Kevin McGillian will be playing his umpteenth Ceili Group music fest at the end of the week.
Over the next month, you can pretty much count on an Irish festival every weekend. Along with telling you how to be Irish this week, we’re going to give you a preview of how you can be Irish festival-goers during the month of September.
This is the week that hundreds of traditional Irish music fans from Philly wait for every year—the annual Philadelphia Ceili Group’s Traditional Irish Music and Dance Festival, which opens this Thursday, September 8, at the Irish Center in Mt. Airy with Singer’s Night, hosted by musician and publican Gerry Timlin (The Shanachie in Ambler). Some of the best voices in the area will perform traditional Irish tunes that will transport you to another world and time.
The rest of the festival, which runs through Saturday, September 10, is equally evocative of old Ireland, though this year has some interesting modern touches. On Friday night, Don Issacson’s Simple System will be in from Baltimore with Isaacson who plays flute, uilleann pipes, tin whistle and bouzouki; Aaron Olwell on concertina, fiddle and flute; Danny Noveck on fiddle and guitar; Kelly Smit, a sean-nos dancer, and Matthew Olwell who plays bodhran. They’ll also be doing workshops on Saturday.
Also on Friday evening: a ceili/set dance with a ceili band head by premier box man Kevin McGillian with sons Jimmy and John and friend, Judy Brennan. They are the best around.
Saturday, you’ll have music all day, as well as vendors and workshops on everything from genealogy (taught by our very own Lori Lander Murphy) to Irish folktales for children with Basha Gardner, a local actress to the Irish language with Leo Mohan.
The day starts with the John Kelly Memorial Session. Kelly was a Sligo man who emigrated to the US and led the music for the Philadelphia Ceili Group’s Friday night ceilies from the mid ’70s until 1990 when he died. Many of the performers learned what they knew from Kelly, including Kitty Kelly, her husband, Mike Albrecht, Chris Carpenter, Danny Flynn, Tom Cahill, John Donnelly, Ed Clark, Tom and Marian Gittleman, Tom Kelly, Chris Brennan Hagy, Paraic Keane, and Dave Miller.
On Saturday night, RUNA headed by Shannon Lambert-Ryan will be playing at the evening concert, along with Brian Conway, Brendan Dolan, and Billy McComiskey from The Pride of New York.
This is a first class lineup. Conway, a New York fiddler, was named traditional Irish artist of 2008 by the Irish Echo newspaper in New York. Brendan Dolan, also a New Yorker, is the son of Irish traditional piano legend Felix Dolan. Brendan, however, plays flute and whistles, is a composer and also curator of the Mick Moloney Irish-American Music and Popular Culture Collection in the Archives of Irish America at Tamiment Library in New York. He’s a familiar face at the Catskills Irish Weekend every year. Billy McComiskey is a fixture of the Baltimore Irish music scene and is considered one of the most influential box players in the US.
RUNA, while solidly traditional, usually adds a top note or two of something more contemporary—a little jazz, a little country, a little whatever strikes their fancy. This Philadelphia-based band is not to be missed.
Small but mighty. That describes Brittingham’s 3rd Annual Irish Festival which takes place on September 4 (Labor Day weekend) in the parking lot of the Lafayette Hill Irish pub and restaurant. Jamison, Paul Moore and Friends, Seamus Kelleher (late of Blackthorn) and Seamus McGroary will provide the music. And with two Seamuses on the bill, you know it’s really Irish.
With food and drink, kids activities, and vendors, it’s a great afternoon, particularly if you have young kids who get in free. BYO lawn chair.
Before you go, head over to the Irish Center in Mount Airy for live GAA action from Ireland on the big screen TVs. Or, if you’re in Bethlehem, have a big Irish breakfast (I think they do a mean Ulster fry) at McCarthy’s Tea Room’s traditional Irish music brunch. The Tea Room is attached to the Donegal Square gift shop.
The Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire is on schedule this weekend in Manheim. Travel back in time, meet lots of interesting people who will speak to you in what sounds like a foreign tongue although it’s English.
Love ‘80s music? On Tuesday, The Motels are appearing at the World Café Live. The reason we mention it is that Irish folkers, The John Byrne Band, will be opening for this ‘80s act. We’re not sure about this pairing. We’re kinda hoping John will do his version of “Funkytown.”
There’s more going on next weekend than the Philadelphia Ceili Festival. The Mercer Irish Fest is the latest entry on the September fest scene. Held at Mercer County Park in West Windsor, NJ, the day-long event features live music by The Shanteys, Birmingam 6, the Willie Lynch Band, the Nog Bhoys, Billie O’Neill and Nancy Ferguson, as well as the Moyvale Ceili Band. There will be a beginner’s class for ceili dancing taught by Annie Boyle and, from Ireland, singer Mary Courtney will be performing.
Expect Irish food, vendors (including Newbridge!), and great kiddie activities including pony rides and face painting. For those who will miss the Green Lane Celtic Festival this year (called on account of recession), this is a good substitute.
Also on September 10, the Gloucester County AOH is holding a ceremony and wreath-laying at the Commodore John Barry monument at the Commodore Barry Bridge in Bridgeport, NJ. The event starts with a Mass and is followed by a free lunch afterwards at the Gloucester County AOH/Richard Rossiter Memorial Hall in National Park, NJ. There’s free parking at the Delaware River Port Authority building. Barry, considered the father of the American Navy, was a Wexford native who settled in Philadelphia and distinguished himself in the Revolutionary War.
You can also catch Jamison at Curran’s Irish Inn in Bensalem on Saturday night, September 10.
On September 18, the Boston-based Dropkick Murphys’ “Shamrock-N-Roll” Festival stops in Philly at the Electric Factory with a lineup that includes the Street Dogs (also from Boston, with a DM link—front man Mike McColgan once performed the same duties for DM), Chuck Ragan (an acoustic folkie who was once with a punk band), the Mahones (Irish punkers from Canada), and the Parkington Sisters (five sisters from Cape Cod) among others. You’ll also get a chance to see “Irish” Micky Ward, the Boston fighter immortalized in the Mark Wahlberg bio-pic “The Fighter” who will give a boxing demo and sign autographs.
The Dropkick Murphys are using the Philly gig to kick off the expansion of The Claddagh Fund, a charitable foundation started in 2009 by DM’s frontman Ken Casey. Based on the sentiments of the Claddagh ring—friendship, love, and loyalty—the foundation’s mission is to raise money for the most underfunded charities that support the community’s most vulnerable populations. In Philly, the foundation has chosen Stand Up for Kids, a Georgia-based organization whose volunteers go out into the street to help locate and help homeless children and street kids.
Get yourself ready for two major annual Irish festivals this month. Of course, they occur at pretty much the same time (the weekend of the 23rd and can we tell you how much we hate that?). We’ve been to both and you can’t go wrong no matter which one you choose.
If you head north of Philly, the Celtic Classic in Bethlehem offers acres of activities. It needs to—this fest includes Highland games (caber tossing, and the throwing and lifting of other heavy stuff), sheep dog trials, and a haggis-eating and a pipe band competition. Among the topnotch groups on tap: Solas, the Screaming Orphans, Blackwater, the Paul McKenna Band, Glengarry Bhoys, Comas, Makem and Spain Brothers, Timlin and Kane, and Seamus Kennedy.
If you meander down to South Jersey (starting Thursday, September 22), the AOH Cape May Division 1 is throwing its big party in North Wildwood with miles of vendors, a boxing match, great bands (Bogside Rogues, Paul Moore and Friends, Sean Fleming Band, Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfetones, the Broken Shillelaghs, Belfast Connection, Secret Service, the Barley Boys, Bare Knuckle Boxers. Philly’s lucky charm, Timmy Kelly will be there, and the Brian Riley Pipe Exhibition will take place, as usual, at 8th and Central Avenues. There’s also a parade after Mass on Sunday.
Check our calendar for all the details.
We put together a little retrospective of Ceili Group Festivals of the past we thought you’d enjoy. View them here.
