Barbadians got a taste of Celtic culture when the annual Barbados Celtic Festival kicked off with sing-along concerts at a number of schools across the island.
Students were introduced to Celtic history in the form of “edutainment”, folk songs sung in indigenous languages and musical instruments such as bagpipes, fiddles and the bodhrán (drum).
Schools visited were Combermere, St Gabriel’s and St Patrick’s Roman Catholic yesterday.
Director of the festival, Carol Anderson, said since the 1990s, it had become a major tourist attraction that complemented the island’s tourism product.
She said about 100 musicians, including pipers, fiddlers and members of a soul and funk band, would be performing at different events throughout the week.
The festival, supported by the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc., celebrates the shared cultures between the Celtic countries of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Nova Scotia. It is also a commemoration of the history when the first “Redlegs” came to Barbados in 1745. (SB)
