Great weekend—and a great two weeks ahead—if you’re trying to be Irish. (We’re hoping many of you are now getting good at that.)
First, on Saturday night, Black 47 is coming to Sellersville. If you’ve never heard Larry Kirwan and his gang, you’re in for what they used to call a rollicking good time. They’re a hard-charging rock band with a Celtic flavor and atty-tude. We love ‘em.
Then, on Saturday, there’s the Guinness Seafood Festival at Tirnanog in Trenton, the great pub owned by the late Irish Billy Briggs. It’s a fundraiser for the Irish Billy Briggs Memorial Scholarship Fund, sponsored by the AOH Joe Cahill Division, to honor Trenton’s beloved publican. In my youth, I spent some good times at Billy Briggs’ pub. He was a great guy. Anyhow, seafood and Guinness. You can’t go wrong.
On Sunday, we understand there are GAA football games on the field at Cardinal Dougherty High School and that you might catch the winning Donegal team that usually plays in New York. Head over to 6301 N. Second Street in Philly around 3 PM.
On Sunday night, hear the incredible harp-guitarist-storyteller John Doan in a multimedia Celtic Pilgrimage at the Temperance House in Newtown, Bucks County. Read our story.
If you’re in Jersey on Sunday, it’s Hibernian Hunger Project Day at Keenan’s Pub in North Wildwood (or, as we like to think of it, Port Richmond, Southern Division). From 3 PM to 7 PM, your $30 will buy you beer, wine, soda, and music–as well as the unending gratitude of the people who are served by this AOH national program that got its start in Philadelphia.
It’s July, sure, but it’s not too early to be thinking about Christmas. On Tuesday, the Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton story in Rehobeth Beach, DE, (love that place!) will be hosting Master Artist Vincent Rellis who will sign your Waterford purchases. We almost lost this icon of Irishness this year, but a last-minute save by an investment company has kept this crystal maker in business (though, alas, not the store in nearby Limerick, PA).
On Wednesday, master flute maker and performer Skip Healy and noted bodhran maker and player Albert Alfonso will be offering a workshop on their respective instruments in Lansdale, followed by a session at The Mermaid Inn in Philadelphia. Then they’ll be performing a house concert on Thursday in Lansdale. They’re here thanks to Spring Hill House Concerts, the brand new venue founded by Indiana transplants Bette Conway and Bob Hendren.
Were you a fan of American bandstand? Then you might be interested in Irish Bandstand—actually, a six-week course in jive, quickstep, waltz, and ceili dancing offered by Geraldine Trainor at the Irish Center starting on Wednesday. You don’t need a partner, so if concerns about coming solo is the only thing stopping you, put on your dancing shoes.
Since I’m not going to be around next week, and the last time I went out of town our calendar went into a sulk and crashed, I’m going to tell you how to be Irish next week too. Two for the price of one! (Oh, that’s right, you don’t pay for this. . . .)
On Saturday, July 25, come out to support the MacSwiney Club in Jenkintown, where they’re holding a fund-raising picnic and raffle for their building fund.
In the fundraising mood? Also on Saturday, there’s a benefit concert by six-year-old fiddler Haley Richardson and her brothers to raise money to send Haley to the All-Ireland competitions in Tullamore. She finished first in the under-12s in the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil in Pearl River, NY, this year. The event will be at Bain’s Deli/Fuelhouse Coffee in Vineland, NJ. Come out to hear this pint-sized major talent.
Looking ahead: The Young Dubliners are going to kick of the festivities in August at the Sellersville Theatre. There are more football games, radio show benefits (including one at Ambler’s Shanachie Pub on August 2), concerts, and dances coming up too. Then September will arrive with the Philadelphia Ceili Group Music Festival, the Celtic Classic in Bethlehem, the Scottish-Irish Festival in Green Lane, PA, the AOH Irish Weekend in N. Wildwood. There’s also going to be a bus trip from the Irish Center to Gettysburg where you’ll learn about the role the Irish played in the war between the states. That’s why I’m getting out of town. I need to rest up.
