When Irish eyes are smiling, it might be because they’ve found love at the Dublin Irish Festival. Several couples have made lasting connections at the Festival, including Dublin locals Mick and Shauna Broderick and musician duo Kieran O’Hare and Liz Knowles.
O’Hare and Knowles, two members of the trio Open the Door for Three, met 16 years ago.
“We think it was 1998,” says O’Hare, consulting with Knowles, who confirms the date.
Each has had a strong pull toward Irish tradition, which sparked their interest and involvement in the Festival.
“We both play Irish music for a living,” says O’Hare, who grew up in Kansas but attended college in Ireland.
When they met, he and Knowles were playing with two different bands; she was playing with the John Whelan Band, and he was singing with Niamh Parsons.
“We were touring with our respective bands, so we’d actually met in passing two or three years in a row – just ‘Hey, how you doing?’ kind of stuff,” says O’Hare. “We ended up hanging out that year and getting to know each other while playing around with some of the golf carts they had to drive people back to their cars.”
The next phase of their relationship involved keeping in touch while doing lots of traveling.
“Liz was on the road playing fiddle for Riverdance, and I was doing different tours here and there,” O’Hare says. “Our courtship consisted of meeting up in different cities as our schedules permitted.”
The couple got married in 2001 in Chicago – but had the chance to cement their relationship at the same place it had begun.
“At the time, someone involved in the Festival actually offered to let us have the wedding at the Festival that year. We were so touched,” says O’Hare.
The couple now lives in Portland, Maine and returns to the Festival every year.
“We actually played at the Festival last August with our current project, Open the Door for Three. We both love traditional Irish music, so it’s fitting that we met there,” he says.
The Irish-loving couple credits the festival for bringing them together.
“From a musician’s perspective, we have a huge warm spot in our hearts for the Festival,” O’Hare says. “The welcome that the performers receive is just so great. It’s so unbelievably well-run.”
A similar love of Irish music also drew Mick Broderick and his wife, Shauna, together a decade later in August 2008.
“I lived in Ireland at the time, and we had an agent book the Dublin Irish Festival for the band I played in, Slide,” Mick says.
The couple met in between one of the many musical performances that the Festival hosts.
“Gaelic Storm was performing that Sunday night. I took the opportunity to check them out,” Mick says. “We bumped into each other outside the tent.”
Their initial meeting was very casual, but there was enough of a spark that they stayed in touch online – nothing too serious at first.
“Yeah, I found her on Facebook,” says Mick, laughing. “I still lived in Ireland. … I knew I was due to come back to the States, though.”
They met again in mid-September of the same year, solidifying their relationship.
“I planned to come to Ohio and stay a while before returning to Ireland. We met up and got along well, so we kept in touch,” Mick says. “Then I invited her to Ireland for Christmas, and we traveled around the countryside. She met the family. … After that we went back and forth for a year.”
Distance was no match for their chemistry. “I’d come to the States for tours and visit her in Ohio. Shauna would come to Ireland,” he says.
The couple got married in Ireland and lived there together for about a year before moving back to the U.S. in 2010. Now, they have two boys: Finn, 4, and Cillian, 6 months. Mick teaches fifth grade in Westerville City Schools, and Shauna is a pre-med student at Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine in Dublin.
“I still play in my band in the summer and on the weekends,” says Mick, who plays the bouzouki, a Greek string instrument that has been adapted for Irish traditional music. The happily married husband and wife still return to the Festival every year, and Mick still performs there, occasionally.
“I’m very grateful for the way things worked out for us,” says Mick. “All my gratitude to Ohio, and especially the Festival.”
Lauren Andrews is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.
