Let’s Celebrate Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day — Like the Irish Celebrate Country Music Every Day

In the days surrounding March 17, Music City will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with culture-rich events, including Music City Irish Fest, combining plenty of music, dancing, food, and fun. Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk will host some of them.

While Nashville eagerly awaits the chance to celebrate the Luck of the Irish every year, a recent trip to Ireland revealed the Irish don’t wait for holidays to celebrate country music.

Garth and Trisha have been vocal about their passion for Ireland and its people for years – as well as the Irish’s love of country music. Garth famously played eight nights at Dublin’s Point Depot in 1994 then a five-night stand at Croke Park in Dublin in September of 2022. The concerts are considered one of the most significant music events in Irish history. And while Garth often talks about experiencing the kindness of the Irish culture and their love of country music, he asked me to share my experience there for St. Patrick’s Day.

I recently returned from a week-long trip to Killarney, Ireland, where I attended and spoke at the Your Roots Are Showing, a nearly six-day music conference that celebrated folk, country, and more. Artists from 14 countries, including Guyana, Australia, Canada, the USA, Spain, the UK, and Ireland made the trip the picturesque Killarney countryside to attend – and the town showed up in a big way to support them.

The conference soft-launched on January 14 – a Tuesday -- with its sold-out Folk iN Fusion concert at INEC Arena. While the official start date was January 15, folks packed the arena to tighter than standing room only on a work night to see the show. The event ended on Saturday, January 18, with a series of showcases. But Sunday, January 19, the music was front and center at nearly every venue in town, beginning with Rhiannon Giddens at St. Mary’s Church in Killarney. From there, music fans filled 12 pubs around Killarney that showcased performances at each location. The rooms were so packed that guests spilled into the streets and watched from the sidewalk.

As a country music fan and writer who grew up in East Tennessee and has spent 28 years living in Nashville and working in the industry, Ireland feels like home. The people are warm and welcoming, the food familiar and delicious, and their accents are sometimes so close to the deep Appalachia I call home that they’re undetectable to my ears. The mountains looming over the town look like the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee – but castles instead of cabins are the attractions here.

Contemporary country music plays in the shops and breweries, and people crave every in-person country lyric they can soak in. Popular question? When is Garth coming back to Ireland? I don’t know, but when he does, I am not going to miss it.