Shake Your Shamrocks! It’s St. Patrick’s Day Weekend

It’s St. Patrick’s Day weekend in downtown Fort Smith and downtown Springdale. In Fort Smith, the quest begins at 9 a.m. Saturday with a special scavenger hunt for families during the Farmer’s Market between Garrison Avenue and Second Street. At 10 a.m. participating businesses will have special souvenir cups available for the St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl. Twisted Cat Outdoors will be at Kerr Reservoir, and runners line up for the Fort Smith Quarter Marathon & 5K at Ben Garen Park at 8 a.m.

Meanwhile the Bakery District hosts Street Fest starting at 11 a.m. featuring food, arts & crafts, live music from Scott Bartholomew at noon, Carlos Sanabria at 2 p.m. and Vertical Groove Band at 6 p.m., as well as fun activities for the kids at South Seventh and Parker Avenue.

Up in Springdale, Bauhaus Biergarten kicks off St. Patrick’s Day weekend tonight with local trio DUBLIN’DOWN, made up of “Paddy O’Grill” (Dave Malm), Bayard Blain (3 Penny Acre), and fiddler/ singer/ guitarist Don Kilcullen. Their repertoire includes pub songs, ballads, sea chanteys, humorous ditties and anthems well-known or obscure, and a wide variety of jigs, reels, hornpipes and other dance-music instrumentals performed on guitars, mandolins, octave mandolin, tenor banjo, pennywhistle, low whistle and harmonica.

Corned beef with Colcannon and home-made Irish Soda Bread along with $5 pints of Guinness will be available in addition to the regular menu. Piping with the Ozark Bagpiper, a small St. Patrick’s Day Parade, will line up at Odd Soul on Emma Avenue at 4:30 p.m. and march to Bauhaus Biergarten and back starting at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Then at 6 p.m. Saturday Ragtaggle (Kara Butler, Ben Harris and Seaghan Schrock) plays, followed by more music from Malm, Blain and violinist Don Kilkenny from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday.

Ragtaggle performs from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at Bauhaus Biergarten in Springdale. (Courtesy Photo)