“The Celts basically celebrated the same holidays that we do today,” Port City Cafe and Pub owner John Hogan said. “What we call Halloween today, they called Samhain. Basically, what it is is a Celtic harvest festival. They celebrated it once the harvest was completed at the end of summer. It was a good festival if they had enough food to make it through the winter. I guess it wasn’t quite as joyful if they didn’t.”
The Samhain/Halloween Feast is an opportunity for those who are interested in Irish or Celtic traditions, or just looking for something fun to do on a Saturday night, to get together and have a good time. Hogan hopes it will also be an opportunity for the 7 Nations Celtic Club to recruit new members.
The event is headlined by a Cincinnati-based group called ‘The Bloody Tinth.’
“The Bloody Tinth, by the way, is named after a unit from the Civil War that came from the Cincinnati area that was made up of the Irish,” Hogan said. “They play a good, high-energy, Irish-American kind of pop music. They have a fiddle player that is actually a classically trained violinist that does a real nice job.”
There will also be performances by a group of Circ d’Art dancers and the band ‘Ahmrain.’ Hogan is a member of Ahmrain alongside two other local musicians, Jason Burton and John Grubb.
“Both of them are far better musicians than I am,” Hogan said with a laugh.
There is no cover charge and no minimum for the event.
“It’s just an opportunity to have a good time, get together and use the pub for what it’s intended to be,” Hogan said. “It’s a place of fellowship and celebration and hopefully (we can) promote the club and its activities and get people excited about the (St. Patrick’s Day) parade when it comes up in March.”
ERIC KEPHAS can be reached at 740-353-3101 ext. 234 or ekephas@heartlandpublications.com
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