Big crowds lined Glen Innes’s CBD on Saturday for a spectacular street parade and packed the Australian Standing Stones site for the annual Australian Celtic Festival.
“The festival gets bigger and better each year”, Glen Innes economic development and tourism manager said. “There are obviously more people rediscovering or discovering their Celtic connection.
“We are also delighted that night entertainment events were so well supported by enthusiastic audiences.
“Many of the visitors will be staying over in Glen Innes – the festival gives a tremendous boost to the local economy. Visitors speak of excellent memories of their time here.”
The skirl of pipes from a lone piper at memorable, red-dawn skies signalled the start of the weekend’s non-stop entertainment at the Australian Standing Stones, national monument to Australia’s Celtic pioneers and the festival’s main venue.
Clans, national groups, artists and spectators came from across Australia for the four-day festival which included a range of innovations such as jousting by riders in medieval costumes, plumes and armour, the 25-voice Wollongong Welsh Choir and an all-school’s program embracing prose, poetry and dance.
The festival honoured the Welsh in line with the policy of singling out a Celtic nation each year.
The festival’s special guest, Swansea-born Aneurin Hughes, former European ambassador to Australia, in officially opening the event at the Glen Innes Town Hall, said the Celts had spread from the upper reaches of the Danube right across Europe
and had “a huge and wonderful background.”
With a realisation of their heritage “our future will be more significant than our past,” he said.
“We celebrate our distinctiveness.”
Federal Member for New England Tony Windsor told the crowd it was “a truly unique festival in a unique area…you will find nothing but friendship irrespective of your background.”
Glen Innes’s mayor and chief guardian of the Australian Standing Stones Cr Steve Toms and festival chairman John Tregurtha welcomed the crowds to the event.
