The DeNogla dancers in last year's Mount Holly parade.
Hope you didn’t put away your shamrock deely bobbers and your green Mardi Gras beads. St. Patrick’s month isn’t over, and in Mount Holly, NJ, it’s going out with a bang. That would be the sound from a pipe and drum band marching in the annual Burlington County St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Bad weather washed out this popular event that’s usually the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in the region. This year it’s the last, and it could be the best.
The grand marshal is Marie Brady Hempsey, Mid-Atlantic coordinator for Project Children, which every summer brings 20 kids from Northern Ireland to the Delaware Valley for a much-needed break from tensions at home. Despite the peace, each year the Protestant unionist Orange Order holds parades, often through Catholic areas, to celebrate the victory of the Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II in the Battle of the Boyne. Those marches often lead to bloodshed.
Hempsey herself is the daughter of a divided family—a Catholic father and Protestant mother from Ireland, as she told us in an interview earlier this month. You can read it here.
A slow week again, but we’re heading up to Easter so the focus is on church services, family, and chocolate bunnies, though not always in that order.
One thing to note: The Shanachie Pub and Restaurant in Ambler is closing as of Saturday night. Its popular Tuesday night session, headed by Irish musicians Fintan Malone and Kevin McGillian, will be moving down the street to Finn McCool’s Irish Pub on Butler Pike as of Tuesday, April 3, from 7-10 PM. Same great assemblage of talented musicians, same town, same street.
And you can catch Seamus Kelleher, former lead guitarist from Blackthorn, on Sunday, April 1, at Puck in Doylestown singing in a benefit for the Doylestown Co-Op. The event starts at 3 PM and Seamus will be on stage about 4:15 PM. If you miss him there, on Friday, April 6, he’ll be at the Doylestown School of Rock, 135 S. Main Street in Doylestown at 7 PM, where he’s visiting professor. He’ll be joining the talented School of Rock students on stage for an evening of Celtic rock.
Side note: Seamus and his wife, Mary Pat, recently ran their first 5K. As Seamus says, “If you know me, you will find that very odd as Seamus K and Five K should never be in the same sentence.” Seamus has dropped about 20 pounds or so and looks great. After his show, you can ask him how he did it.
Check back frequently during the week to see if any latecomers have added their events to our calendar. They usually do.
