Bob Hurst Jr. of the Bogside Rogues, at the Red Rooster on Saturday.
“I did not attend his funeral but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” This quote, erroneously attributed to Mark Twain, just about sums up how many in the Irish community felt about the late Margaret Thatcher.
And those feelings—for some folks, incendiary—prompted a mock wake for the former British Prime Minister, who was buried this week in London, at The Red Rooster Inn on Dungan Road in Philadelphia on Saturday. The Bogside Rogues, Malone and Ward, Mike Brill, the King Brothers, and other local Irish bands will be playing.
And on a more positive note, the new Glenside GAA is holding a registration at the MacSwiney Club in Jenkintown for kids 5-17 to learn and play Gaelic football, hurling, and camogie. And Mary Courtney, who wowed the crowd at the Irish Center a few weeks ago with her group Morning Star, will be doing a solo gig at Tir na Nog in Trenton on Saturday night.
“The Hand of Gaul,” a play by local actor Jared Michael Delaney, continues its run at the Off Broad Street Theater at First Baptist Church in Philadelphia this week. It’s an Inis Nua Theatre Company production. Inis Nua presents contemporary plays from Ireland and the UK.
Books are not dead. In fact, there are 1,000 of them on sale for $1 each at the Irish Immigration Center, 7 S. Cedar Lane, in Upper Darby. Bring your totes on Saturday, starting at 9 AM, and load up with summer beach reading.
The monthly dinner at the Irish Center is cancelled for this Sunday but will continue monthly.
On Thursday, Jesse Smith and Sean Gavin will perform at the Water Gallery in Lansdale. Smith, from Baltimore, is a fiddler whose mother, Donna Long, a musician and painter, exhibits at the gallery. He’s toured with Danu. Gavin is the son of County Clare fiddler Mick Gavin and a member of the popular group NicGavisky.
The CD release party for Irish Philadelphia’s CD Ceili Drive, originally scheduled for Thursday, has to be postponed. As most of you know, the Irish Philly gang of three does the site in its spare time, and ran out of spare time this week. We’ll be rescheduling—sorry for the inconvenience.
On Friday, the Donegal Football dinner-dance is being held at the McCall Golf and Country Club in Upper Darby.
And speaking of postponed—the Sean Nos dancing workshop with Shannon Dunne which had been scheduled a few months ago (and had to be called on account of injury) is back on with a vengeance. Want to learn how to do old-fashioned step dancing—you know, the kind where you don’t have to leap off the ground like Dr. J? This is your workshop. It’s at the Irish Center on Saturday, April 27, starting at 1 PM.
And later that evening-the Young Ireland’s GFC Fight Night fundraiser! See our story.
