Featured photo: Donnan Harvey and Sean Cafferkey, Photo: Kim Winey Photography
Elizabethtown in Pennsylvania is planning major celebrations this St Patrick’s Weekend with a focus on its sister-city, Letterkenny.
Three days of music, food and history-based festivities are planned for ‘An Irish Weekend with Letterkenny!’, featuring two local guests.
Donnan Harvey is flying out to Pennsylvania this week, where he and fellow Letterkenny native Sean Cafferkey will be guests of Elizabethtown. Sean lives in Harrisburg, PA, with his family.
The events of Irish Weekend are inspired by Elizabethtown’s drive to renew its sister-city connection with Letterkenny.
It’s 23 years since the Letterkenny Town Council first signed a memorandum of understanding with the Elizabethtown borough in Lancaster County. Despite the enduring close links between the towns, the dissolution of town councils in Ireland ended the official partnership.
The people of Elizabethtown still consider Letterkenny as a sister-city “in their hearts” and have sought to create a new memorandum.
During the summer of 2024, Elizabethtown photographer Kim Winey and her sister crossed the Atlantic to visit Donnan Harvey of the Letterkenny Cathedral Quarter group. She also met with Letterkenny Mayor Gerry McMonagle and Cllr Ciaran Brogan to discuss reconnecting with Elizabethtown after 10 years.
As a result, councillors of the Letterkenny-Milford MD have agreed to move forward with developing a programme for the Twinning arrangement once more.
Elizabethtown is now looking forward to repaying the hospitality and hosting Donnan, Sean and family. The two Letterkenny men will be attending many events on the packed calendar.
The trip will include a conference on Saturday, during which Letterkenny-Milford Mayor Cllr Gerry McMonagle and Deputy Mayor Cllr Ciaran Brogan as well as Letterkenny historian Kieran Kelly will be attending via Zoom to speak about the re-twinning. People from Letterkenny who now reside in Philadelphia are also driving to Elizabethtown for the gathering.
Looking ahead to the visit, Donnan Harvey said there is great excitement but also an element of disappointment that the visit was not supported by government funding.
He said: “I am really looking forward to the trip and it is a great privilege for the Cathedral Quarter to be invited out to the United States. The trip will give us a huge opportunity to raise awareness of our tourist attraction among the people of Philadelphia and Elizabethtown. It demonstrates what a community group can achieve but it is a real travesty for our group that support for those involved in Community Development from the statutory agencies is still completely non-existent.”
Donnan, who is on the Letterkenny Community Centre committee, is being supported by the committee as he also aims to promote the Buy A Brick campaign to raise much-needed funds for the new Jim Lynch Community Building and changing facilities.
Donnan adds: “Besides the all activities in Elizabethtown, I am really looking forward to meeting the Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America in Philadelphia. It will be a tremendous opportunity to let them about Donegal’s links to one of the giants of English Literature and to be able to inform them of our tenth Literary Festival happening in October.”
