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September 2007

How to Be Irish in Philly This Weekend

It’s never too late to be spontaneous, right?

So, even if you didn’t book a room in advance, why don’t you consider heading down to North Wildwood and Wildwood this weekend for a double dose of Irish: the Cape May County Ancient Order of Hibernians 16th Annual Irish Fall Festival and Blackthorn’s 16th Annual Wildwood Weekend. Hey, it’s a day trip, and you can pick up the last of the Jersey tomatoes at a farm stand along the way.

The AOH event rockets into high gear with three days of music and dancing, including a ceili Friday night at the North Wildwood Recreation Community Center starting at 10 PM, the Brian Riley Pipe Exhibition on Saturday morning at 8th and Central Avenues, and a great concert Saturday night by the Dublin City Ramblers (and they’re really from Dublin). They’ll be accompanied by the Gibson School of Irish Dance.

Among the acts you’ll see (and we’re talking music here–behavior is something else entirely) are Paul Moore and Paddy’s Well, Scythian, Bogside Rogues, Killen Thyme, the Sean Fleming Band, Searson (cute Celtic Canadians), and 2U (a great U2 tribute band that packs them in at the Sellersville Theater), among others, appearing at the Irish Music Tent at the Pointe on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (see the entire lineup for times at www.paddyswell.com). There’s free live entertainment along Olde New Jersey Avenue (including the amazing and adorable little singer, Timmy Kelly, who is grand marshal of Sunday’s parade). And all the pubs and taverns have scheduled performers so there’s absolutely no escape.

If you’re at all capable of moving, there’s also a 5K run on Saturday morning (early–8 AM).

In the next town over, Blackthorn will be playing tirelessly all weekend at The Bolero Resort, 3320 Atlantic Avenue, with an incredible array of guest performers, including Timlin and Kane, Black 47, the Eileen Ivers Band (not to be missed), Random Blond, the Danny Boys, and, fresh from being smooched at a Phillies game by the Phanatic, singer and band leader Vince Gallagher.

(If you do miss Eileen Ivers, we’re offering a pair of tickets for her November 9 performance at the Sellersville Theater as part of our first contest to increase subscriptions to our free e-newsletter, mickmail, which is your best source for all the Irish goings-on in the Philadelphia area. To enter, you need to subscribe–just put your email address in the little “Get our E-mail Newsletter” box in the upper right hand corner of the site or, if you’re already a subscriber, just forward your mickmail to someone you think might be interested. New subscribers will get an email invite to put their name on the list–you have to respond to that email get mickmail, which comes out two or three times a month when things are hopping. Or jigging, as the case may be.)

The crazy Irish weekend at the shore is also famous for its bottomless mug of beer, so we at irishphiladelphia.com urge you to be careful out there. We’re going to be.

Staying home? Then check out the play, the Lonesome West, at St. Stephen’s Theater at 10th and Ludlow in Philadelphia. All of playwright Martin McDonagh’s work is edgy and hilarious. You won’t be sorry. Keep it Irish by heading over to Fergie’s at 1214 Sansom Street for Saturday’s session. Fergie’s is a former Bavarian bar that has made a graceful conversion to Celtic. The session is great, and so is the food.

September 18, 2007 by Denise Foley

Sports

Field of Dreams

The local GAA hopes to have the field complete by late 2008 or early 2009.

By Paul Schneider

It’s not much to look at at the moment, but for the Philadelphia Gaelic Athletic Association, it’s home.

Over the summer, the Philly division received a funding commitment from the GAA to assist in the development of an 11-acre parcel in Limerick Township, Montgomery County, to serve as the new home of the Philadelphia GAA. Sean Breen, vice chairman of the Philadelphia Division, said that the GAA president Nickey Brennan and overseas chair Sheamus Howlin were “very impressed with what they saw,” and had promised GAA support.

Pending final Limerick Township approval, Breen anticipates beginning work this fall on the complex, which will include two full-size football fields and a 7,000-square foot clubhouse with chaning rooms, a cafeteria and meeting rooms. The goal is to complete the complex by the end of 2008 or the early spring of 2009.

“It will be a place of our own,” said Breen, “not a place that we would have to lease or rent. It will be a place where we can promote Irish culture, hold hurling, football and camogie, and facilitate youth programs.”

Breen noted that the complex also would be a central part of future Philadelphia GAA proposals for hosting the North American GAA championships held annually over the Labor Day weekend.

Selected for its combination of size, affordability and accessibility, the site would replace Cardinal Dougherty High School as the site of all GAA events. The project is being executed under the auspices of the Greater Philadelphia Irish American Cultural Association, Inc. (“GPIACA”), a 501( c )3 tax-exempt organization.

“A lot of individuals have spent a lot of time to see this through,” said Breen. “This was something that all of the clubs agreed to pursue. We’re looking forward to getting this complex built and to having a permanent home.”

September 14, 2007 by Guest

Dance, Music

It Was a Grand Party

Lunasa's Kevin Crawford gets crazy with his bodhran.

At one point on Saturday night, Dennis Gormley, fiddling with the mike on the Fireside Stage at Philly’s Irish Center, leaned over and expressed his thanks to the Philadelphia Ceili Group and its Irish Music Festival director Frank Malley for “throwing this great party.”

“And inviting all our friends,” added his wife, Kathy DeAngelo, from behind her harp.

The duo, who have been performing as McDermott’s Handy for nearly three decades, could look out at the audience and see rows of familiar faces. But even if you didn’t know a soul, you would have thought you were among your closest friends at an intimate little party for hundreds. That’s the atmosphere of the Philadelphia Ceili Group’s annual Irish Festival, which ran for five days from September5-9.

You could have mingled with legends.

If you had stayed late on Friday night, for example, after the performance by the incredible Irish group, Lunasa, you could have shared a pizza with the band and piper Tim Britton, a former Delaware Valley resident, who opened for them.

On Saturday, you might have been in the food line behind the towering form of Breanndan Begley, the Kerryman who had just mesmerized the crowd with his emotional singing. Or struck up a conversation with Sligo-born Kevin Henry, a venerable flutist and piper, now of Chicago, who wasn’t going to have a bite until he found “herself”–his wife, who was somewhere in the crowd.

If you hadn’t brought your own dance partner for Irish radio personality Marianne MacDonald’s House Party on Saturday night, you didn’t have to worry about being a wallflower. Someone could be convinced to dance a set or two with you–or even teach you the steps in the hall. It might have been Ed Reavy, son of the legendary fiddler, who, with his wife, Mary, are the Fred and Ginger of Irish set dancing.

And you could have seen four-time all Ireland fiddler Brendan Callahan perform superhumanly, fiddling for the Irish dancers, playing with a trio, sitting in on sessions. . .admitting only once on Saturday night that he might be “a little tired.”

The 31st festival opened on Wednesday night with an evening of poetry and prose, read by local Irish literary lights including Father John McNamee, pastor of St. Malachy’s Parish in North Philadelphia and the author of four books, and his friend, Father Michael Doyle of Sacred Heart Parish in Camden, NJ, author of the book, “It’s a Terrible Day, Thanks Be to God.” On Thursday, local singers including Terry Kane, Rosaleen McGill, Eugenia Brennan, Sharon Sachs, and John Winward, joined Canadian sean nos singer Catherine Crow and, from the Midwest, Brian Hart, the 28-year-old singer and dancer who is the only American ever to win an All-Ireland title for singing at the Irish Fleadh Cheoil for the Circle of Song.

The festival ended with a set dance event on Sunday.

We were there for mostly everything, as these photos will prove. If you couldn’t make it this year, mark it on your calendar for next year. It’s a party, and everyone is invited.

Relive the festivities here:

September 10, 2007 by Jeff Meade

News

Green Lane Scottish – Irish Festival 2007

Genna Gillespie of Burning Bridget Cleary

There was Nessie, or an apparently benign and far less camera-shy version of the legendary Loch Ness Monster, afloat on the appropriately greenish Green Lane Reservoir. In a grove just off the lake, Highland dancers and Irish dancers took turns on a makeshift stage. In a nearby field, kilt-clad athletes risked sunstroke and hernias as they attempted to toss the caber—something like a telephone pole. And from across the reservoir rose the sound of the pipes and, farther off, fiddles. (Oh yes, and the heavy, oily tang of frying fish and chips.)

This was the last day of the Green Lane Scottish-Irish Festival, a perfect sun-drenched finish to three days of Celtic merry-making in Upper Montgomery County. It’s hard to imagine a better end to the annual gathering of the area’s many clans.

If you missed it, no worries. We’ve got the photos:

September 9, 2007 by Jeff Meade

Sports

Irish Heritage Day at the Phillies

Vince Gallagher gets a Phanatic smooch.

There were no wardrobe malfunctions. No American Idol-esque vocal calisthenics. No tortured operatics.

What there was, was Vince Gallagher, the well-known Philadelphia Irish musician, radio host and president of the Philadelphia Irish Center, standing at home plate at Citizens Bank Park and belting out the National Anthem in his Donegal lilt, singing it straight out, and doing it nearly flawlessly. (There was one little flub early on, but who doesn’t mix up the lines of the National Anthem?)

And with that, as the saying goes: Play ball!

Vince’s performance capped off the pregame activities at Irish Heritage Day at the Phillies, a Saturday promotion that included performances by the Bogside Rogues, along with the Cummins and Lynn Irish dance schools. Brian Morris, former pitcher for the Irish National Baseball Team, tossed the first pitch, and John Fitzgerald, the film-maker who documented the team’s rocky road to success in “The Emerald Diamond,” caught it. (With the Philly Phanatic serving as umpire.)

And, amazingly, the Phillies won. (Gallagher friend Jim McGill later suggested that the Phils adopt Vince as their Kate Smith.) Anyway, maybe there really is something to this hokey “luck of the Irish” business.

It was all great fun. See for yourself.

September 8, 2007 by Jeff Meade

History

Are You Getting Off at the Sacred Hill of Tara Interchange?

The beauty of Tara.

Two years ago, the Irish government approved a plan for a 37-mile stretch of highway to ease commuting to and from Dublin that will cut a swath through the landscape only a mile from Tara, the traditional seat of the Irish high kings. Since then the road-building has been delayed by protests–from archeologists, historians, cultural critics, and local citizens–as well as the discovery of a major prehistoric site in May that may date back to the Stone Age.

But the delays were temporary. In August, Irish planning authorities gave the okay for work to continue right through the recently uncovered ruins, once they were excavated and recorded.

Many opponents are calling this new stretch of the M3 “the road to ruin,” and fear that important historical artifacts–not to mention the panoramic face of the landscape–will be lost in the march of progress so close to the spot where St. Patrick reputedly began his conversion of the Irish to Christianity.

For more information on the project and how you can help stop it, visit www.tarawatch.org. Look for the “Save Tara” button on this site which will take you there.

Other things you can do:

Sign an online petition at www.petitiononline.com/hilltara/
Send a letter to a newspaper. Instructions at: www.hilloftara.info
Write to politicians. Instructions at: www.hilloftara.info
Join the discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/

To read about a planned protest by a group of Irish harpers (the harp is part of Ireland’s coat of arms) on September 22, go to www.myspace.com/TaraHarpers

September 8, 2007 by Denise Foley

Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

The best way to be Irish this week is to start making those last-minute plans to head down to Wildwood on September 21 for the North Wildwood Fall Irish Festival sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the 16th Annual Irish Weekend with Blackthorn in Wildwood (the next town over).

It might be impossible to find a place to stay at this late date, but it’s worth calling around (or planning a day trip). Just about every local Irish band, from Paddy’s Well, the Bogside Rogues and, of course Blackthorn, to your favorite pipe and drum unit will be there for the weekend, shamrocking the shore like nobody’s business. Check out our calendar for contact information about tickets to both events and accommodations packages for Blackthorn.

Otherwise, consider taking in an Irish play or two. “Trad,” by Mark Doherty is playing at the Mumm Puppettheatre on Arch Street and “The Lonesome West,” by Martin McDonagh is at St. Stephen’s Theater at 10th and Ludlow.

If golf is your thing, the AOH Division 1 is holding its annual golf outing on Saturday, September 15, at the Skippack Golf Course at Stump Hall and Cedars Roads in Skippack. All proceeds from the event–which is open to all–goes to AOH charities.

Also open to the public is the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick’s Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day party at the Llanarch Country Club, 950 W. Chester Pike in Havertown, on Saturday. The cost is $50 per person and includes cocktails, dinner, and dancing to the wonderful Theresa Flanagan Band (it’s worth the price just to hear her lovely voice, trust us).

Will there also be a Three-Quarters of the Way to St. Patrick’s Day party? Only time will tell.

September 8, 2007 by Denise Foley

Music

The House I Was Reared In – Christy McNamara

By Frank Dalton

Christy McNamara’s new CD, “The House I Was Reared In,” took me by surprise. I’d known of his evocative photography since reading “The Living Note: the Heartbeat of Irish Music.” This 1996 book was a fictional narrative of a young traditional musician and his family. Accompanying and complementing the text by Peter Woods, your man Christy’s striking black-and-white images captured and displayed the essence of what Irish traditional music is all about—in session at the pub, at weddings and wakes, and in sundry other real-life circumstances. It’s great stuff and you should read the book if you can.

But I wasn’t hip to McNamara’s considerable prowess on the button accordion. Yes, Christy’s a musician, too. In the sleeve notes we read that “It’s always the music … sometimes it seems as if life happens between the notes of tunes”. Well, yeah, that’s true for you, Christy, I’m sure! Hailing from the parish of Crusheen in County Clare, as a kid he heard his grandfather Jim play the concertina. His father Joe and uncle Paddy played the accordion, while another uncle was the great fiddler P.J. Hayes, a founding member of the legendary and long-lived Tulla Ceili Band.

This collection of 17 reels, jigs, waltzes, and slow airs showcases these and many other musical influences. Joined by fiddler Martin Hayes (also a cousin), guitarist Denis Cahill, flute player Eamonn Cotter, and fiddlers Liam Lewis and Peadar O’Loughlin, Christy expertly renders a selection of familiar tunes like the reels “My Love is in America,” “The Copperplates” and “Toss the Feathers,” and jigs like “Scatter the Mud,” “The Kesh” and “Old Man Dillon.” A few less familiar pieces stand out: “I Ne’er Shall Win Her” is a lovely jig I’d never heard before, from Mrs. Murphy of Ballydesmond in County Kerry; “John Naughton’s Reel” is from a Kilclaran concertina player (sure it’s about halfway between Gortnamearacaun and Cloonusker); while “John McHugh’s” was learned from that tune’s namesake who learned it from his grandfather in County Mayo. Christy also treats us to a pair of his own compositions, the waltz “Tae Pot Wood” and a reel, “The Maid’s Lake.”

I forgot to mention that as well as knowing his way around the two-row button accordion Christy is a fine concertina player too (on “The Bunch of Roses,” and “Molly Put The Kettle On”). To top it all off, he sings on the slow air “May Morning Dew,” a moving song of emigration, sorrow and loss.

The CD comes in one of those environmentally conscious ‘digi-packs’ (no plastic jewel box to drop and break and toss into the trash) and contains a 24 page booklet filled mostly with some lovely photographs from the McNamara family archives and some of Christy’s own shots of other musicians, young and old. This is a very worthwhile addition to your collection, especially if you have a fondness for the lovely and unhurried music of County Clare, as I myself do.

Frank Dalton is the organizer of the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series.

September 8, 2007 by Guest

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