Celtic Society welcomes all to Celtic Gathering and Highland Games

With tradition and lore as tightly woven as Scottish tartan, the Las Vegas Celtic Society is preparing to add thousands of visitors to its figurative clan this weekend at its Celtic Gathering and Highland Games.

The eighth annual festival is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Floyd Lamb Park at Tule Springs, 9200 Tule Springs Road.

Festival favorites are to return — live entertainment, beer tastings, authentic food, artisan crafts, clan tracing and heavy athletics, such as hammer throwing and caber tossing. But 2012’s festivities could literally land in the record books, organizers say.

The society has filed official papers to try for a world record caber toss. Thirty-two athletes are expected to throw 65-pound cabers simultaneously around 7:30 p.m. Friday on Fremont Street. The event may be broadcast live in Scotland.

Beyond Guinness World Records and Guinness brew, society president Brian Towers said a new attraction this year is to be athletic showdowns by double the number of athletes in the heavy athletics games. Battles between pipe bands, drum bands and Highland dancers are also planned in the quest for top festival bragging rights.

The U.S. Marine Corps band is also set to perform, another new festival element.

“It’s something you don’t want to miss,” Towers said. “Every year we try to make it bigger and better.”

Festival days are opened and closed by ceremonial marches. The live entertainment, revelry and, this year, athletic competitions are set to continue on Fremont Street after 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

More than 10,000 attend the festival each year, Towers said, and some visitors, vendors and performers hail from around the country, Canada and the Celtic homelands on center stage — Scotland and Ireland.

International draw aside, the society likes to give the stage to Las Vegas’ own entertainers and athletes.

Professional strongman Nicholas Best is to participate in the heavy athletics games. The 6-foot-2, 315-pound local has participated in several Sin City Strongman Challenges and placed sixth in 2010’s The Metrix Worlds Strongest Man Competition. He has qualified for 2012’s competition.

“Not bad for an old guy,” the 42-year-old native Las Vegan and Clark High School grad said.

In past games, Best has competed in truck pulls, in which he donned a harness to pull a tractor-trailer 80 feet across a field.

“You pull 80 feet as fast you can with no motor,” he said. “Yes, I will be the engine.”

The professional competitor said he tries to participate in local events when his schedule allows.

Best said he looks forward to this weekend’s festivities.

“You can throw heavy stuff and drink Guinness at the same time,” he joked.

Local musical brawn is also to be represented by Irish rockers Finnegan’s Wake. Lead singer and guitarist Robbie Murphy, a Dublin, Ireland, native, formed the group in 2000.

This is to be the fifth Highland Games for the band, which dubs itself ‘The Rock o’ the Irish,’ said drummer and band leader Wayne Ritchie.

“We do everything from jigs and traditional music to pop like U2 and Flogging Molly,” he said. “We’re really a rowdy rock band and a good time for everybody.”

Being locals and headliners are roles band members take seriously, Ritchie said. “To me, it’s special because I love this town and I like to entertain the people who live here,” he said. “This really reaches our audience. The people who come really and truly love Scottish and Irish music and those are the people who appreciate us the most.”

For more information on the band, visit finnwake.com.

Admission to the Celtic Gathering and Highland Games is $15 for adults, $10 for seniors 60 or older, military personnel with ID and children 5 to 12 and free for children 4 or younger. Tickets can be purchased at
lasvegascelticsociety.org/games/tickets.html. Parking is free. No pets, other than service dogs, are permitted.

For more information, visit lasvegas
celticsociety.org.

Contact Centennial and North Las Vegas View reporter Maggie Lillis at mlillis@viewnews.com or 477-3839.