Ocean Shores, Washington

We missed the brilliant Irish Music Feis the past few years but returned in 2024. It was nearly a full week of storytelling and revelry.

The dates were October 22 through 27, 2024, in Ocean Shores, Washington, hosted by Galway Bay Irish Pub. We did ten hours of storytelling, from Tuesday through Sunday, including a storytelling workshop. We had to dig deep into our repertoire to avoid telling the same story more than once during the week.

The festival folks did something different in my billing. Something no other festival has done. It listed me in the program with my name only – “David K. McDonnell”. Festivals have listed me in the program as “Storyteller”. Or as “David McDonnell, Storyteller”. Or by the title of my topic. If they don’t have a specific topic, the program might state “Some Irish Legends”.

The result was that people came to my sets not knowing what to expect. They did might have thought I would play the fiddle. Or sing some classic Irish tunes. Or worse, that I might dance. They were universally surprised when all I did was tell stories. Fortunately, they were (almost) universally pleasantly surprised.

This is our new friend. She’s chilling outside of our hotel room. Photo by Linda McDonnell.