June 2015

Sometimes when I just want a lift, I head to Upper Darby on Wednesday for the weekly senior lunch at the Irish Immigration Center.

I worked with many of the seniors on the Immigration Center calendar—I took the photos for the calendar in which they portray characters from some iconic Irish films—and had the time of my life with them. They’re a welcoming group filled with bright, funny, and talented people—it’s worth a visit even if you’re years from being considered “a senior.”

This Wednesday, guitarist and singer Tom Goslin and his wife, singer Sandra Hartman performed after the lunch, provided by the Irish Coffee Shop. But there were plenty of talented performers in the audience, such as Mary Powers, Tom McArdle (pictured here), and Billy McClafferty, who kept us all entertained.

The photos and videos that follow will give you a “taste” of the weekly lunch.

Here’s Tom Goslin on guitar.

Mary Powers sings the beautiful Dolores Keane song, “Caledonia.”

Billy McClafferty sings about Donegal.

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Rosabelle Gifford

Rosabelle Gifford, a Donegal native and single parent who emigrated to the US with her five children in the 1950s, died this week at the home of her daughter, Rosemary McCullough, in Havertown. She celebrated her 100th birthday last August.

Mrs. Gifford was the first recipient of the Mary O’Connor Spirit Award, presented by the Philadelphia Rose of Tralee Centre, in 2009 and was honored by Philadelphia’s Irish Center as an “Inspirational Irish Woman’ in 2010. Always impeccably dressed and accessorized, Mrs. Gifford will always be memorialized in the “Rosabelle Gifford Best Dressed Lady Award” given at the annual Rose of Tralee Selection Gala in Philadelphia.

She is survived by her 3 children, Rosemary McCullough of Radnor, Kathleen Harshberger of Radford VA, and James Harvey of Seattle WA; and by 13 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.

Contributions in her memory may be made to the Donegal Association of Philadelphia, The Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, PA 19119, Attn: Financial Secretary.

Below is an article we wrote about Rosabelle Gifford when she was selected for the Mary O’Connor Spirit Award:

When she was looking for the right candidate for the first annual Mary O’Connor Spirit Award to honor a woman from the local Irish-American community, Karen Conaghan says Rosabelle Gifford came to mind immediately.

“She’s very brassy, but not abrasive. Opinionated, spirited, courageous,” says Conaghan, who, with her sister, Sarah, coordinates the Philadelphia Rose of Tralee pageant, of which the award is now a part. “She’s better dressed than anyone we know. She enjoys life. She’s a total inspiration.”

I met Rosabelle Gifford this week. It’s all true.

Named for the original “Rose of Tralee,” who refused to marry her true love because she knew it would tear him from his disapproving family, the first Mary O’Connor Spirit Award is going to a woman who knows intimately how love can go wrong—and the meaning of courage and self-sacrifice.

She was Rosabelle Blaney of Gortward, Mountcharles, County Donegal, when she married Edward Harvey of Castleogary. The couple moved to post-war London where they went on to have five children, including a set of twins. But the marriage was not to last.

“It was a very bad marriage,” says Gifford. “He was drinking, running around with other women, and a wife-beater. I had to go.”

At a time when there was little help for abused women and families—and there was almost no housing in bombed-out London—Gifford had to plan her own escape. She sent two of her five children back to Ireland to live with her parents and one to Scotland to stay with her sister. “I knew they would be well cared for and I had to do it—I had no place to live,” she recalls.

In the early 1950s, when her oldest son, Ted Harvey, was considering enlisting in the British military, Gifford suggested that he go to America instead. “My two older sisters were living here and I told him that if he went, we would follow.” He did, and in 1958, his mother and his siblings moved into the apartment in Bryn Mawr he had rented and furnished for them.

“I got a job taking care of children. I was good at it,” chuckles Gifford. In fact, some of the children she cared for will be attending the award ceremony on Saturday night, June 27, during the 2009 Philadelphia Rose of Tralee Selection Gala.

While at a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s house, Rosabelle met Charles Gifford, who worked in the accounting department of a steel company. They fell in love and married. She has been widowed for more than 20 years. “He was a good man. I needed that,” she says wistfully. “He was so good to my children too—so good to them.”

Her son, Ted, died many years ago of brain cancer. Three of her four remaining children, Rosemary McCullough, Kathleen Harshberger, Frank Harvey [who passed away since this story was written] , and assorted grandchildren and great grandchildren will be attending the event. The fourth, son James Harvey, an educator, will be in China at the invitation of the Chinese government.
You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned Rosabelle Gifford’s age. That’s because she doesn’t. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s business,” she says. “I think you’re just as old as you feel.”

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Michael Toner with Marybeth Phillips.

Philadelphia actor Michael Toner, known for his one-man shows and his critically acclaimed work in Irish plays, was seriously injured in a hit-run accident this week in Philadelphia.

The 68-year-old native of Northeast Philadelphia, who is a frequent Ulysses reader during the Rosenbach Museum’s Bloomsday celebration in Philadelphia, had his right leg amputated at Jefferson Hospital after he was found unconscious on the street at 1 AM by a passerby. He may have lain on the street for two hours. Police are still investigating.

He was supposed to perform David Simpson’s Crossing the Threshold Into the House of Bach with the Amaryllis Theater Company this week.

Toner has performed both in Philadelphia and New York over his 40-plus-year career, as well as at the International James Joyce Symposium, the American Shaw Festival, the Edinburgh, Scotland Fringe Festival, and has written a number of one-man shows in which he starred.

“He’s made a successful career out of one-man shows that no one wanted to produce,” says friend and colleague Marybeth Phillips who first encountered Toner when he was performing with the short-lived Irish Players, an offshoot of the Philadelphia Ceili Group to which Phillips belongs.

“I can’t remember what the play was, but it was back in the early ‘80s and when I came out of the theater, I thought, who the hell was that little guy? He stole the show. That was Michael Toner. He was electric. With every move he made and word he said, he stole the show.”

She said she expects that Toner, a Vietnam veteran who once offered to be her son’s “pagan godfather,” will respond to this setback the way he always does—with typical Irish humor.

“I’ve saved every bit of literature from his accident for him to read. I’m sure Mike will say, ‘Jesus Christ, now you give me publicity. Where were you when I needed it for my plays?’” says Phillips.