2-Day Irish Fair to Feature Crafts, Parades and Music

Dublin is celebrating its millennial birthday this year. And if you can’t make it back to the old country for the fun, the next-best thing will be on this side of the briny today and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, during the 14th annual Grand National Irish Fair & Music Festival.

This birthday party is going to be a big one. After all, it’s not every day that a city turns 1,000. The main attraction will be the Irish Folk band the Chieftains, performing at the Equestrian Center’s Shamrock Dome, “the world’s largest Irish pub.” A number of local bands will play as well, including the Pasadena-based group Train to Sligo.

Crafts, Parades, Music

And there will be something for every member of the family to do or enjoy, including a show of Connemara ponies and Irish wolfhounds, parades, Irish athletic events, dancing and fiddle music. Booths will be selling everything from Claddagh rings to warm pullovers of Aran wool, T-shirts, hats and walking sticks.

A specially re-created ancient Irish village, Tara, will feature period costumes, courtiers and royalty, Celtic soldiers and an ancient market with period wares and vendors. But be prepared to run if the alarm signaling the approach of Viking invaders is raised!

And speaking of Vikings--that brings us back to the reason for all this gaiety. According to Dubliners, their “fair city, where the girls are so pretty” is a millennium old this year. But whether it actually is is a matter of not particularly heated debate between traditionalists and archeologists, with the latter generally of a mind that it’s older.

The present city of Dublin on the River Liffey, Baile Atha Cliath in Gaelic, was founded early in the 9th Century by the Vikings, though the Roman historian Ptolemy records a city at the same site in AD 140.

Touch of Whimsy

Some scholars believe, however, that 988 was the year Dubliners began paying taxes to an Irish king.

In any event, the Irish take a whimsical approach to such things. There is an old saw about an elderly gentleman working as a tour guide in Dublin, who one day told his group: “And this wall is 1,000 years and 4 months old.”

“Goodness!” a tourist exclaimed with awe. “How can you be so wonderfully precise?”

“ ‘Tis simple,” the guide responded with a smile. “I took this job four months ago, and I was told it was 1,000 then.”

The Equestrian Center is at 480 Riverside Drive (Burbank entrance) near Griffith Park. Fair admission for adults is $10; seniors 62 and older and students with ID, $8; ages 13-17, $4; younger than 12, free when accompanied by an adult. Information: (213) 202-8846.