weeping as a gifted singer/story-teller hypnotises them with words.
It means knowing that we have history and traditions and stories and songs that mean something.
It means that I will be back there again next June.
A photo a day for 365 days.........and beyond 