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Jeff Meade

How To Be Irish In Philly this Week

Shamrocks and Hibernians hurlers: They carry big sticks!

Time to start thinking about Gaelic sports. The Donegal Football Club is holding its annual banquet on Saturday night at the Irish Center. A late entry to our calendar: On Friday, April 24, the Shamrocks are sponsoring a beef and beer at the Irish Times in Queens Village.

It won’t be long till they’re out on the field (Donegal plays in the big leagues in New York—they’re that good). If you’ve never seen a live honest-to-goodness Irish football or hurling match, you’re missing a lot of great action. These guys and girls (yes, there are girls’ teams too) make American sports look like a literal romp in the park. You can check out the action this week (Tuesday and Thursday at 7:45 PM) at the Torresdale Boys Club where they Shamrocks hurling teams will be practicing. The Allentown Hibernians hurlers are practicing Sundays at Haines Mill Field in Allentown, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Klines Lane Field in Emmaus (check their website for updates).

Matt and Shannon Heaton will be performing at the Godfrey Daniels Coffee House in Bethlehem on Saturday night where they’ll be debuting their new repetoire of love songs.

On Thursday, order your Guinness from the celebrity bartenders at AOH Div. 87 (Tommy Healy, its president; Maria Gallagher, president of the LAOH Div. 87) to raise money for two organizations that support autism research. There will be music, appetizers, and happy hour specials.

Ring in the month of May at another benefit on Friday night at Canstatters in Northeast Philadelphia, this one for Jack Twist of AOH 88 and retired firefighter Tom Meehan, sponsored by the Philadelphia Police and Fire Pipes and Drums.

Check out our calendar for all the details.

And remember to eat, drink, and buy Irish!

April 23, 2009 by Jeff Meade

News

Happy Birthday, Tyrone!

That's the Cavan Society's Tom Farrelly, right, with Tyrone's Joe Trainor.

The band was playing “Pretty Little Girl from Omagh,” and the dancers were eating it up as the Tyrone Society celebrated its 100th anniversary in a big bash Saturday night at the Philadelphia Irish Center.

The ballroom has never looked prettier, and it’s probably never been so crowded. Kudos to all the folks who brought it all off and made it look easy.

There was lots to celebrate, although bragging rights over the county’s ownership of the Sam Maguire Cup (and the cup was there!) seemed to figure prominently. Tyrone Irish football captain Brian Dooher was a guest of honor.

We were there, of course, and have the photos and video to prove it.

View video.

April 23, 2009 by Jeff Meade

News

AOH Division Comes to the Aid of Philly Cops

AOH President Pete Hand extends thanks to FOP members for all they do to "protect and serve."

For Pete Hand and Ron Trask, the February funeral of Philadelphia Police Officer John Pawlowski was a turning poit of sorts.

Pawlowski was the fifth Philadelphia officer to die in the line of duty in a 10-month period. Hand, president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians Notre Dame Division in Swedesburg, Montgomery County, had attended all five funerals as drum major of the division’s Irish Thunder pipe band.

“Ron and I were at the (AOH) clubhouse after that last funeral,” Hand recalls. “Just being down there at all those events moved us to do something.”

The “something” turned out to be a fund drive to raise cash for the survivors fund of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 at Broad and Spring Garden. “I had heard that their fund was running low (because of so many line-of-duty deaths), and we wanted to help out.”

So Hand, Trask and a group of other Montgomery County Hibernians put their heads together and came up with the fund drive not long before St. Patrick’s Day.

The Hibernians started by collecting money at the Conshohocken St. Patrick’s Day Parade, picking up $2,100 from parade-goers. Then came the big event-Police Appreciation Day at the Hibernian Hall in Swedesburg, a well-attended bash that netted a little over $10,000.

A delegation from the AOH division presented the check to FOP Lodge 5 Tuesday night. The cops, for their part, were appreciative. “This is very substantial,” said recording secretary Jim Wheeler. “The only donation that comes close to it is (what the lodge receives from) Geno’s Steaks.”

April 14, 2009 by Jeff Meade

Dance

Welcome to Philadelphia!

The U.S. flag led the way as dancers processed onto the Kimmel Center stage with flags from every nation representated in the championships.

In the beginning, the opening ceremony of the World Irish Dancing Championships was a dignified affair, with dancers from around the world parading onto the Kimmel Center stage with the flags of their countries, the Olympic theme playing in the background.

After that, assorted dignitaries, including Mayor Michael Nutter, took the stage to make welcoming speeches.

And it seemed that the Sunday evening ceremony would end in pomp and circumstance.

But whoever might have thought so probably had not reckoned on the Greater Kensington String Band.

The Kensington Band took the joint (can we call Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center a “joint?”) by storm. Some 6,000 dancers and thousands more family members, dance teachers, judges, officials and fans from around the world are attending this first-ever championship in North America, and it was pretty clear most of them had never seen a genuine Philadelphia Mummer before.

It didn’t take them long to get into the spirit of things, though. Much to the amazement of the Kensington band—and possibly the horror of Kimmel Center ushers—dozens of dancers converged on the stage, some of them clambering up over the edge in their clunky hard shoes, dignity forgotten.

In a matter of minutes, it felt more like New Year’s Day on Broad Street.

Like everybody else in the place, a photographer from Maryland was swept up in the spirit of things. “This is a great day for Philadelphia,” he said.

Ain’t it the truth. We have photos, above.

Check out our Mummers videos:

April 6, 2009 by Jeff Meade

News

As the Parade (Still!) Passes By

The Emerald Pipe Band marches up the Parkway.

We stumbled upon the New York Police Department Pipe Band as the pipers were warming up on JFK Boulevard, before the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day parade had started. They were making such a great noise, we just had to snag some video.

And that was just the beginning.

As the parade marched on, we found lots more reasons to haul out the videocam. For example, that Cloughaneely Marching Band from Donegal was pretty darn cute and irresistable. The Philadelphia Emerald Pipe Band looked so sharp in green tunics and saffron kilts. And dancers … hey, we just had to squeeze off a few frames of dancers. And what’s a parade in Philadelphia without a couple of blocks worth of music from a string band?

Relive the day with our video memories:

April 1, 2009 by Jeff Meade

Music

Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day With Solas

Two noteworthy changes to Solas as they appeared at World Café Live on St. Patrick’s Day.

First, vocalist Máiréad Phelan seems now more comfortably and confidently integrated into the band. Máiréad replaced Deirdre Scanlon last year. We first saw Máiréad at World Café not long after the release of the band’s latest, “For Love and Laughter.” She sang well, but her time on stage was limited to her vocal performance and she seemed, to me, a bit shy.

In her St. Pat’s performance, she seemed much more confident, and she spent more time on stage. When she wasn’t singing, she added piano accompaniment. Overall, a more complete performance. It’s easy to underestimate her vocal power, but it really came through in this show.

The second noteworthy change: box player Mick McAuley has lost his signature ponytail.

Other than that, it was just another Solas performance—an amazing display of musical virtuosity. If Solas ever has an “off” performance, I haven’t heard it. Whether roaring through a blast of reels or delivering a soulful rendition of the traditional “Mollai Na GCuach Ni Chuilleanain (Curly Haired Molly),” Solas—even with all the changes to the lineup over a decade—is still one of the most creative and dynamic Irish bands going.

In their most recent home town performance, Solas performed many tunes off the most recent CD, including Ricky Lee Jones’s “Sailor Song” and “Seven Curses” (with tight harmonies by McAuley and guitarist Eamon McElholm on the latter). McAuley also paid tribute to the late songwriter John Martyn with his moving rendition of “Spencer the Rover.”

Noting that “the banjo is an occasionally maligned instrument,” leader Seamus Egan went on to set things right with a blistering performance of “Vital Mental Medicine.” And the bow-shredding fiddler Winifred Horan, when she wasn’t setting new land speed records on assorted jigs and reels, offered more laid-back displays of her talent such as her lovely and sad “My Dream of You.” (“We’re not actually that depressed,” she insisted.)

Nor were we.

March 27, 2009 by Jeff Meade

Music, People

The Chieftains Deliver the Goods Again

It was a stripped-down version of the Chieftains playing in Verizon Hall for this year’s St. Patrick’s Day concert—they were missing fiddler Sean Keane, said to be averse to making long flights at this stage of his career. Canadian fiddler Jon Pilatzke stepped in to fill the breach and—with help from Nashville bluegrass fiddler Deanie Richardson, singer/guitarist Jeff White and harper Triona Marshall—the Chieftains had no problem dazzling a Philadelphia audience once again.

Chieftains leader Paddy Moloney probably has lost count of the number of St. Patrick’s Day concerts the band has played in Philadelphia, but it’s enough so that a Chieftains concert has become an essential and expected part of the annual Delaware Valley celebrations.

If you saw last year’s Kimmel Center concert, this year’s version was virtually a carbon copy of last year’s. If anyone noticed, they didn’t seem to mind. By this point, the Chieftains have their act down to a science. The band played selections highlighting the various stages of their career, from the traditional jigs and reels to tunes from “Down the Old Plank Road,” one of their forays into American bluegrass and country.

But the Chieftains always have a “next” project going, and they offered a preview. The next recording heads down Mexico way for a musical commemoration of the San Patricios, a band of Irishmen who fought on the side of Mexico in the Mexican-American war. “They were shooting Catholics down there in Mexico,” said Moloney in an unusually succinct summary of the Irish volunteers’ involvement, “and they didn’t like that.”

For this selection, the Chieftains were joined on stage by a group of pipers and drummers from City of Washington Pipe Band, one of just three grade 1 competition pipe bands in the United States. Together they played a “March to the Battle,” filling Verizon Hall with the droning sound of pipes, leading into a stirring lament, featuring Moloney on uilleann pipes.

Of course, traditional Irish is what this St. Patrick’s crowd came for, and the Chieftains were only to happy to oblige. Just because a Chieftains performance has become a somewhat predictable commodity doesn’t overshadow the fact that they’re still masters of their art. They’ve been at it for 45 years, but they easily match the energy of much younger bands.

Joining Moloney, flutist Matt Molloy and Kevin Conneff, the Chieftains’ singer and bodhran player, was Scottish singer Alyth McCormack, who delivered a memorable version of “The Foggy Dew.”

As is the custom with Chieftains shows, dance also figured prominently, with frenetic performances by the Jon Pilatzke and brother Nathan, and Cara Butler. The highlight of their performance was a crazy legs little dance featuring all three seated in chairs.

Coming to the stage late in the show were members of the Ryan-Kilcoyne School of Irish Dance.

A standing O was also predictable—and richly deserved.

March 27, 2009 by Jeff Meade

News, People

Many Ways to Observe the Day

Gathering at the Philadelphia Irish Memorial.

Beer, first thing in the morning. It takes some getting used to.

Mind you, I didn’t indulge—by 10, I would have needed a nap—but I stand in awe of those who did.

Of course, the main attraction at the Patrick Kerr Benefit at Fado in Center City and at Judge Jimmy Lynn’s annual festivities at the Plough and Stars in Old City was breakfast. And if you were into Irish bacon, blood sausages and brown bread—who isn’t?—there was plenty to keep you fat and happy.

The affair at Fado was relatively low-key, but obviously satisfying to those who support the scholarship fund. At Jimmy Lynn’s bash, on the other hand, it was standing room—make that squeezing room—only. It was the most crowded I’ve seen the place. There was barely room for the McDade and Peter Smith school dancers who dropped by, or for the St, Malachy College musicians from Belfast.

In other words, a perfectly wonderful time.

Later in the morning, a more solemn occasion—the annual obervance a few blocks away at the Irish Memorial on Penn’s landing.

We have all the events of that unusually sunny and warm morning.

March 18, 2009 by Jeff Meade

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