New Club Celebrates Celtic Culture

Feet tapped and fiddles sang on the early November night that marked the inaugural gathering of the Harvard College Celtic Club. Meghin R. Sherlock ’07, leader Lindsay K. Turner ’07, Rita Parai ’07 and Edward Wallace, a Cambridge resident, collaborated on a variety of Celtic fiddle music from customary dirges to lighter folk songs and dances native to the Gaelic country.

“I knew a lot of people who were into Celtic music and taking Irish language classes,” says club founder and leader Lindsay K. Turner ’07, an English and American Language and Literature concentrator in Winthrop House. “There was a lot of demand for an organization like this that ties into the Celtic Languages and Literatures department, Irish language classes offered, and all people with an interest in Celtic culture. And there’s a huge Irish scene in Boston, which has a strong Celtic heritage.”

Turner decided to provide a venue for that interest by founding the new Harvard Celtic Club. Over the summer, Turner e-mailed friends inquiring about their interest in the club. She also sent out exploratory e-mails to students who listed anything involving Celtic culture in his or her interests on Thefacebook.com, and received an overwhelmingly positive response from both avenues.

Discussion among the prospective founding members determined that the primary focus of the new club would be cultivating an appreciation for Celtic culture, particularly in the fields of music and linguistics. Many of those interested in the organization are musicians and language enthusiasts themselves, so it was natural to bring their expertise to bear on the organization.

“We boast at least four linguistics concentrators and we have many members who are taking or have taken classes in Irish and Welsh, both modern and ancient,” club member Bridget Samuels ’04 says. She herself is a specialist in late 20th century Irish poetry and plans to “take a delegation to some of the Irish-medium events in the Boston area,” citing an upcoming Irish language and culture workshop called “La Gaeilge.” A local Celtic heritage organization, Ar d’Teanga Fein, runs the day-long seminar series.

“Some of us are also involved with the Irish Table in Adams House,” says Samuels. There is an important distinction between the Celtic and the Irish; “ ‘Celtic’ is a convenient label for an actually much more diverse cultural grouping,” remarks Wallace, a native Londoner. The nations of Ireland, Scotland and Wales generally comprise the cultural regions collectively called “Celtic.”

The group recently traveled to the Canadian-American club in Watertown for a night of Boston Urban Ceilidh (KAY-lee). This style of Gaelic music and dance is a mixture of the modern and the traditional. Juxtaposing bagpipes and fiddles with electric guitars, the rock-influenced music places an emphasis on traditional tunes that are easy to dance to. In much the same way, the Harvard Celtic Club blends traditional folklore with modern interpretation, making an especially rich milieu of Gaelic history and culture accessible for everyone in the Harvard community.

Although the club is not yet an official Harvard organization, Turner has been holding informal meetings every week to stir up interest and plan for official group activities. Once the Office of Student Activities officially recognizes the club, it will host workshops and festivals that celebrate Celtic culture more extensively in addition to the weekly gatherings.

“We hope to get a taste of the folk music scene in Boston,” Wallace says. “Hopefully we’ll get out of Harvard and away from the University.” While exploring ways to integrate College life with greater Boston, Turner also wants to make sure that all Harvard students have access to the resources of the club through the series of workshops she is planning at the College.

The workshops, free and open to the Harvard community, will feature lecturers and artists with substantial appreciation for the literature and art of the British Isles. Artistic attractions will include poetry readings, fiddling sessions and excursions to bigger music festivals.

To receive official recognition as an affiliate of Harvard, the organization must first wait for the approval of the Office of Student Activities. To be formally acknowledged, a club must submit a constitution, a complete list of officers and members, and endorsements from two faculty advisers. All clubs must have at least ten undergraduate members. The faculty sponsors of the Celtic Club include Lindsay Page, a first-year proctor in Lionel Hall, and Tomas O’Cathasaigh, Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies, who is also director of graduate studies in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures.

The club has already submitted all the necessary materials; although full accreditation could take until the end of November, the organization is otherwise a fully operational and active part of student life. Currently the Celtic Club has 25 to 30 members on its mailing list.

The new club is not the first Celtic organization to grace the halls of Harvard. The now-defunct Celtic Society covered much of the same musical territory as Turner’s organization, but without its linguistic and cultural aspects. After most of the old group’s leaders graduated in 2002, the organization became inactive and effectively disbanded. This is unlikely to happen with Turner’s group, given the high level of interest and the fact that a vast majority of the founding members are sophomores.