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September 2013

News

Irish Gathering 2013

A trio of Timoneys from last year’s gathering.

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve never visited the Commodore Barry Club, Philadelphia’s own Irish Center, and the cultural epicenter of everything Irish in the city and surrounding counties. It doesn’t matter whether you were there a long time ago, but haven’t visited since. Frank Hollingsworth invites you to come and experience the (at least for some) the hidden treasure that is the Irish Center. You can do it this Sunday from 11 to 6, as the Irish Center hosts its second annual Gathering.

“Maybe the last time they were here, it was with their father or grandfather. Maybe they moved out to the suburbs,” says Hollingsworth, now in the home stretch of planning for the weekend celebration. “Some may have heard about it, but don’t know exactly where it is.”

If you don’t know where it is, we’re happy to tell you. It’s at Carpenter Lane and Emlen Street in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. 6815 Emlen St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19119, if you want to punch it into your GPS. Or just get off at the Carpenter Lane stop on the Chestnut Hill West regional rail line.

If you are still an amateur Irish person, no fear. The Gathering is a total immersion experience. You’ll be a seasoned pro by day’s end.

The day begins with two live radio shows—Vince Gallagher at 11, followed by Marianne MacDonald at noon. As the day goes on, there’ll be a lot more.

“We’ll feature all the different groups who use the Irish Center,” says Hollingsworth. “Emerald Society Pipe Band players will play. We’ll have the Cummins School of Irish Dance, and John Shields and his group of dancers. Kids from the Next Generation Irish music group are going to play. Rosie McGill is going to sing, representing the Philadelphia Ceili Group. The kids from the Glenside Gaelic Club (part of the local Gaelic Athletic Association) will be here, with information and posters. We’ve got Hollis Payer, who teaches fiddle lessons here, and also harpist Ellen Tepper and singer Terry Kane. Vince Gallagher will be getting some musicians together. If there are enough musicians around, they may start a session—especially if John Shields and his dancers are around. They can certainly keep things going. The library upstairs will be open, and Lori Lander Murphy will be here to answer questions about genealogy.”

And look for dancing in the ballroom. If you don’t know how, don’t worry. They’ll show you.

Hold your breath, there’s more. Vendors will be on hand with lots of arts, crafts and jewelry. You can also meet local authors, including Marita Krivda Poxon, who wrote “Irish Philadelphia,” a great pictorial local Irish history.

The Irish Center, which has been serving greater Philadelphia since the pope was an altar boy, currently has around 400 members. Hollingsworth would like to see that number grow. “We want to have them come, and let them know they’re welcome.”

September 27, 2013 by Jeff Meade

How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

There will be guys just like this at the Celtic Classic.

This weekend, bringing up the rear of Irish festival month is one of the largest festivals of all, the Bethlehem Celtic Classic, which features Barleyjuice, Burning Bridget Cleary, Jamison, RUNA, the Makem and Spain Brothers (yes, that Makem), and Timlin and Kane, among others, amid caber tossing, sheepdog demonstrations, and haggis-eating. There are more kilts than you can shake a shillelagh at from Friday through Sunday in the Christmas city.

We’re closing out September on a high note all around. Harpists Grainne Hambley and William Jackson will perform for Crossroads Concerts (which brings ethnic music to Philadelphia) on Saturday.

At The Irish Center in Philadelphia, it’s the second year for “The Gathering,” which brings music, local authors, dancers, and vendors to the ballroom where local radio hosts, Vince Gallagher and Marianne MacDonald (WTMR 88 AM) will be doing their shows starting at 11 AM. Who knows? Maybe you could make some announcements!

At 12:30 PM Sunday, there will be a memorial Mass commemorating the 32nd anniversary of the Irish Hunger Strike, celebrated by Father Ed Brady at his parish, St. Anne’s, on E. Lehigh Street in Philadelphia. This is one of a number of events over the next few weeks that will highlight the Irish fight for freedom. On October 7, there will be a lecture commemorating the 1913 Dublin Lockout Centennial, a labor strike that laid the groundwork for the 1916 uprising, at Finnigan’s Wake in Philadelphia and on October 19, there will be a fundraiser to support the dependents of Irish Republican political prisoners at Bobby T’s in Port Richmond. Raymond Coleman will be performing and there will be a raffle and buffet.

Live Irish music—Scanlin & O’Leary—at the Farmhouse in Doylestown may make you want to while away this Sunday afternoon indoors even if it’s gorgeous outside.

Are you a Celtic supporter? That’s the Celtic Football Club, a Glasgow-based team that’s taking on Barcelona next week. There’s already a huge fan base in the US and it’s just getting bigger. On Tuesday, October 1, a new club, The Second Street Plough Bhoys Celtic Supporters Club, will have its first meeting at The Plough and the The Stars in Philadelphia to watch the game. It’s an afternoon meeting—starting at 2:45 PM—so lay some groundwork for calling out on Tuesday. Sniff, cough, I think I’m getting a cold.

On October 8, at Villanova University, National Book Award Winner Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin) will be reading from his book, Transatlantic, a tale of three iconic and historical crossings—two aviators attempting the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic, an international lecture tour by abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and the journey of Senator George Mitchell to shepherd Ireland’s peace talks to their then uncertain conclusion. The event starts at 7 PM in the Connelly Center Cinema.

Later in October, musician/folklorist Mick Moloney will be speaking at Villanova and performing “with friends” at St. Malachy’s Church in North Philadelphia, his yearly fundraiser for the acclaimed mission school.

September 27, 2013 by Jeff Meade

Music

A Successful 39th Ceili Group Festival

Everyone had fun at the festival. Photo by Gwyneth MacArthur.

The seats were all taken for all the concerts, there was hustle and bustle in the vendor’s area, and dozens of people learned to sean nos dance, play the bodhran, and write like the Book of Kells monks at the workshops at the 39th annual Philadelphia Ceili Festival of Irish Music and Dance last weekend.

Acclaimed Sligo-style fiddler Tony DeMarco was the final concert headliner with his new group, Atlantic Wave, featuring singer Donie Carroll, All-Ireland fiddler Martin O’Connell and guitarist Sean Earnest, all of whom gave workshops on Saturday. Cherish the Ladies’s Joanie Madden along with Gabriel Donohue hosted the Friday night Rambling House featuring half a dozen local talents, including Matt Ward, Teresa Kane, Ellen Tepper, and Rosaleen McGill (who, along with Madden and Donohue, sang “The Rocks of Bawn,” with her father, Jim McGill, one of the founders of the annual traditional music festival). Popular musician, singer, and comic Gerry Timlin in his second year of hosting Singers Night, kept the packed audience laughing and tapping their feet.

We could tell you more, but we have more than 100 photos, and over 20 videos, that speak 1,000 words.

Check out Singers Night and the Rambling House.

Check out some of the workshops and kids’ activities from Saturday in this set by photographer Gwyneth MacArthur.

Saturday’s concerts and activities.

Singers Night Videos

Rambling House Videos

Saturday Night Finale Videos

September 20, 2013 by Jeff Meade

How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Kelly Mahon’s smile says it all–it’s Irish weekend!

This is the weekend when just about every Celtic rock band—and even some trad players–in the region is booked at the shore, either in N. Wildwood, Wildwood, or Sea Isle City. That’s right, it’s the AOH Irish Fall Festival, with nonstop music and merchandise along Olde New Jersey Avenue and at Moore’s Inlet, not to mention every Irish pub, all weekend long.

We counted nearly 100 gigs everything from the AOH tent to Keenan’s, Owen’s Pub, the Shamrock, and Tucker’s. Among the performers and their locations:

The Bogside Rogues (AOH tent, Anglesea Tent, Flip Flopz)
Raymond Coleman (Westy’s Downstairs)
Blackthorn (La Costa in Sea Isle)
The John Byrne Band (Owen’s Pub, Flip Flopz)
Birmingham 6 (Street stage)
2U (AOH tent)
Broken Shillelaghs (AOH tent, Tucker’s)
Secret Service (AOH tent)
Celtic Pride (with All-Ireland fiddler Haley Richardson on the street stage)
The Paul Moore Band (Westy’s Deck)
Jamison Celtic Rock (Keenan’s, Casey’s)
Belfast Connection (AOH Tent)
5 Quid (Flip Flopz)
The Hooligans (Westy’s Deck)
The Shantys (Anglesea Tent, Anglesea inside)
Celtic Connection (AOH Tent)
Slainte (Keenan’s)
The Sean Fleming Band (AOH Tent, Anglesea Tent)
Neil and McHugh (Anglesea inside)
Willie Lynch (Anglesea inside)
No Irish Need Apply (Owen’s Pub)
The Barley Boys (Street stage, Owen’s Pub)
The First Highland Watch (Street stage, Shamrock in Wildwood)
Essex Pipe Band (Owen’s Pub)
Sullivan’s Bridge (Owen’s Pub)
Ballina (street stage)
Kilmaine Saints (AOH tent)
The Screaming Orphans (all the way from Donegal in the AOH Tent)
Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfetones (AOH tent)
Galway Guild (Keenan’s, Tucker’s)
Oliver McElhone (Anglesea inside)
Jamie and the Quietman (Anglesea inside)
Moira Maestra McKenny (street stage)

But there are actually other things happening this week—if you have the strength for them or didn’t go to the shore. Premier Irish step dancer Colin Dunne brings his one-man show to the Painted Bride as part of the Philly Fringe Festival (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this weekend). Read our interview with this amazing performer.

On Sunday, the Irish Center is hosting a pay-per-view event–the Mayo Vs. Dublin football finals. There will be folks wearing blue (the Dubs) and others wearing red and green (Mayo) and each cheering for their team to win the Sam Maguire Cup. A full Irish breakfast is being served. Get there early–there’s likely to be a crowd!

On Wednesday, the Battlefield Band, one of Scotland’s leading fusion bands, comes to the Ardmore Music Hall in Ardmore with Burning Bridget Cleary, a Celtic fiddle band once described as “like the Allman Brothers only prettier.”

On Thursday, the Boston-based band Long Time Courting, an all-women group featuring Shannon Heaton, will be performing at the Blue Ball Barn in Wilmington, DE.

Then on Friday, get ready to gear up again for lots of music and merch at Bethlehem’s Celtic Festival, featuring highland games (watch the caber toss), border collies, haggis, and a host of topnotch performers, including said Burning Bridget Cleary, Barleyjuice, the Glengarry Bhoys, Jamison, Kilmaine Saints, RUNA, Seamus Kennedy, Slainte, The Elders, Timlin and Kane, and The Makem and Spain Brothers. Have some laughs too with the Irish comedy tour.

Also next weekend, harpists Grainne Hambley and William Jackson will perform at Crossroads Concerts in Philadelphia.

There’s a lot of craic going on in the next two weeks—have fun responsibly!

September 20, 2013 by Jeff Meade

News, People

A Message from the Heart

Tom Staunton and friends

The Fireside Room at the Philadelphia Irish Center is a cozily dim little space. There’s a polished wood floor just perfect for set dancing. Off to one side, there is a long bar, a kind of elongated oval, the walls minimally decorated with artifacts like a hurling stick and an old photo of the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band. Three large television screens broadcast the latest Phillies debacle.

On a typical Saturday morning, this room would be about as bustling as the tomb of Tutankhamun, but on this particular Saturday morning, it’s a different story. A dozen or so of the regulars are propping up the bar, a trio of pipers is playing “Minstrel Boy” and “The Wearin’ of the Green,” and from time to time a few of John Shields’ dancers are dancing. And on a day when the outside temperatures are projected to hit the low 80s, a stack of logs blazes away in the fireplace. The center’s noisy air conditioning is off. Banks of blindingly bright lights illuminate all the dark corners, each one of those corners as neat as the legendary pin. A boom mic hangs over the bar. There are video cameras everywhere.

Perhaps the most obvious anomaly: The Guinness and Smithwick’s tap handles have been unscrewed and put away, and all of the folks at the bar are sipping Sprites or ice water. That’s because a camera crew is getting set to film a commercial for Penn Medicine, and pints of beer wouldn’t be in keeping with a world-renowned medical center’s message of robust health.

The center of attention is Tom Staunton, a reserved, self-effacing man well known to the Irish Center, seated with a couple of friends at a high-top table along the dance floor. His job at that moment is to do what comes naturally–chat with his friends, share jokes, have a laugh. Welcome the waitress when she arrives with a plate of beef and potatoes. Between takes, the three friends are visited by a makeup artist, who gently dabs away patches of perspiration along their foreheads and the tips of their noses. Three takes in all before the camera crew is satisfied.

The shoot began before 10 in the morning, and wrapped up around 4 in the afternoon. And all for a commercial that will last a minute on television.

The ad will draw public attention to a revolutionary new procedure at Penn for the treatment of the common but potentially lethal heart flutter known as atrial fibrillation, a condition that leaves patients with a high risk of stroke. It’s called the Lariat® procedure, and Staunton was the first one in the state to get it. Dr. Daniel McCormick performed the operation.

Staunton is happy to sing the procedure’s praises, no matter how many takes. “It really works,” he says. And that’s not just an advertising tagline. Staunton believes the Lariat procedure changed his life for the better, and he’s deeply grateful.

Staunton was diagnosed with AFib in 2012. The drug of choice for atrial fibrillation is warfarin—an anticoagulant, or blood thinner. But it’s by no means a happy choice. Management of the condition with warfarin is often extremely difficult. Doctors need to strike a balance—enough warfarin to help, but not so much that it hurts. Like most, if not all, drugs, warfarin is not without its risks. A recent Penn Medicine blog post sums it up:

While there will always be a need for blood thinners in medicine, the truth is, their effectiveness is precisely what makes them so dangerous. Warfarin, the most commonly used … is also used to poison rats and mice. Its anti-clotting properties produce death through internal hemorrhaging—a trait you want to control rodent populations, not your AFib.

Staunton can vouch for the difficulty of warfarin therapy, which requires constant monitoring. “One week it was OK,” he says, “and the next week it wasn’t.”

The Lariat procedure is a new way to treat AFib without the risks and difficulty of warfarin. There’s a long explanation of the procedure, but the short of it is that the surgeon, using minimally invasive techniques, creates a kind of lasso-shaped suture and cinches off the section of the heart responsible for the flutter, and that section eventually is absorbed into the body. The good news: No more warfarin.

Though Staunton is not accustomed to the limelight, he believes a few hours of fuss is well worth it. “If they use me here in this way, maybe it will help other people to know about this procedure and have it done.”

For his part, Irish Center manager Tom Walsh says, the Irish Center was happy to serve as center stage—although he confesses, he didn’t know what to expect. He says the commercial’s producer initially called him and Staunton some time ago to pitch the idea. “After that, I carried the conversation forward as far as people to line up as participants. The producer came around here yesterday (Friday) for two hours. And he asked me: ‘Do you know what you’re in for here?’ And I said, no, but I’ll keep an open mind.”

The commercial will air on local television around mid-October.

September 13, 2013 by Jeff Meade

How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Ciara Higgins and her dad, Tom, at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

After a packed house for Singers Night on Thursday, the Philadelphia Ceili Group’s 39th Festival for Irish Music and Dance continues on Friday night with a Rambling House event (read: bring your party piece) at the Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, in Philadelphia, hosted by top Irish musicians Gabriel Donohue and Cherish the Ladies’ Joannie Madden.

And on Saturday, loads of free (if you’re a member–and you can be) workshops on everything from digging up your ancestors (no shovels required) to the Kensington Nativist Riots (which happened back when being Irish in America was a bad thing) as well as really free kiddie activities. The evening concert features an all-star band headed by noted New York-based Sligo fiddler Tony De Marco, as well as Martin O’Connell, Sean Earnest, Donie Carroll and Siobhan Butler), along with Nuala Kennedy and Eamon O’Leary.

Also this weekend, the 7th annual Gloucester City Shamrock Festival takes place along the Delaware in this New Jersey town just across from Philadelphia. There’s also an Irish music sail—a real sailboat, real Irish music—on Saturday leaving from Penns Landing near the Olympia.

On Saturday, The Farmhouse Tavern in Doylestown is having its “halfway to St. Patrick’s day” party featuring live music at 8 PM with Jack O’Leary and The Broken Shillelaghs are playing at the Dubh Linn Square Pub in Bordentown, NJ.

The Old Timers Dinner and Dance is slated for Sunday at the Irish Center. We hear from organizers that you don’t have to be that old to attend. Vince Gallagher is providing the music and he’s only a few years older than me and I’m not old.

On Monday, another annual event: the Ciara Kelly Higgins for CP benefit to raise money for this adorable 10-year-old, daughter of Tom and Dee Higgins, who was born with a former of cerebral palsy (but doesn’t let that or anything else stop her—you should see her Irish step-dance!). There’s a golf outing during the day at Plymouth Country Club in Plymouth Meeting and a dinner at the club at 6, featuring music by The Paul Moore Band, comedy by Joe Conklin, and more than 200 live auction and raffle prizes. The money from the event helps defray the cost of Ciara’s treatment.

On Wednesday, another benefit at a golf course: The Claddagh Fund and The Hartnell Down Foundation are sponsoring a fundraiser at the Scotland Run Golf Club in Williamstown NJ to raise money for both charities. Hartnell Down was founded by the Flyers’ Scott Hartnell to help support nonprofits, similar to the mission of The Claddagh Fund, founded by The Dropkick Murphy’s front man, Ken Casey. Both celebs will be there along with some other celebrity golfers.

On Thursday, “Riverdance” star and step-dance prodigy Colin Dunne will present his one-man, multi-media show on the evolution of Irish step-dancing. Read our interview with Dunne, who will be performing nightly through Saturday at The Painted Bride in Philadelphia.
And it’s what you’ve all been waiting for: Thursday is also the first day of the AOH Irish Fall Festival in North Wildwood! It starts every year with a boxing match at the Irish Music Tent at The Point at Moore’s Inlet, which, for three days, is the scene of much music and merry-making. There are miles of vendors, a pipe and drum exhibition, a run, free Irish dance lessons, and more Irish people and wannabes than you thought possible to squeeze into one town outside Ireland. All the pubs and clubs in N. Wildwood and Wildwood have booked Irish acts too. Check our calendar for more information.

September 13, 2013 by Jeff Meade

Music, News

Philly Irish Rally for a Local Musician

On Thursday, September 12, Raymond Coleman’s day started at 4:30 AM with the sound of banging on his door in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia. It was the police. The Tyrone-born musician’s van had been broken into and all of his equipment stolen. The guitars. The sound system. Even what he jokingly calls his “box of tricks,” his guitar leads and wires.

“It was awful, like taking my right arm off,” said Coleman, who has made a living as a musician since arriving the the US from Ardboe in Northern Ireland four years ago this week. “I was thinking of all the gigs I was going to have to cancel.” The father of one—daughter Branna just turned one–often does 25 or more a month.

He left a dismal post on his Facebook page later in the morning, and suddenly, his terrible, horrible no-good day took a turn. For the better.

“The next thing I knew, Frank Daly, got in touch with me,” Coleman said. Daly is the front man for Jamison Celtic Rock and co-founder of American Paddy LLC, which produced the Philadelphia Fleadh outdoor concert this past June. Daly wanted Coleman’s permission to launch a crowd-sourcing campaign on the website giveforward.com to help him replace his equipment. Coleman was reluctant. “I don’t want people to think I’m begging for money,” he said. But he agreed.

It took off. Donations, fueled by Facebook shares, didn’t just trickle in. They flooded in. Daly set a goal of $2,500 at the beginning of the day and by Friday morning there were 62 donations totaling more than $2,800, most from people Coleman didn’t know. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “I never met some of these people. It’s just amazing to me that there are so many people out there who would help out a stranger.”

Raymond Coleman

He got donations from several foundations, including The Claddagh Fund, founded by fellow musician Ken Casey of The Dropkick Murphys, and the Mimi Fishman Fund, affiliated with the group Phish, but most of the donations came from ordinary people who also left words of encouragement on the giveforward website.

“Best of luck. There’s a song in this somewhere. Swing,” wrote one donor.

Another, who gave the last $6 in her bank account, assured him that “it’s cool. I got cash to get me through till pay day.”

Another, clearly a fan, wrote, “Oh Ray, what an awful thing! How can I not help the man who serenades me with ‘Jersey Girl?’”

And, of course, there were the friends who know the traditional first step in Irish healing is a joke:

“I heard said it was a gang of American musicians who were tired of immigrants coming here and stealing their jobs! So, I heard.”

And, “Lock the doors next time.”

Coleman comes from a musical family. “I grew up surrounded by music. There were sessions up in my Granny’s house every Monday night. My sisters sing, my brothers sing. It’s just a mad outfit,” he laughs. In fact, his brother, Mickey Coleman, is a fixture in the New York music scene and a well-respected singer-songwriter. The two occasionally perform together.

And today he feels like he has a whole other family, starting with Frank Daly. “He is such a good fella, I swear to God, he’s a saint. I’m just sitting here, speechless, I don’t even know what to say, I’m just so grateful, I feel loved,” he said. “It started out an awful day, and the next thing this happens and there’s a change of thought completely. There are so many good people out there, you forget about the bad.”

September 13, 2013 by Jeff Meade

People

Top Irish Dancer Brings It To Fringe

Colin Dunne wasn’t exactly born step dancing, but it was close. The man who is known as “a leading figure” in Irish dance, who choreographed part of “Riverdance” and took over the lead role from Michael Flately when he left the iconic musical in 1995, first started going to Irish dance classes as a babe in arms.

“My two sisters had started to go to dance classes when I was six months old and I got to a certain age, my mother threw me in with them,” recalls Dunne, who is soft spoken, brown-eyed, and darkly handsome. “I never remember not liking it. In fact, I remember standing at the door of the house, my shoes in a bag, shouting, ‘We’re going to be late!’”

That was in Birmingham, England, where he was born to Irish parents. Once in the world of Irish dance, Dunne took it by storm. He won his first World Championship title by the age of nine and was the first dancer ever to win the World, All England, and all Ireland titles in the same year. When he finally retired from competition at 22, he had won a total of nine World, 11 Great Britain, and eight All Ireland titles.

He is more than humble about his trove of trophies. “I now question any activity in whereby a nine-year-old can become a world champion,” he says thoughtfully. “I learned a valuable lesson at the age of 10—you can go back the next year and you don’t win. I’m not sure about the psychology of kids being at something at a world champion level.”

But the stress never dimmed the passion. Although his love affair with dance has had its “ups and downs,” at 45, he’s still at it, still passionate. Dunne is bringing his multi-media homage to dance, “Out of Time,” to the Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine Street, On September 19, 20, and 21, as part of the 2013 Philadelphia FringeArts Festival.

The one-man show, using archival footage from the ‘30s, ‘50s, and ‘70s, uncovers the pure simplicity of Irish dancing which, in those other times, was done noncompetitively by ordinary people whenever a fiddle, concertina, or whistle started to play. Much of the recorded music is provided by Clare fiddler Martin Hayes and longtime partner, Dennis Cahill of Chicago. Fionan de Barra, of the award-winning Philadelphia musical group, RUNA, designed the sound. Sineade Rushe is the director.

In pure Irish tradition, Dunne has also woven storytelling into the mix—much of it, his story, though he hesitates to call the show autobiographical. “It’s not biography explicitly. It’s not a history lesson. But I show these films, most of them from the RTE archives but a couple of pieces from my own personal collection (including footage of me dancing when I was 10), that show the element of time and how dancing was very different back in the 30s, 50s, and 70s than now, that it’s constantly evolving.”

The rigid stance, for instance. The films show that Irish dance wasn’t always just from the waist down, for example, challenging the prevailing wisdom on what is—and what isn’t—traditional. This was a turning point for Dunne, who spent time learning contemporary dance at the University of Limerick in part to escape from the “mold for a type of Irish dance” created by “Riverdance.”

“When I was in New York with ‘Riverdance’ I saw a lot of contemporary dance and theater and saw all kinds of work that wasn’t as big or brash as ‘Riverdance’ and a lot of solo shows that made me want to perform that way,” says Dunne. He also saw the idea of “tradition” as so much baggage that put the brakes on creativity, a concept he explores in “Out of Time.”

Colin Dunne

In fact, Dunne left the successful “Riverdance” after three years to explore this other version of the art form to keep his own passion for dance alive. “I had done 900 shows and I couldn’t do another one, I felt like I was losing my relationship with dance. Doing the same thing seven days a week can kill a part of you, which is why I needed to move into new territory.”

Not that he’s dissing “Riverdance.” In some ways, it kept him from a fate worse than death–accounting. After he “retired” from dancing at 22, he graduated from Warwick University in England with a bachelor’s degree in economics and worked as a trainee accountant at the Birmingham offices of Arthur Andersen, formerly one of the “big five” accounting firms in the world.

“Before ‘Riverdance’ there was no such thing as a career in Irish dance,” says Dunne. “You’d retire from competition and teach.”

But within a couple of days of passing his final exam that would have made him a full-fledged accountant, he got a call from Paddy Maloney, founder of the Irish group, The Chieftains, who invited him to peform on tour with the group in Canada. “I went in to my boss and asked if I could take some time off and they said, maybe you’d better resign, so I did,” Dunne recalls. “So in 1993 I went on tour for a month and told myself I was just going to take six months and do a couple of other tours before I decided what to do. So I went out with Frankie Gavin and DeDannan and figured I get this dance thing out of my system. Then, ‘Riverdance’ happened and everything changed.”

Dunne doesn’t intend to be “dancing in my 50s”—in fact, he’s moved more into choreography, something he’ll be doing at the Abbey Theater this year for a play about the 1913 Dublin lockout, which led to the rise of trade unions and, ultimately, the independence of Ireland from Great Britain.

One thing he will not be doing is revisiting accounting. “Um, no, even if. . .no,” he says with a bitter laugh. “I was a terrible accountant. I didn’t enjoy it.”

September 12, 2013 by Jeff Meade

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