The Milwaukee Irish Festival, a celebration of all things Celtic, Irish and Irish-American, happened from August 16-19, 2018, and is the largest of its kind in North America. The festival took place at the Henry Maier Festival Park, 200 North Harbor Drive, Milwaukee, WI.

Performers featuring accordions and other freed instruments included the Chicago Reel, Leahys Luck, Beglan Irish Dancers, Cashel Dennehy Irish Dancers, Glencastle Irish Dancers, Caledonian Scottish Dancers, Capitol Ceili Band, Cream City Ceili Band, Tinker Boys, and Bohola.

Additional groups were: Reilly was formed in early 2000, the Milwaukee-based Reilly is a high energy Celtic rock group featuring accordion, banjo and mandolin fused with hard driving rhythms.

Irish music’s accordion virtuoso Jimmy Keane and the remarkable bouzar player and vocalist Pat Broaders, comprise Bohola, Irish music’s newest “supergroup” as penned by The Irish Herald. Bohola play a driving, muscular, and yet very emotive style of Irish music with deep roots in the ‘pure drop’ tradition, infused with the raw and gritty urbanized musical vernacular of the Irish and Irish-American experience. 

The Irish Echo captured the essence of Bohola when it reviewed their self-titled release. “The sum here is greater than the parts, and egos are subordinate to both execution and effect. bohola have crafted an album of intricate, nearly invisible latticework, relying not on gimmickry but on imagination and vision. What a welcome concept: muse-imbuing music.