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| A few weeks ago, I sat down with the "original band of rogues" responsible for creating one of the most successful Celtic festivals in the MidWest. This band included Lisa Lockheart, Charles Thomson, Lynn Hunt and the "father of the games," Bill Gillies. Though Bill says in his interview that he "got lucky" in establishing the Games, there is passion and hard work that exudes from this "band of rogues." Passion and hard work that has nothing to do with luck. Interested in the Celtic heritage of the MidWest? Interested in volunteering? Interested in hosting a Games of your own? Bill's first-hand experience shines through in this article. |
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Viewpoint • Recent Articles • The Irish Cottage of Galena Jack Coulter • The Frank O'Dowd Pub Basil Conroy • Father of the Games Bill Gillies • From Britain to Ireland Robin Slater • Ireland to America Dearbhail Finnegan • The Homestead Pickers Dearbhail Finnegan |
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Be sure to visit:
Celtic Highland Games of the Quad Cities (The "Quad Cities" consist of Moline and Davenport, Illinois, with Bettendorf and Davenport, Iowa). |
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• MidwestIrish.com is a part of Lucky13Studios Design Family. For more information, see JoshuaHeston.com•
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How do you start with a Celtic Highland Games? First let me say, if I knew then what I know now, I would have kept my mouth shut. I was a dance dad. My daughter was a competitive Highland dancer, and she did quite well at it.
And it was either early one morning or late one night, as I was traveling between a dance competition and Davenport, I said to myself, It would be really nice if we had a competition in Davenport. And originally, I conceived it as being at Lindsey Park, because then I could walk from my house to the competition and back again.
And I started talking to some different people. Lisa [Lockheart] being one of the original band of rogues. Crazy people. And I have done an excellent job because I talked someone else into sharing for the first time around. And about six or eight months in, that person had a physical injury — they fell off a ladder — and just said, "I appoint Bill to take over for me."
So at that point, I was given a plaque by somebody that said, When things look bad and everything is going horribly, there is always one person who has a vision and is willing to take control. Very often that person is insane.
And I started putting that on the table in front of me when we would have our meetings. And that's how I got the name "Crazy Bill."
Lisa can tell you that when we started out, I said "I think we should put on a game in two years." And people wanted to know why not that year, and I said, "Well you don't understand. This is going to be a big deal." And in that two years running up to the first Game, if I had a dollar for every person who told me it couldn't be done, we would not have had any budgetary problems.
And then if I had a dollar for everybody who came up to me two years afterwards and "We're amazed" we wouldn't have had any budgetary problems.
You have to have three basic events to anchor your Games. It's just like opening a shopping mall. You have to have like a three-legged stool. In our particular case, it's athletics, dance and piping. Then of course, you also have your vendors, your clan area, all of the other ancillary things. We have some re-enactors who come out, we have Highland animals, we have herding, we have raptors.
What we are really looking to do is promote the Celtic heritage — and no single one. We originally started it out as a Highland Games, by about the third meeting reality set in and I said, "You know, there seems to be more Irishmen in the Quad Cities than there does Scots, so we made it a Celtic Highland games."
There was a lot from the Scots saying, "Why should we consort with the Irish?" And a lot from the Irish saying, "Why should we consort with the Scots?" And actually, the thing I'm really proud of is that we were on the cutting edge of putting together a Celtic Games as opposed to a Highland Games or a Feis. And since we have done it, more and more of them have sprung up.
We had a lot of help from the people in the Chicago Games, at the St. Andrews Home — the Scottish Society. And a lot of help from the people in Springfield and the people in Rockford. Everybody helped us get started the first couple of years. And we have carried that on. Since then, we have provided assistance and training to the people in St. Louis for the St. Louis Games and for the people in Minnesota, when the Minnesota Coalition of Clans took over for McAllister College with the Scottish Fair.
It really shows that the Celtic community is a very, very close community. I knew that going in with the [Highland] dance. You watch everybody's kids grow up. Everybody helps everybody. A kid snaps a shoelace and the dancer getting ready one seat over hands you the spare shoelace if you don't have it.
You do have to be slightly deranged. I had a piper describe it to me best when he said," Well, of course all pipers are crazy. We are playing an arcane instrument that nobody likes to listen to that takes a lifetime to master. We've got to be insane."
And it's the same way with dance. And it's the same way with the athletics. A friend of mine asked me one time, "Where shall I meet you?" I said, "Meet me at athletics." They said, "Well, how will I know when I'm in athletics?" I said, "Look for bikers in drag throwing bizarre heavy objects for distance and height."
When they met me in athletics, they said, "When I got here I knew I was in the right place."
Everyone knows everybody on the circuit. I was in Minnesota last weekend for the Scottish Fair which is now in Farmington, Minnesota. One of my fellow clansmen — one of my cousins — who had been coming down here for three or four years to help us with ours, when the Coalition of Clans took over, he was in charge.
So of course, now I have to go to Minnesota to help him with his. That's just the way it works. And I think as you talk to more and more people on the Games circuit, this will be something that resounds.
We don't compete with each other at the Games. We look at every Game as an opportunity to get together for a party. One of the things that I can say about our competition, if you were to say to me, What sets your Games apart? Or our Games apart? I would say the thing that really sets us apart — all modesty aside — we have the best Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) of any Games I've ever been to.
If you come to our Ceilidh, intending to just sit on your butt and listen to music and clap politely, you're out of luck.
Bring your athletic gloves so you can really clap. Bring your dancing shoes, because the people are up out of the seats, and on the dance floor. The Ceilidh goes six hours. We have to hire two bands because one band isn't big enough to handle it.
And there will be not only the bands we have paid to be there but there will be impromptu piping, dance lessons ... it's like we hired a band and a party broke out. And it's six hours. It's a very nice cap to our 16-hour long day, which I feel is one of the best entertainment deals in the Quad Cities. We've got something for everybody.
But I can only say that while I might be able to lay the claim to being the father of the Games, it's like the old-fashioned farmers. There was a reason they had a lot of kids because one man can't run the farm! And this is like that.
We'll have two hundred volunteers on the day of the event.
We have an executive committee that's about eight people. We have 15 people who come to every meeting. As we get close [to the day of the event], that number will kick up to about 25 or 30.
But it's those 200 people on the day of the event and those two dozen people who do all the dirty work that are responsible.
You know, if you can bamboozle enough people, you come put something like this on. And I got lucky! That's all there is to it.
[They said] "You can't put on a Games. It's been tried before."
I got lucky. I was the one crazy enough — like a bumblebee, you know? They say a bumblebee can't fly. Well, nobody told the bumblebee.
July 25, 2006 (interview)
August 21, 2006 (posting)