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December 2011

Music

Irish Musicians Launch a New CD to Benefit Mercy Centre in Bangkok

Gabriel Donohue

Gabriel Donohue

Gabriel Donohue won’t soon forget his visit to the Mercy Centre in Bangkok, Thailand.

A couple of years ago, Donohue joined fellow Irish musicians Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis and Niall O’Leary to play for—believe it or not—the Asian Gaelic Games, which were being held in Bangkok. Mick Moloney, well-known folklorist and multi-instrumentalist, has had a long association with the Centre, which provides services for orphans, street kids, and children and adults with AIDS, so he asked his traveling companions to join him there in an impromptu concert.

“Mick made sure we got down to the orphanage to play for the kids,” Donohue recalls.”I saw the work Father Joe (Maier) was doing there in the slums. It’s an amazing place. It’s in the worst neighborhood in Bangkok. It’s the Slaughterhouse District, which is a Catholic neighborhood. Buddhists won’t kill animals, so Catholics run the slaughterhouses. These kids have lost their parents to AIDS, and they have it too. Father Joe just wants to make sure they have a good quality of life.”

Donohue is far from the only Irish musician to come away impressed by Father Joe and his mission. A few years ago, he says, fellow musician Donnie Carroll met Father Joe at a benefit, and he resolved to raise funds for the Centre. The project that emerged from that resolution is a new CD, “Irish Musicians for the Mercy Centre,” produced by Donnie Carroll and mastered by Donohue. Nearly 20 Irish musicians and ensembles, including Donohue and partner Marian Makins, Moloney, Tergis, Joanie Madden, Larry Kirwan and Black 47, contributed tracks.

If you want to get a sampling of the tunes that made their way onto the disk, you can attend a CD launch party Sunday, December 11, from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Shanachie Pub, 111 East Butler Avenue in Avenue. Music will be provided by Timlin & Kane (Gerry Timlin is one of the pub’s owners), Donnie Carroll—and out own Donohue and Makins. Copies of the CD will be on sale, of course. Every CD purchase benefits the Mercy Centre. There will be a raffle, with special prizes donated by the musicians and Marianne MacDonald, host of “Come West Along the Road” Irish radio show.

And hey, remember Christmas is coming. An all-star Irish music CD makes a great gift.

December 9, 2011 by
Arts, Music

Craicdown 2011

Martyn Wallace, your emcee.

Martyn Wallace, your emcee.

The upstairs stage at World Cafe Live regularly shines the spotlight on talented musical artists. The actors, singers and musicians who headlined the 2011 Craicdown benefit for the Inis Nua Theatre Company on Tuesday night had to have been among the most creative.

Inis Nua presents plays from Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. The performers who took the stage Tuesday night were in one way, shape or form associated with the theatre company.

Some of the musicians, like actors Jake Blouch and Damon Bonetti, seized the opportunity to claim rock star status, replete with shredding guitar solos. Others, like New Zealander Rosie Langabeer, took a much more theatrical approach, at times verging on cabaret. (The Proclaimers’ “I Would Walk 500 Miles” on accordion—whoda thunk it?)

Presiding over the night’s festivies was actor Mike Dees in the guise of character Martyn Wallace from “Dublin by Lamplight.”

It was all good. Sorry to say we couldn’t stay for the whole show, but we’ve captured many winning moments.

December 9, 2011 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Run, Santa, run!

Celtic Christmas is moving into full swing in the Philly area this week. Here’s the rundown—more details are on our calendar:

The Running of the Santas—yes, a bunch of Santas, running—kicks off Saturday  at Finnigan’s Wake at Second and Spring Garden Street in Philly, ending with some free and $3 beers at the pub and Jamison Celtic Rock performing at the Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing. Heated tent, anyone? On Sunday, Finnigan’s is holding its annual Irish Winterfest with the Bogside Rogues, Celtic Connection, and the Broken Shillelaghs, with music all day long, Irish vendors and Irish food. If there’s a hotel near Finnigan’s, you may want to stay the weekend.

The Delco Gaels will be revealing all—all the contestants of the “Dance Like the Stars” competition in February, that is—at their Christmas party and Night at the Races fundraiser at Maggie O’Neill’s Pub in Drexel Hill on Saturday night, starting at 5 PM.

If you’re just interested in taking a break from shopping and baking, head over to the Shanachie on Saturday night. Timlin and Kane are there, and they promise to play “Miss Fogarty’s Christmas Cake.” We love that one.

Sunday is a little like having so many presents you can’t see your Christmas tree. First, Oisin MacDiarmada and Teada are bringing their fabulous “Irish Christmas in America” to The Grand in Wilmington, DE. It’s been in Philly the last few years, and if you’ve missed it, it’s worth a trip south. MacDiarmada will be giving free fiddle workshops earlier in the day at West Chester University.

Head back to the Shanachie for an afternoon of top-notch musicians and some good deed-doing. Musicians Donie Carroll, Gabriel Donohue, Marian Makins, and the aforementioned Timlin and Kane will be playing and singing. Marianne MacDonald, host of “Come West Along the Road,” an Irish music show on WTMR 800-AM, and the queen of raffles, organized the day to introduce the fundraising CD, “Irish Musicians for the Mercy Centre Fundraiser.” It supports The Mercy Centre in Bangkok, Thailand, which does outreach to orphans, street kids, and children and adults with HIV/AIDS. In the world of Irish musical talent, these are A-listers: Mick Moloney, Black 47, Donie Carroll, Deirdre and Mattie Connolly, Gabriel Donohue and Marian Makins, Cathie Maguire, Jimmy Crowley, Athena Tergis, Mairtin de Cogain, Brian Conway and Brendan Dolan, and others, many of whom have performed many times in Philadelphia (and some who have moved here!).

The Donegal and Mayo Associations are holding their joint Christmas Mass and party at the Irish Center on Sunday afternoon. There will be activities for the kids and we hear that Santa may pay a visit. (You can park in the SEPTA lot on Sunday, Nick! Plenty of vegetation for the reindeer too.)

St. Malachi’s of Doe Run is also holding its annual Christmas party and concert on Sunday afternoon. They’re in Chester County.

Blackthorn will be playing at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia on Thursday, December 15. They’re also the featured band at a special invite-only event being thrown by Tullamore Dew at The Chestnut Club on Chestnut Street in Philly on December 13. We’re invited, and apparently you can be too if you go to http://www.thrillist.com/IrishTruePHL . (And we thought we were special.)

Next Friday, meet the official chaplain of “The Colbert Report,” corporate bigwig-turned-Jesuit, Father James Martin, who will be signing his new book, “Between Heaven and Mirth: Faith Leads to Joy,” at St. Philip Neri Church in Lafayette Hill. He’s a local boy—a grad of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School and Penn’s Wharton School of Business.

Even though it’s a jam-packed week, there’s still time for you to go to your local Irish shop and pick up a few things. Regular readers know we’re big proponents of shopping Irish (we even have our own guide to Irish shops in the area). When you’re shopped out for the day, head to your local Irish pub for a relaxing brew. They can use the business—and you know you want to!

Speaking of Irish gifts, you can help support Ireland (our middle name is “austerity”) and make your relatives happy by getting them a Certificate of Irish Heritage. You have to apply, and to earn your certificate, you have to know the name of at least one ancestor born in Ireland and the people in your line of descent from that ancestor. You need to supply one document referring to your ancestor that indicates their Irish nationality. That might be a census document, or a birth, marriage, or death record. It takes about 3 weeks to process the application and send the certificate, which is 11 x 14 inches and ready to be framed, though you can also buy them framed for a little more money ($15 unframed, $22.50 framed). Go to the Irish Heritage Certificate website to find out more about it.

(This certificate does not give you Irish citizenship. To get that, you must have a parent or grandparent from Ireland. If you’re interested in becoming a citizen and getting an Irish passport (you’ll breeze through customs), contact the Irish Immigration Center of Philadelphia.)

December 9, 2011 by
People

Five Questions for Pauline Hurley-Kurtz

Irish Gothic-Pauline and Peter at the Irish Memorial.

Irish Gothic-Pauline and Peter at the Irish Memorial.

It was a bright afternoon in late October down at The Irish Memorial at Front and Chestnut. Visitors ambled through the park, stopping to take in the massive bronze monument created in memory of those who perished in The Great Hunger.

Wandering in their midst was a crew of volunteers led by landscape architect and native of Ireland Pauline Hurley-Kurtz and Pennsylvania Horticultural Society colleague Julie Snell. Now and again, one of the workers would grab a shovel or a rake from the collection of gardening implements propped against the eight-year-old structure and head off to a bare patch of ground, there to dig holes for the ornamental plantings that surround the monument .. Mexican hair grass, fountain grass, prairie dropseed.

This was one of the two big cleanup days that take place at the monument, preparing the site for winter.

The diminutive, unassuming Hurley-Kurtz has been associated with the outsized, attention-getting Memorial since 1993—ten years before the monument formally opened to the public on the nearly two-acre plot at Penn’s Landing. Of course, the monument sculpted by Glenna Goodacre is the proud centerpiece, but the distinctive plantings, stone walls and standing stones are evocative of the stark landscape of Ireland. The grass and stone are every bit as steeped in meaning as the bronze.

We were curious to know more about these aspects of the site that visitors might overlook—the plantings, walkways and other elements that together work with the monument to create a unified whole.

Pauline Hurley-Kurtz was born in County Monaghan and grew up in Dundalk, County Louth, the daughter of John and Josephine Hurley. With a degree in horticulture from University College, Dublin, she came to Philadelphia to go to graduate school in landscape architecture in Penn. She is now a tenured faculty in the landscape architecture and horticulture at Temple, and is married to Peter Kurtz, whom she met—appropriately enough—at Bartram’s Garden.

In 1993, the Memorial committee invited her to develop a concept landscape design. Here’s what Hurley-Kurtz had to say about herself, her work, and her role as design landscape architect for the Irish Memorial.

Q. A lot of memorials—maybe most memorials I’ve seen in the city—are just surrounded by an expanse of lawn. The Irish Memorial is very different. I’m curious to know a bit about the background. Someone somewhere must have been thinking early on about the landscape and how it would play off the memorial.

A. My ideas for the memorial landscape grew from a wish to express the Irish landscape and culture in the memorial space. I included stone walls and standing stones. The standing stones include the Irish, English and Ogham languages. I included patterns from Newgrange on the information panels. A stone from Croagh Patrick was included in the St. Patrick’s planter. The planting design included hedgerows reminiscent of the the Irish landscape to the east and a woods edge planting reflecting the Pennsylvania Piedmont to the west.

Q. When we talk about landscape, we’re not just talking about the plants, are we? How much did you have to do with the overall layout of the park surrounding the memorial … paths and so on? And how did you come to think about how all of it would hang together, to draw visitors to the memorial and add to the experience?

A. The most important goal was to create a space for the memorial sculpture—a simple uncluttered space with darker stone for the plinth and ground plane. After that I had to consider views and access—hence the two main diagonal entry paths each with its own theme of Hunger and Arrival. Then the grading, manipulation of slopes and addition of a couple of steps into the adjacent turf areas. Also, we kept much of the area adjacent to Chestnut Street on the bridge open to afford views into the sculpture from cars, buses and for pedestrians. It also provided clear views towards the Benjamin Franklin Bridge from within the Memorial space. Of course, views into and from an urban park are always important.

Q. Did anything about the memorial itself dictate to you what the surrounding landscape would look like? And did you have to think about how it all would fit into the riverfront/old city area? Were there any restrictions on what you could do?

A. The memorial sculpture by Glenna Goodacre has three major themes—the Great Hunger in Ireland; mass emigration; arrival and hope in Philadelphia. We oriented the sculpture so the Irish theme would be a focal point for the path from Penn’s Landing and the Philadelphia theme would be seen first from the Front Street path. That also coincided with optimal passive solar orientation to minimize shadows from the north. There were physical restrictions as to the weight of the sculpture—it need to be placed adjacent to one of the main bridge support beams. There were very few design restrictions. We wanted to use the best quality materials—natural stone—and to create a simple space in the round for the sculpture and to create an opportunity for reflection.

Q. Tell me how you continue to be involved in the memorial.

A. Since the Irish Memorial dedication in 2003 I have worked with the Irish Memorial, Inc., and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) on landscape maintenance. This has included developing a maintenance plan for PHS, adding plants and transplanting in the meadows, coordinating with a mason for wall repair, giving input on additional lighting and lighting maintenance. The Irish Memorial, Inc., have undertaken the maintenance of the sculpture (annual waxing) and hardscape elements of the memorial. The Interstate Land Management Corporation (ILMC) retain PHS to manage the memorial, the park as a whole and many other sites in the area.

Q. You’ve done a good deal of highly praised work. When you think of the Irish Memorial, does that particular project mean something to you that the other projects don’t?

A. I enjoy the process of designing a landscape and having it become a reality. Obviously, the Irish Memorial has special meaning for me. I am very lucky to have worked on a project like this one which had so much support from the Irish community in the Philadelphia area. Also, that I was really given a carte blanche in terms of design by the Irish Memorial, Inc., which I am grateful for. They were willing to raise the funds to have the park and sculpture together become a unified memorial garden. It was a memorable unique experience and a great team of people involved in it.

December 8, 2011 by
News

Help the Hibernians Brighten Up the Holiday for People in Need

Packing the boxes last year.

Packing the boxes last year.

The good people of the Hibernian Hunger Project don’t know when you’re sleeping. They don’t know if you’re awake. The only thing they know for sure is that many of you are struggling to make it in a depressed economy. And while they can’t turn the economy around, the one thing they can do is help you have a merrier Christmas.

Early in the morning of Saturday, December 17, organizer Bob Gessler will gather with volunteers at Shamrock Food Distributors on Fraley Street in Frankford to put the finishing touches on large boxes containing the fixings for a generous Christmas dinner—turkey, stuffing, veggies, bread, pie and even some cheery decorations. After that, they’ll load the boxes into cars and vans, and fan out throughout the city to deliver the boxes to dozens of needy families.

Last year, the Hibernians brightened up the holiday for about 70 families; this year, organizer Bob Gessler hopes to at least double last year’s total.

“That’s the number we anticipate, but quite frankly, if we wind up with 200 names, we’ll try to get that done,” he said.

As bad as the local economy was last year, it’s not much improved this year—it could even be a bit worse. Gessler knows people are hurting, although he and others who are working on this project often don’t have a line on exactly who needs help. Just based on personal experience, Gessler knows that many in the Irish and Irish-American community are reluctant to make their need known, so the folks behind the project have cast a wide net, looking for information on anyone who needs a bit of help come Christmas day.

“If you know a family in need, please let us know,” Gessler said. “A lot of families slip through the cracks of other programs. We’re looking to help everybody, regardless of race, color, creed … none of that matters. We just want to help people in need.”

Want to help? There are three ways:

  • First, help pack the boxes.
  • Second, drive boxes to the homes of the needy
  • Third, let the Hibernian Christmas crew know of families in need.

Communicate directly with Bob Gessler at gesslervs@comcast.net.

Joining the Hibernian Christmas effort will make many Christmases bright—including yours.

December 2, 2011 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How to Be Irish in Philly This Week

In the Christmas spirit: Fiddler Oisin MacDiarmada, who will be giving free fiddle workshops on December 11 in West Chester.

Celtic Christmases are happening only a couple of days into the month.

Danu kicks it off with a concert at the Annenberg on Friday night. And the Beethoven Waldheim Club—they’re singers—have their Celtic Christmas show at the club in Hellertown on Saturday night.

Starting on Saturday, Team Ratty Shoes–they’re named for a Blackthorn song–will be wrapping gifts at Barnes and Noble in Willow Grove all month to help raise money for multiple sclerosis research. Stop by their table and get your books wrapped. Books. . .you remember those. And snap up those Nooks. We have one and love it. They’ll wrap it up nice and pretty.

On Sunday, the annual Celtic Christmas in Doe Run, at St. Malachi’s of Doe Run in Chester County, features music, dancers, Celtic gifts and free holiday hors d’oeuvres.

Not a Christmas event but in the spirit of giving, the Gloucester County AOH is holding a fundraiser to help support the Commodore Barry Gate and Monument at The Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Celtic Connection and the Broken Shillelaghs will provide the music and there will be dinner and dancing at the Rossiter Memorial Hall in National Park, NJ. In January 2011, the Academy’s Memorial Oversight Committee approved the memorial, which happened at the request of the Hibernians. Barry, an American revolutionary war hero, a native of Wexford and a Philadelphia resident, is considered the father of the American Navy (not you, John Paul Jones).

On Tuesday, join the actors from the Inis Nua Theatre Company—the only theater company in Philly to produce contemporary Irish plays—as they play rock stars on stage at the World Café Live. “Craicdown” is a major fundraiser for the company and features the talents of real singers too, including Reagan Richards.

On Thursday, Irish Network-Philadelphia will hold its Christmassy Happy Hour at JD McGillicudy’s Kirklyn in Upper Darby where you can mix, mingle, pass out business cards, and learn to ceili dance to the musical stylings of John and Jimmy McGillian.

On Saturday, December 10, head over to Finnigan’s Wake at 3rd and Spring Garden for the annual “Running of the Santas.” Imagine, a couple of thousand people all dressed up as Santa running through the streets. And that’s before you have the free and $3 beers. Celtic rockers Jamison will be performing at the Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing when the running stops. There are other groups too, but they’re not Irish so we don’t care.

Also next Saturday — the Delco Gaels GAA is holding a fundraising “Night at the Races” at Maggie O’Neills Pub in Drexel Hill. Word has it that they’ll be announcing the contestants for the “Dance Like a Star” competition that will raise money to send players to Chicago for the championships this year. We’ve already heard about a few of the contestants (from the contestants themselves!) so we know this is going to be a must-see evening.

Then, on Sunday, December 11, Teada’s Oisin MacDiarmada, an All-Ireland fiddler, will be giving free workshops for aspiring and experienced fiddle players at West Chester University’s Swope Music Building from 1-2:30 PM. For more information about the event, contact sponsor Kildare’s Irish Pub, at 610-431-0770.

Now, a little tune to get you into the spirit: Miss Fogarty’s Christmas cake featuring Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis, and John Doyle.

December 2, 2011 by
News, People

Bowling with the Stars

Boxer Micky Ward with comic Joe Conklin at the Claddagh Fund event. Photo by Brian Mengini.

Some of the things I learned at The Claddagh Fund’s first annual fundraiser, the Celebrity Rock ‘N Bowl held Monday night, November 28, at North Bowl on Second Street in Philadelphia:

Members of the Flyers NHL team are younger than my son. Some are so young that they can’t drink adult beverages.

Boxer “Irish” Micky Ward, whose comeback was chronicled in the Mark Wahlberg’s critically acclaimed film, “The Fighter,” is a wee man, unlike Wahlberg who played him on screen. He also doesn’t like bad language. No trash talking from Micky’s side of the ring.

Actor Kevin Chapman, who has played an Irish mob boss (“The Brotherhood”), an Irish fireman (“Rescue Me,” and “Ladder 49”), an Irish cop (in “Street Kings 2,” and “Black Irish” ) and now stars as an Italian police detective in the hit series, “Person of Interest,” isn’t Irish or Italian. “I’m actually French Canadian, though I could be Irish because my father was about eight different things,” he told me. He’s also the former film commissioner from Boston who was discovered on the job by the late director Jonathan Demme.

Philly people are really generous.

Okay, I knew about that last one. One Monday night, the lanes were filled with bowlers who paid plenty to play with one of the celebs, including Flyers players Matt Read, Zak Rinaldo, Jody Shelley, Harry Zolniercayk, and Ian Lapierriere; former Phillies relief pitcher Ricky Bottallico, now a Phillies analyst for Comcast; Chapman, Ward, and Ken Casey, founder of The Claddagh Fund and the Boston-based rock group, Dropkick Murphys.

A signed Flyers jersey went for $1,000 and one Philly local ponyed up for tickets to see the Red Sox in Boston. The Red Sox? Now, that’s generous.

The Claddagh Fund was founded by Casey and has raised more than $1 million for under-funded charities in the Boston area. It recently opened a branch in Philadelphia where its first beneficiary is Stand Up for Kids, a local organization that does outreach with homeless and street kids.

Since you may not have been able to be there, here are some photos from the event for your viewing pleasure.

December 1, 2011 by
Arts, Music, People

No Accident That She’s Supporting Inis Nua

Reagan Richards. Photo by Tonette Madsen

At Inis Nua Theatre Company’s fundraiser at World Café Live last year, singer Reagan Richards brought down the house with her finale—an a cappella version, in torch song style, of “Too Ra Loo Ra Loora”—after inviting her listeners to join in “if you know it, and if you don’t know it, I really think it’s considered a mortal sin.”

They knew it, which is how it ought to be when you’re out supporting the region’s only theater company producing contemporary plays from Ireland and the UK.

Richards will be making a return guest appearance at Inis Nua’s “Craicdown” on December 6, an evening of music mainly provided by actors, including some of Inis Nua’s regulars such as Mike Dees, who will be hosting the show in his character of Mr. Martyn Wallace from the company’s hit of last season, “Dublin by Lamplight.” (“Mr. Wallace” is an actor from the seedy “Irish National Theatre of Ireland” in the play, which marries Commedia dell’Arte and vaudeville. The play had a month-long run in New York as part of the city’s Irish Theatre Festival.)

Reagan Richards is the lone professional singer. She’s performed with the Les Paul Band, Lisa Loeb, and many other name acts. The Cranford, NJ, native has a powerful, emotional voice that would make her a tough act for even another singer to follow. But she’s the show’s closer—and worth waiting for.

One of her songs, “There Are No Accidents,” reflects her own “no coincidences” philosophy, which is how this non-actor got her annual “Craicdown” gig.

“I met Jared [Michael Delaney, Inis Nua’s associate artistic director] at a Duran Duran concert in 2007,” she explained in a phone interview this week from her home in New York, where she’s working on a new album. “He happened to be sitting next to me and we started talking. The thing is, we weren’t even supposed to be in those seats. The theater had some problems and the show was moved to Roseland. So he tells me he’s an actor and I say I’m a singer, and eventually we become the best of friends. So when he asked me to do the first year of Craicdown I got on board and I’m 1,000 percent on board.”

Last year’s Craicdown yielded more than just enthusiastic audience participation, which deepened Richards’ belief that everything happens for a reason. “Last year I walked in as the first or second act was on and I heard this girl and I thought, ‘I want to know her.’ PS, she’s now a backup singer in my band.”

That’s Jess Conda, who has served as actor, stage manager, house manager and casting associate for BRAT Productions, another Philadelphia-based theatre company founded in 1996 by Madi Distefano. Dublin native Fergus Carey, owner of Fergie’s Pub and several other local watering holes, is chairman of its board of directors. She’ll also be performing on December 6, along with fellow actors Stephen Lyons, Damon Bonetti, Jake Blouch, Jered McLenigan, Sarah Gilko, and Harry Smith.

Richards has been around the music business for many years. It’s part of her genetic makeup. “My mom was a big band singer and what gave birth to my involvement in music was hearing her and the music she listened to, like Bing Crosby and Judy Garland. Even when I was young I knew all the old standards. When my older sister started listening to the Beatles, I started singing them too. There’s nothing like hearing a 7 or 8 year old singing about ‘Father Mackenzie.’”

She warbled a few of the grim lyrics from “Eleanor Rigby”–“Father Mackenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear, no one comes near. . .”—then laughed. “Not the kind of thing you expect to hear coming from a child.”

Her own style defies definition because it’s evocative of all of her influences from her Big Band mother to Patsy Cline. “I’ve done alternative country,” says Richards, who recently moved back to the northeast from Nashville. “I do new wavey British pop. The truth is, an A-chord is an A-chord, no matter how you play it. Music is what takes me wherever I go and I feel lucky that I get to do it every day.”

Catch Reagan Richards and the actors-turned-singers at Inis Nua’s Craicdown event at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, December 6, at World Café Live, 3025 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. Tickets are available online or by calling 215-454-9776 for $20, or pay $25 at the door.

Check out Reagan’s video of her song, “OK,”  with Billy Burnette, formerly of “Fleetwood Mac.”

 

 

 

 

December 1, 2011 by