Dear Jason Miller and Becky Schmidt of River City, Dan Milleson at Waterfront Hall, and Kelly Tucker – and staff – from the Greater Wheeling Sports and Entertainment Authority:

Holy Irish Bowling Batman, could there be anything else connected to our city’s annual Celtic Festival? The good folks at Wheeling Heritage and the owners and staff at River City have been throwing the city’s best Celtic Party for more than 25 years inside the Artisan Center, but a usually-quiet-on-the-weekends downtown Wheeling will be anything but bare of thousands of music fans wearing some kind of green.

Why? Well, beginning at 11:30 a.m., there’s the Macdonald Pipe Band, The Celtic Lads, Gage Joseph, and Abbots Cross at the Artisan Center, The Bastard Bearded Irishmen on Water Street, and then Pennywise and The Scratch and the Dropkick Murphys at Wesbanco Arena.

PLUS, tribute band “Almost Queen” will take the historic Capitol Theatre stage at 7:30 p.m.!

So, let’s get this straight … once again, a public/private partnership has silenced the critics chanting, “THERE’S NOTHING TO DO IN WHEELING!” Now, we know it’s not the first time y’all have done this, and we know it won’t be the last, but we wanted you to know that it’s especially enjoyable for us to witness it each and every time.

So … Slainte!

Irish for a Day