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Support Celtic Culture — Sponsor our 2025 Festival!
Dear Friend, You are cordially invited to the Céilí of the Valley Society’s 10th annual Celtic New Year Samhain (pronounced SOW-in) Festival set for Saturday, October 25, 2025, at the Willamette Heritage Center. This one-day festival celebrates the cultures of the seven Celtic Nations (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Galicia, and Isle of Man) through live music, speakers, presentations, workshops, and immersive/hands-on activities that will be educational and fun for the whole community. To celebrate our 10th anniversary, so it is more accessible to all community members, our goal is to have free admission. To do that, we need your support. We are seeking local businesses and organizations with which…
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Thank you Capital Community Media!
We are grateful for the support we have received from Capital Community Media in helping capture the educational and entertaining side of the Samhain Celtic New Year Festival! We hope you enjoy these videos they have created from our 2023 and 2024 events. Oct 30, 2024 — Join us as we attend Céilí of the Valley’s 2024 Samhain Celtic New Year Festival! Learn about the history of this event about why it’s important to keep these cultural traditions alive. Nov 4, 2023 — Ceili of the Valley Society hosted their Samhain Celtic New Year Festival at the Willamette Heritage Center in Salem Oregon this year. Take a look at…
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Celtic Quilt Raffle
Lesli Ficker has, once again, outdone herself in creating a custom-designed Celtic quilt with beautiful, intricate hand-quilted knotwork for raffle at the Samhain Celtic New Year Festival. The quilt is 72″ square. The quilt features the “Wild Irish Rose,” which celebrates the sturdy, self-reliant and gorgeous Irish women past, present and future. As the song says….. “My Wild Irish Rose, The sweetest flower that grows. You may search everywhere, But none can compare with My Wild Irish Rose” (Excerpt from the song My Wild Irish Rose written by Chauncey Olcott.) Tickets will be $5 each, 5/$20 and only available at the festival on October 19, 2024. Winner need not be…
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Meet the 2024 Headlining Band — Blaz Dañjerus
The headlining band for the 2024 Samhain Celtic New Year Festival is… Blaz Dañjerus (Breton for “dangerous taste”) is an exciting new project focusing on both Irish and Breton dance music and featuring the musical talents of Preston Wilde, Channing Dodson, and Zac Léger. Preston Wilde (fiddle, Flemish bagpipes, uilleann pipes, bombarde) grew up in Northern California where he first heard traditional dance music in the form of a Finbar Furey recording belonging to his father. He began learning the uilleann pipes at age 17 with the help of the late Dingle piper Con Durham as well as the Pub Scouts, the local Irish music collective in Chico, CA. Now…
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Did someone say photos?
Our 2023 photos are (finally) available online. Check out the gallery here And save the date for our 2024 festival on October 19, 2024. More info coming soon!
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2023 Celtic Quilt Raffle
Enter to win this custom-designed, one-of-a-kind Celtic quilt with beautiful, intricate hand-quilted knotwork created by Lesli Ficker. The design of the quilt is called “Irish Chain” and it has a delightful, hand-appliqued border. Quilt size is 90″square. The raffle will take place at the 2023 Samhain Celtic New Year Festival on Saturday, October 21 at Willamette Heritage Center. Tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20.
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2023 Samhain Festival headliner is Two Rivers Ceili Band
For over 50 years, our region has been rich with Irish music and Irish dance. Dancers have enjoyed céilí (Irish social) and set dancing to great live music, and learned step dancing and Sean-Nós (old-style) dancing from great teachers. What the region hasn’t had was a dedicated céilí band–that is, musicians committed to providing music for céilí and set dancing. The Two Rivers Céilí Band assembled in July 2022 to remedy this. In Ireland and worldwide, céilí bands represent the talents of their locality. Two Rivers Céilí Band well represents our region with fiddles, flutes, whistles, uilleann pipes, guitar, piano and song. Our members: Niamh Branigan is a fiddle player…
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SAVE THE DATE!
The 2023 Samhain Celtic New Year Festival will take place on Saturday, October 21. It will return to the heart of Salem at the Willamette Heritage Center. Watch for more information coming soon. We will be looking for sponsors, presenters, vendors and a headline performer!
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Celtic Quilt Raffle
Enter to win this colorful, custom-designed quilt with beautiful, intricate hand-quilted details. Leslie Ficker has once again created a one-of-a-kind quilt to be raffled at the Samhain Celtic New Year Festival. The quilt is 86 inches x 64.5 inches and has a beautiful Celtic knotwork border. Tickets are $5.00 each or 5 tickets for $20.00. Detail Photo:
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Biddy on the Bench headlines the 2022 festival!
Step into a world of Celtic culture at the Ceili of the Valley’s annual Samhain Celtic New Year Festival 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22, 2022, in the Spinning Room at the Willamette Heritage Center, 1313 Mill St. SE. Learn to sing a shanty. Try your feet at set dancing. Explore Celtic history and heritage. Listen to stories of the wee folk and faeries. Visit the family area for opportunities to craft. Shop vendors of a cultural nature. The festival offers a wide variety of experiences, information and opportunities for all ages, including mini highland games where kids can test their skills at the caber toss, sheaf toss,…
