File photo Veteran West Virginia Highlander bagpiper Bruce Dillon plays for a group of young Highland dancers during the 2023 West Virginia Wild and Wonderful Celtic Festival & Highland Games at 4-H Camp Pioneer in Beverly.

ELKINS — A pair of St. Patrick’s Day events this weekend will raise funds for the 2024 West Virginia Wild and Wonderful Celtic Festival, which will be offered for the second straight year at 4-H Camp Pioneer in Beverly in June.

“We’re running a couple of events in Elkins this weekend to help support the Celtic Festival,” Timothy Ferguson, president of the Celtic Festival, told The Inter-Mountain this week.

Today “we’re going to have a fundraiser dinner at the Gandy Dancer, a traditional Irish meal, starting at 5 p.m.,” he said. “We’re going to have live music, a live band, some Highland dancers, some bagpipers.

“We’ll also have raffles and other activities to help pay for the world-class entertainment we’re bringing in for the Festival this summer,” he added.

“After the dinner, we’re going to have an after party at Big Timber,” Ferguson said. “We’re going to invite everyone down to have adult beverages after the dinner party.”

On Saturday, “we’re going to have a band at Big Timber that we’ve imported from Canada, a traditional Irish rock band called Devil’s Brigade. They’ll start playing at 8 p.m.,” he said.

“We’re going to have a bar crawl leading up to the Devil’s Brigade show. We’re going to hit the local bars downtown, which have decided to give us a discount on beverages and food,” he added. “The crawl will be from 5-8 p.m., going from one establishment to another and playing the bagpipes as we work our way to Big Timber.

“We’ll set up at Beander’s to sell tickets for the crawl. Beander’s will have a traditional Irish dinner on Saturday, and the crawl will begin there,” Ferguson said, noting that t-shirts will be sold during the crawl.

This year’s West Virginia Wild and Wonderful Celtic Festival will be Saturday, June 15, but the night before will feature a free concert, complete with fire dancers and jugglers, Ferguson said.

On Sunday, June 16, the Festival will offer a Celtic church service in Beverly, followed by Irish road bowling on the road by 4-H Camp Pioneer, Ferguson said.

More than 1,200 people attended last year’s Festival, not counting the performers and staff, Ferguson said.