"Gas Pump Ceili"organizers Luke Jardel, Fintan Malone, and Marianne MacDonald.
Tune in to NBC-10 Friday night, October 29, at 7 PM to see the program “School Pride” to see the remarkable transformation of the Kingston Springs, TN, elementary school, devasted by last spring’s floods. Some of the money that went in to restoring the community’s only elementary school came from Irish-Americans in Philadelphia, some of whom were stranded for hours by the rising flood waters on an Irish Center trip to Nashville and Memphis.
Trip organizer, WTMR Irish radio host Marianne MacDonald, and musicians Luke Jardel and Fintan Malone (The Malones), raised $2,000 at a special ceili event at the Irish Center when they arrived home. They called it the “Gas Pump Ceili” because they and the more than 50 Philadelphia-area residents who had traveled to Tennessee threw an impromptu dance event at the BP station where they were waiting out the storm.
Local businesses and residents brought them food, water, and offered them shelter–and then joined in the dancing and singing after Jardel and Malone pulled out their instruments and began playing.
A few weeks ago, MacDonald and Malone returned to Kingston Springs, TN, to present a check to School Principal Jill Bramble who turned the moment “teachable,” pointing out to her students that the Philly visitors—and their local benefactors—didn’t complain about their plights but helped one another.
Philly Company Expands to Northern Ireland
Philadelphia-based Market Resource Partners, which assists companies in finding new business opportunities, is establishing a beachhead in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland, creating 100 new jobs with the aim of using the new facility as a center for its European operations.
In published reports, MRP founder Kevin Cunningham said that Northern Ireland’s “well-educated workforce” was one of the reasons for the choice. Another, support from the industrial support agency, Invest NI, which gave the American firm around $1.1 million.
Write a Review of Your Favorite Pub This Weekend
Didn’t you just love the essay questions when you were in school? Well, if you can write an essay—actually a review—of your favorite pub by Sunday at 7 PM, you can help your bar win the crown as best Irish Bar in North American and get yourself two flights to Las Vegas from anywhere in the States. Awards will be given to best bars in each state too. The contest is sponsored by the Strangford Lough Brewing Company and the website, irishbeerfinder.com. (Hey, why didn’t we think of that one?)
Overheard in Ireland: Philly’s Good Craic
While hanging at the bar in McGrory’s Pub in Culdaff, County Donegal, a couple of weeks ago, I met Billy Robinson, engineer and producer for famed Irish folk singer, Mary Black. He told me that Mary Black and company will be headed to the States for a number of gigs in November and, while none of them are in Philly, the crew is planning to stop here (at a riverfront hotel) just for the craic.
They’ve been here before, he told me, and they loved “the Japanese restaurant with the different colored seats”—apparently Morimoto at 723 Chestnut, owned by “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto—and “all the little bars” in the neighborhood.
They could stay anywhere, but they chose Philly.
Irish Times Session on Hiatus
The Thursday night session at the Irish Times, 629 S. Second Street, in the Queen Village section of Philadelphia, has been temporarily suspended, owner Eamonn Lyons tells us. If you’re a sports nut, check out the Irish TImes’ Down Below Bar which is cosy and has three giant plasma TVs so you won’t miss a thing. Plus the food is great and reasonably priced. And no, Eamonn did not pay us to say that.
