HAMILTON – The sounds of families laughing, crowds cheering, and bagpipes could be heard from the highway in front of the Daly Mansion in Hamilton on Saturday.
Folks from all over the world gathered at the mansion for the 9th annual Celtic Festival which featured traditional food, drinks, games and much more.
Caroline and Jonathan Hurdman, who are from a small town in England and now live in Canada, still take the time to come to the festival each year.
"It’s a really great sense of community. Montana is a very friendly state people are very very friendly. Hamilton is just a fantastic town and the people again are absolutely lovely," said Jonathan Hurdman.
Many of the volunteers at the event spoke about how much it means to pass their traditions on to younger generations.
"In the case The Irish in the Scots, it’s history which talks about the triumph over adversity. How persecution and deprivation were faced down and how the people overcame this, how they survived, how are they preserved who they were and what their identity was," Traolach O Riordian, the director of Irish Studies at the University of Montana, said.
"And they passed out a sense of resilience and in the world we live in today it’s pretty important to know that These are the kind of people you come from and also there are people like this that you can depend on are there to help you and assist you," O Riordian added.
