Those who were happy to have WELSHFest back in 2023 will have to wait at least a year before the third Saturday event in March taking over Downtown Rockmart returns again.

The event celebrating Rockmart’s Welsh heritage will be taking this year off, per a posting on the WELSHFest website.

“Due to the reorganization of the Rockmart History Museum and its fundraisers, it was decided by the Rockmart Welshfest Committee that there would not be a festival in 2024,” the site posting noted. “Welshfest may return in 2025, and the details will be posted here.”

WELSHFest began in 2015 as a way to reconnect Rockmart with its Welsh roots. The eastern half of Polk County began life as a quarry site that brought in Welsh workers to Van Wert to mine the slate still pulled from hillsides just blocks from downtown Rockmart where the festival is held.

The organizers were forced to take a break suddenly in 2020 due to the COVID-19 shutdown that began just a day before they were to gather, and extended the hiatus into 2021 and 2022.

This year’s pause means Rockmart will have to go without kilt contests, the Welsh Corgi show and much more that usually comes along with the Saturday event.