Keltae hosts first-ever on-campus CelticFest to celebrate Tartan Day

Janel Shoun | 04/03/2007

If you’ve noticed some strange goings-on outside of chapel this week, don’t worry. It’s just Lipscomb students embracing their inner Scottish spirit with a few highland games after chapel. But the sheaf toss and Wellington wallop are just the tip of the Celtic iceberg in the days leading up to National Tartan Day.

All students, faculty and staff are invited to Lipscomb’s first CelticFest on Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m., where they can participate not only in highland games, but also hear performances of Celtic music, dine on Celtic food and learn even more about Celtic heritage.

Keltae – the Celtic Society at Lipscomb University, (whose members practically live and breathe Celtic culture), are hosting CelticFest, 9 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Saturday, April 7, on the Granny White Pike lawn area of the campus, 3901 Granny White Pike.

All Lipscomb University and Lipscomb Campus School students and children 12 and under can participate free of charge. Cost is $5 for the general public. Parking recommended in the lot behind Elam Hall, on the Lipscomb campus, accessible from Belmont Boulevard.

Performances by the Scott Ellis School of Irish Dance, Suzanne Eckchum, a Nashville-based songwriter, and Nashville Pipe and Drum;

Non-competitive highland games for adults and children including amateur versions of the caber toss (throwing a large wooden pole), the stone put (similar to the shot put in the Olympic games), the weight throw (tossing a weight with a handle) and the sheaf toss (a bundle of straw tossed over a raised bar with a pitchfork);

American food and British food options such as haggis, Scotch eggs and IrUn Bru drink from Cripple Creek and other vendors and Celtic merchandise by Celtic Moore; and

Informative lectures by Jason Simpson, Jim Kerr and Jim Glynn on the Gaelic language, historic Celtic influence in the Southeast and the historic influence of the Declaration of Arbroath on America’s Constitution.