From the Wee Folk Stage to the late-night headliner show at the Celtic Rock Stage, the Dublin Irish Festival is a multi-generational event and a quintessential element of living and growing in Dublin. What started as an event celebrating Irish culture quickly grew into an event that connects the entire Dublin community and beyond.
The first Dublin Irish festival was held in 1988, and by 1993, it had surpassed 10,000 attendees. Now, the festival attracts 8-10 times more people, with an average of 80,000-100,000 each year.
“The festival has grown as the city itself has grown but I do think you see it bleed into other things, like we now have Irish dance schools in Dublin and we have more people than ever interested in the bands or theater,” Alison LeRoy, City of Dublin’s director of events, says. “It really has become not only a celebration of Dublin culture, but also, it’s definitely Dublin’s event.”
Its increase in size and popularity, and solidified tradition status, has led it to receive the USA Today 10Best 2025 Readers’ Choice Award for Cultural Festival, an even grander achievement than the runner-up status it claimed in 2024.
“I do think that our festival-goers and fans are just so passionately involved in the festival they really feel like it’s their family and their festival, so, they came out in full force to support (and vote for) us,” LeRoy says. “I think that puts us over the top.”
Now in its 38th year, the festival has seen generations of families return each year cherishing the tradition and creating their own special Irish Fest traditions.
“It’s been cool for me to see that somebody that started out as a high school kid volunteering for us now has their own kids and brings them back,” LeRoy says. “Somebody brought us in some old materials from 2000, and it was funny because it was a picture of the dance school, the only dance school we had at the time. And I realized that those dancers are running their own dance schools now, and their kids are dancing — it shows that people are growing up at the festival.”
City of Dublin
Phil Franck’s Dublin Irish Festival
The Drowsy Lads
One thing Phil Franck loves about Irish music is its unique ability to charm listeners of all ages. This year, he will perform as a member of The Drowsy Lads all three days of the festival.
Franck has Irish festival memories spanning back to the very first event, which he remembers had a tarp on the tennis courts as a stage. At that time, Franck was a member of the cultural band, Irish Brigade. His son, Josh, a small child at the time, gleefully watched him perform.
Franck has returned to play at the festival for decades with Yankee Celtic Consort, another band set to perform this year. He and Josh (now in his 30s) will perform on stage together with the other members of The Drowsy Lads.
“A family can come to this festival, mom and dad go this direction, the teenagers go off that direction, there’s stuff for even little kids there,” Franck says. “It’s clean and it’s well run. We’ve been to other festivals, and Dublin is right at the tippity-top.”
For Franck, the festival isn’t just an annual gig, it’s a chance to see old friends.
“(There are plenty of) friends and fellow musicians, artists, that we get to see at the Dublin Irish Festival, it feels like a reunion. We’re just enjoying every minute of it.”
2025 Honorary Chair, Kent Weakley’s Dublin Irish Festival
City of Dublin
Dublin native Kent Weakley is the site director for Nationwide Children’s Hospital Close to Home Centers in Dublin and Marysville and the 2025 Dublin Irish Festival Honorary Chair. He attended his first Dublin Irish Festival as a young adult, years before sharing locations via a mobile device existed.
“My college friend, Luke, we had tried to coordinate meeting up with each other at the festival through our parents’ landlines, so we made contact, and then I went to the festival, and I never met up with him because we didn’t have cell phones, so we couldn’t find each other,” Weakley says.
Weakly and his wife, Emily, grew up in Dublin, graduated from Dublin Scioto and are now raising their own Dublin kid, Teddy, who is a seventh grader at Karrer Middle School.
Kent Weakley
“(Teddy has) grown up with the festival,” Weakley says. “It’s kind of the unofficial end of summer for the students and the kids of the area, so I think it’s cool to have this big event that kind of signifies that.”
Along with the entertainment, food and shopping, for Emily and Kevin, the Festival is a chance to catch up with childhood Dublin friends and connect with the community.
Each year, the family organizes their schedules around the weekend, ensuring that they have no other plans other than putting on green and walking over to Coffman Park.
Weakley is proud to be one of the only Honorary Chairs that was brought up in Dublin City Schools, but is also humbled and grateful for the relationship between the Dublin community and Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Close to Home network.
“This is an event that (Nationwide Children’s) supported for nearly 20 years in the Dublin community, and Nationwide Children’s really got its start with the Close to Home network outpatient satellite facility brand, I guess you could say, and that started in Dublin, in 1999.”
City of Dublin
The VanVliet family’s Dublin Irish Festival
VanVliet Family
The VanVliet family volunteered at their first Dublin Irish Festival in 2000 when their four daughters were ages 3-11. They ran a carnival game in the Wee Folk area, recognizing that it was an opportunity for the family to support their community in a fun way. Since then, the family has continued to come back and volunteer each year.
Nowadays, the four VanVliet daughters have all moved away, but what hasn’t changed is their annual volunteering at the fest. During Festival weekend, all the ladies return to Dublin as per tradition.
“No matter where or when we volunteer over the weekend, we always set Sunday evening aside to gather back as a family, to have dinner at the Dublin Stage and watch the finale,” Bob VanVliet says. “We consider the Dublin Irish Festival one of our family’s major holidays.”
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com.
