Ireland, WV

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all! I often refer to our mini-vacations. Here is a neat place to visit this weekend in order to celebrate spring. Ireland, West Virginia, will hold their 29th Irish Festival on March 17-21, 2010.










The community of Ireland is located in the Southern end of Lewis County, West Virginia. There you will find many people with Irish names, an organization called Shamrock Extension Homemakers Club, and an annual deluge of cards and letters to be postmarked "Ireland" for St. Patrick's Day. And so it has been for several decades. But it was not until the winter of 1981, that some community members were finally overcome by their curiosity as to the origin of the small hamlet's name.



A research effort by the Shamrock Extension Homemakers Club was launched to discover more about community roots. Their work confirmed information already discovered by former resident, Cly Reger, about the village's history:



It was found that the area had been settled by an Irishman named Andrew Wilson. In later years the man became affectionately known as "Old Ireland" to the settlers of that area. More in-depth research led to the discovery that "Old Ireland" had lived to enjoy 114, yes, 114 springtimes. The average life-span at that time was only approximately 38 years.



Then other community members heard of the discovery, they were convinced there was something about the quality of life in Ireland, West Virginia, that was conductive to long life spans. A coupling of this new-found reason for excitement, along with the already established and perennial desire to celebrate the vernal equinox led to the first planned IRISH SPRING FESTIVAL.

If you decide this might be a weekend min-vacation for you, take in such events as the greenery stroo, snake chasing, Balarney rock, the harp workshop, and especially road bowling. It is neat to note that our Glenville Fire Department has formed a road bowling team and will participate this year in the competition.

Here is the description of road bowling from the Irish Festival's web site.

The basic premise is the same as golf's. Get the 28oz cannonball from point A to point B in the fewest number of attempts. Our course is 2 miles from Ireland to Duffy and the Snake Chase map would include this course. It is not as easy as it sounds however. When the ball chooses to take a bad bounce and go off the road, it still must be retrieved. Retrieval is hazardous since there is a cold flowing stream adjacent to a portion of the course, soft ditches where one can easily sink to the knees are all along the route. But the most dreaded difficulty along the course is a very soft and juicy barn lot whose mud contains a toxic percentage level of bovine excrement while guarded by a 1500 pound black angus bull. You don't have to be a he-man to be good either One of our best bowlers was a 90 pound-soaking-wet sophomore, Becky Posey. Our Road Bowling was probably the first in the U.S. and was aired on The Outdoor Life Cable Channel in 1996. This program is often replayed in the spring as a novel broadcast.

If you need additional information on the Irish Spring Festival, please click on the link below.

http://www.angelfire.com/wv/irishspringfestival/index.html