Hey, Feile Samhain, everyone!
If you can get your hands out of that trick-or-treat bag for a few seconds this week, there are a number events that can help you feel Irish all over.
For example, the Mayo Ball, which is being held Saturday at the Irish Center. You don’t have to be from Mayo to go, either. I know, they invited me and I’m a Donegal gal. There’s guaranteed to be some great food and music. The Theresa Flanagan Band is playing (she’s a Donegal gal too—in fact, she’s president of the Philadelphia Donegal Association) and Tommy Flynn and the NY Show Band is also scheduled.
On Sunday, the not-to-be missed St. Malachy School Benefit concert kicks off at 4 PM with Mick Moloney and Friends. You never know who Mick is bringing with him—one year, Tommy Sands flew over from Ireland just for the evening. The concert takes place inside St. Malachy’s Church, which is stunningly beautiful and, like many churches, has seriously great acoustics. This is just one of the fundraisers that helps keep St. Malachy’s an independent school, not reliant on the Archdiocese, but it is by far the most exciting.
The only calendar snafu this week–and it happens every year–is that Sunday is also the Ceili for Kayleigh, the Blackthorn event to raise money for research into methylmalonic acidemia, or MMA, a rare disease that afflicts and local child, Kayleigh Moran.
If you’re up north, the all-guy singing group Celtic Thunder is playing at the Reading Eagle Theater on Wednesday.
And next Friday, November 7, the Ulster American Society is hosting the Northern Ireland Film Festival at the National Consitution Center in Philadelphia which will run through Saturday. Among the films: “A Dander with Drennan,” a documentary that follows folklore expert and trad musician Willie Drennan in search of local characters and history; an episode of Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door, from PBS, exploring Northern Ireland; “Blood Ties,” about an American family in search of its Ulster roots; “Charlotte’s Red,” about a talented 7-year-old painter named Charlotte and her career-burglar father; and the Oscar-nominated short, “Dance, Lexie, Dance,” about a single parent struggling to balance night shifts with his lively 10-year-old daughter who dreams of being a Riverdancer.
Check our calendar for more details. Oh, except for Tuesday. It will be out voting. Hope you will too!
