EASTHAMPTON — For three days this month, Easthampton will once again host all things Irish.
The city will celebrate Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day with the 2026 Easthampton Irish Festival for the second straight year.
Hosted by the Greater Easthampton St. Patrick’s Day Committee, celebrations of the holiday’s halfway point will take place across the city from Wednesday, Sept. 16, to Friday, Sept. 18. The events will benefit the parade committee and its work.
Committee Secretary Andy Covington told Reminder Publishing that it was only right to bring the festival back after the success of the inaugural season.
“We may be one of the smaller cities in the parade, but we are a very strong city, and we have a great turnout every year for the parade,” Covington said.
The Greater Easthampton St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee works year-round to support Irish culture in Western Massachusetts. It fundraises annually to award scholarships to local graduating high school seniors. It also represents Easthampton, Southampton and Westhampton in the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Parade.
Covington said that September is the ideal month to connect with the community in support of their efforts because of the nice weather.
“We get out to promote Irish heritage and Irish culture, and it really brings the town together. School starts up, the weather is still nice, so it really gets people out and about in the community. We have a lot of great places to go in the city of Easthampton,” Covington said. “For someone like me with Irish heritage, it’s important to me, it’s important to the committee, but it brings businesses together, it brings community leaders together, it brings organizations together. It’s really a good opportunity to just bring the entire community together.”
The committee’s scholarship fund started in 2010. Since then, the Greater Easthampton St. Patrick’s Day Committee has awarded about $20,000 to students in the greater Easthampton area.
The festival celebrations also came in response to the group looking for new ways to connect the community and support its efforts after a challenging pandemic period.
“Like everyone, we had a tough time during COVID. There weren’t a couple of parades that took place; we didn’t meet as a committee. COVID really took a hit on the committee, but we came out stronger than ever,” he explained. “So, we came up with this idea as a committee where for a couple of days in September, almost exactly halfway to St. Patrick’s Day, we host several events, and our big fundraiser is our celebrity bartending event.”
The celebrity bartending event will take place this year on Wednesday, Sept. 16, at Amy’s Place. It will feature state Rep. Homar Gomez, Easthampton Mayor Salem Derby, presidents of the Greater Easthampton St. Patrick’s Day Committee and Holyoke St. Patrick’s Parade Committee and Dave Madsen from Western Mass. News.
“We get a great turnout from the community, and all the tips go to the committee to fund our scholarship and the contingency in the parade,” Covington added.
The following night, Thursday, Sept. 17, the official halfway mark to the holiday, the committee will host a traditional Irish music night at Abandoned Building Brewery from 6-8:30 p.m. The free event invites anyone in the community to come by and catch some authentic Irish music. Musicians are welcome to join in the jam session led by The Corner Boys, the Irish trio from Holyoke.
Closing out this year’s Irish Festival on Sept. 18 will be a performance by Watchfire, Boston’s premier Irish folk-rock pub band, at New City Brewery. The band will make a special Western Mass. appearance just for the festival.
“They’re going to be free events. We want to get the community together and enjoy some Irish music, talk and mingle, and it will be a good way to kick off the St. Patrick’s Day holiday, which sometimes we can start as early as six months out,” said Covington. “Obviously we’re still six months out, but a lot of work goes on behind the scenes. We want everyone to come out; everyone is welcome. We hope you can make one of them if not all three of them. We’re just hoping people can spread the word and make it down to at least one of the events.”
For more information on the upcoming Irish Festival celebrations, visit the Greater Easthampton St. Patrick’s Day Committee Facebook page.
