If you are looking for something to do this weekend, consider this your lucky break as West Suburban Irish is putting on their second annual Irish Fest at Frontier Sports Complex in Naperville.
“It’s something that Naperville can look forward to every year. It’s a fun festival. It’s a little bit different entertainment not everybody is Irish we don’t care if anybody is Irish come on out. But it’s fun to listen to the music and I think the goal would be to just get on everybody’s calendar we’re going to try to shoot for the same weekend every year and just to a good celebration with family before kids go back to school,” said Naperville Irish Fest Organizer Marjorie O’Dowd.
“We have Guinness on tap, we have Jameson, we have bagpipes, four different Irish dance groups. Irish music, we’ve got Irish vendors, we even have St. Patrick here himself giving us a blessing,” said Marjorie.
Special Prizes
Raffles are included and one of the top prizes is a trip across the pond.
“We also have raffle tickets to a trip to Ireland, so last year the winning ticket was sold at the fest to a family of six. So they had a great time over in Ireland, they left about two months ago,” said West Suburban Irish Vice President Terry O’Dowd.
More Ways to Celebrate
West Suburban Irish wanted another way to celebrate outside of St. Patrick’s Day each year, realizing that a festival in the summer would be a good fit.
“We thought we’d have some fun. It’s just kind of like St. Patrick’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day it’s just a great time so why not try and replicate that over a couple of days at Irish Fest and second, we wanted to showcase Irish culture whether it’s dancing and music and Irish wear and third raise some money for local charities in the Naperville area,” said Terry.
Lucky Break
If you missed out on the first day, your good luck continues with the fest holding a second day on Saturday August 6th.
“The fest opens at noon tomorrow and goes to ten o’clock, ” said Terry.
“Lots of food, lots of drinks, same vendors, more people,” said Marjorie.
For more information on the 2022 Irish Fest, you can check out the full schedule on the West Suburban Irish Website.
Naperville News 17’s Patrick Codo Reports.