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November 2015

How to Be Irish in Philly This Week

Still feeling too stuffed to move? Not the case for the teems of Irish dancers from the Mid-Atlantic region that are in Philadelphia this weekend at the Oireachtas, a major competition being held at the Marriott Downtown on Market Street. It’s an annual event, open to the public and a lot of fun, even if you’re competing.

The Donegal Ball is Saturday night at the Irish Center. The Philadelphia Mary from Dungloe, Shannon Alexander, will be giving up her crown to a new Mary who will compete this summer in Dungloe, County Donegal.

November 27, 2015 by Denise Foley

News, People, Videos

Getting the Last Word In

There’s the buildup to the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame Dinner. Nominations. Selections of honorees. Meetings. Jobs handed out. More meetings.

Finally, there’s the night itself, when all of the honorees gather together in the ballroom at the Philadelphia Irish Center to receive their awards and their richly deserved applause.

Honorees this year were Mary Frances Fogg, Dr. Denis Boyle, Kathy DeAngelo and Dennis Gormley, along with the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band, recipients of the Barry Award. Joe Tobin, pipe major emeritus, accepted on behalf of the band.

November 20, 2015 by Jeff Meade

News, People, Photos

New Members Inducted into Irish Hall of Fame at Gala Dinner

There are a few more brass plates on the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame plaque at the Irish Center this week.

Inducted at a gala dinner on Sunday night were Denis Boyle, MD, an Upper Darby doctor who cares for the homeless and undocumented; Kathy DeAngelo and Dennis Gormley, the musical duo who co-founded with friend Chris Brennan-Hagy, an organization that brings along young Irish traditional musicians; and Mary Frances Fogg, vice president of the association that runs the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade, whose government savvy has helped the organization cut through red tape–and who has been known to organize a picket line or two whenever the Irish are maligned.

Every year, Emerald Society Pipe Band members “pipe in” the inductees and this year was no different. Except that they also had to pipe themselves in. The pipe band, which is headquartered at the Irish Center, was given the Commodore Barry Award for their service to the Irish community.

November 20, 2015 by Denise Foley

How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

There are a couple of benefits coming up this weekend before Thanksgiving. First, on Saturday, the Philadelphia Irish Open Golf tournament takes place at Cobbs Creek Golf Course in Philadelphia. It will raise money for the Tansey family, formerly of Mayo, who lost their home, belongings, and pets in an house fire.

Gabriel Donohue, Raymond McGroary, Seamus Kelleher, Bill Donohue, Raymond Coleman, and Diarmuid MacDuibhne will be singing and playing their hearts out to raise money on Sunday for the Philadelphia Sunday Irish radio shows on WTMR 800 AM. It all takes place at The Dubliner on the Delaware in New Hope, starting at 1 PM.

November 20, 2015 by Denise Foley

How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

This Sunday, The Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame will induct four new members and present its new Commodore Barry Award to the Emerald Society Pipe and Drum Band.

Musicians Kathy DeAngelo and Dennis Gormley, who helped found the Next Generation group of young Irish traditional musicians in the Philadelphia region; Upper Darby physician Denis Boyle, MD, who offers his care to the homeless and undocumented; and Mary Frances Fogg, who has been both fundraiser and, using her government savvy, red tape cutter for the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade will all be honored at the event at the Irish Center.

November 13, 2015 by Denise Foley

News, People

Paul Doris, Irish Republican Activist, Named Philadelphia Parade Grand Marshal

Leading the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade as grand marshal this March will be a man who understands the price of equality, justice, and freedom.

Paul Doris, a native of Coalisland, County Tyrone, in Northern Ireland, was a young man working in Portadown in 1972, when British troops in the mainly Catholic Bogside region of Derry shot 26 unarmed people protesting the British introduction of internment without trial in response to sectarian violence across the six counties. The day became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Three days afterward, three men showed up at Doris’s door. One was armed. They ordered him to leave, telling him that Catholics would no longer have any work. Doris’s two younger brothers were subsequently imprisoned. One cousin was shot and killed and another wounded in two separate incidents.

November 13, 2015 by Denise Foley

News, People, Photos

St. Joe’s Fundraiser Kicks Off Jim McLaughlin Scholarship Project

It was just the thing that Jim McLaughlin would have loved. A big room filled with people he knew and a sprinkling of strangers he’d know by the end of the night, right on campus at his alma mater, St. Joseph’s University, his beloved Hawk Hill. There was music—provided by his young friend, fiddler Alex Weir, and his own brothers, Bob, who plays the flute, and Tom and his bluegrass band. And dancing. He loved to dance.

The Irish American Business Chamber and Network planned and executed a perfect Jim McLaughlin night on Thursday to honor its former president who died this year from a brain tumor at the age of 67. At his funeral mass in the chapel of St. Joe’s, the priest—a St. Joe’s professor and friend—called Jim McLaughlin “the most open, kind, and loveable” person he’d ever met.

November 13, 2015 by Denise Foley

Music, Videos

Watch: Two Great St. Malachy Concert Videos

You can read about Ed Reavy on Wikipedia:

“Ed Reavy was an Irish-American musician, composer of numerous traditional Irish dance tunes. Born in Barnagrove, County Cavan, he emigrated to Philadelphia in 1912 where he settled in the Irish-American enclave of Corktown.”

Or you can just get out of Wikipedia altogether and listen to some of the finest traditional Irish musicians play Reavy’s music. We recommend the latter. One note is worth a thousand words.

Mick Moloney and friends, playing at the 28th annual Irish Concert at St. Malachy Church last Sunday, ripped through a bunch of Reavy tunes as their last full set. We have the video here. You’ll be listening to Mick, uilleann piper Jerry O’Sullivan, accordion player Billy McComiskey, local fiddle phenom Alexander Weir, four-time All-Ireland fiddler Dylan Foley, concertina great Brenda Castles, and fiddler Liz Hanley.

November 6, 2015 by Jeff Meade

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