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Jeff Meade

Music, News

Still Bringing Music to Ambler

Gerry Timlin

In the Delaware Valley, his name is synonymous with Irish music, but what’s got Gerry Timlin really excited right now is an Italian guy who plays jazz. Not just any old guy—Vince Giordano and his 11-piece orchestra the Nighthawks, Grammy winners for their soundtrack for HBO’s hit series, Boardwalk Empire.

“He is fabulous, just fabulous,” says Timlin, who until about two years ago was owner of The Shanachie Restaurant and Pub in Ambler and is one of the movers and shakers behind the Ambler Arts and Music Festival, scheduled for June 14-15, on the borough’s main drag, Butler Avenue.

Giordano is the headliner for the two-day festival and he is quite a get. Giordano and the Nighthawks play twice a week at Sofia’s Restaurant, near the Edison Hotel in New York’s Times Square, but they headline away gigs like the Newport Jazz Festival, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Giordano and the band have also played on more than half a dozen Woody Allen soundtracks, in Francis Ford Coppola’s film, “The Cotton Club,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” and Sam Mendes’ film, “Revolutionary Road, as well as two other HBO presentations, “Grey Gardens” and “Mildred Pierce.”

It’s part of an eclectic mix of performers who will occupy two stages among vendors beer gardens, and art exhibits, including local favorites, rocker Tommy Conwell, the country-western band, 309 Express, singer-songwriter Craig Bickhardt, the McKendry Brothers, the King Brothers, party band Doc Freeman, cover band BKWG, and Jersey Shore favorites, Secret Service Band. The Trammps (“Disco Inferno”) will close out Saturday night with some R & B.

If you’re a former Shanachie denizen, you know Bickhardt, the McKendrys and the King Brothers as regulars at Timlin’s musical pub and you’re likely to hear at least some Irish music. “But the idea was to make it all-inclusive,” says Timlin, who still performs regularly solo and with partner of 40 years, Tom Kane, at Irish music venues on the East Coast.

Though Ambler has had an arts festival, this is the first year that music will be side-by-side with fine art, pottery, and jewelry makers. Timlin volunteered to help add the musical notes. “I thought this was something that could really help Ambler and I kept looking as my blueprint Bethlehem at what Musikfest and Celtic Fest have done for the Lehigh Valley.”

Most of the festival is free. Only the Giordano concert, which is being held at the Ambler Theater, is ticketed ($45). Parking is cheap ($5 no matter how long you stay). And some of Ambler’s best restaurants—and there are many—will be selling food street-fair style along with outdoor table service.

For more information, check out the festival website.

June 7, 2013 by Jeff Meade

Dance, News

A Dance Extravaganza At Penn’s Landing

Dancer Moira Cahill of the Coyle School. She’ s also the reigning Philadelphia Mary from Dungloe.

There were so many Irish dancers–representing most if not all of the dance schools in the Philadelphia region–that they didn’t fit in the area beneath the stage at the Irish Festival on Penn’s Landing on Sunday. So, some of them did their big number on the stairways that lead up through the ampitheater seating which was packed with festival goers.

It was all for Jane Richard. The 7-year-old Irish dancer from Massachusetts captured the hearts of Irish dancers everywhere. Jane’s brother, Martin, was killed in the Boston Marathon bombing in April. Her parents were also injured and Jane lost her leg. A local fund has been set up to collect money for the Richard family. The specially designed “Philadelphia Loves Boston” t-shirts that all the dancers were wearing on Sunday–and which were moving off the sale table faster than the hot dogs and beer–have been making a sizeable contribution to the fund.

We caught some of the action at the Sunday afternoon event, which followed a Mass and flag-raising ceremony at the Irish Memorial. Here are just some of the photos we took.

And a neat little video below.

June 7, 2013 by Jeff Meade

How to Be Irish in Philly

How to Be Irish in Philly This Week

Shannon Lambert-Ryan of RUNA, in Newtown on Sunday.

Our good friends, RUNA, will be performing on Sunday with the Boys from County Bucks at the Newtown Theater in Newtown, one of our favorite little Bucks County towns. Lots of places to eat and shop in Newtown—make a day of it!

Our other good pals, the Notre Dames Ladies Gaelic Football Club (2012 national champs!), will be holding a fundraiser on Saturday in Philadelphia.

This week, check out the latest entry in Irish music sessions, at Billy Murphy’s Irish Saloon in East Falls. We’ve been hearing good things about it from local musicians and we checked out the menu—mmmmm, looks good. Not diet food, but they’ve gotten media kudos for their burgers and they’re very beer-centric. The session is every Thursday night.

Also, all this week: a special exhibition of contemporary art and literary manuscripts as part of the build-up to Bloomsday at the Rosenbach Museum on Delancey Place in Philadelphia. Bloomsday (June 16) celebrates the stroll around Dublin by Leopold Bloom chronicled in James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” The museum has an original hand-written copy of the manuscript on display.

Next weekend is the Penn-Mar Irish Festival, featuring the Elders, the Screaming Orphans (we love them!), Nua, and other bands, as well as Irish dancers, kids’ activities, and loads of vendors. The 13th annual event takes place in Glen Rock, PA.

And you can catch Blackthorn next weekend at YachtStock River Jam, a charity event at the West End Boat Club at Essington. You don’t need your own yacht to get in.

June 6, 2013 by Jeff Meade

How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Hey, we did this!

Festival fever this weekend!

The annual AOH Montgomery County Irish Festival runs all weekend at St. Michael’s Picnic Grove in Mont Clare, PA, featuring Jamison, the Bogside Rogues, Irish Thunder, the Celtic Flame Irish dancers, the McGillians and Tom McHugh, as well as vendors, food, and kids’ activities. It’s only $7-10 to get in (or $20 for the entire weekend).

On Sunday, the annual Irish Festival on Penn’s Landing kicks off at 1 after an outdoor Mass at the Irish Memorial. Blackthorn, the Hooligans, and Jamison will be performing.

Later in the afternoon, dancers from the region’s Irish dance schools will perform together as a tribute to 7-year-old Jane Richard, an Irish dancers from Massachusetts who lost a leg in the Boston Marathon bombing. The schools and other Irish organizations have been raising money to send to the Richard Family Fund to help defray medical costs for the family. Jane’s 8-year-old brother was killed in the terrorist attack and her parents were both injured.

And it’s a festival of sorts—actually of language—at the Irish Center on Saturday. It’s the annual Satharn na nGael, a day of immersion in the Irish language. It’s the place to be if you want to learn the language of your forebears or just pick up a few more phrases other than “Erin go bragh” to mutter on St. Patrick’s Day and amaze all your friends. There will also be “craic.” You’ll have to go there to find out what that is, but trust us, you’ll like it.

Also on Saturday, you can enjoy an up-close-and-personal concert with Celtic Thunder’s Paul Byrom at Normandy Farm Hotel and Conference Center in Blue Bell. Very few tickets were available to start with—only 40—and they’re pricey. But if you’re a Byrom fan, it may be worth it.

And that’s not all: GaelFest, an all-star Irish festival featuring Joannie Madden of Cherish the Ladies and friends, is on at the Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft, NJ. Some of our local GAA teams will be on hand to give demonstrations. And Enter the Haggis is on stage at the Sellersville Theatre on Saturday night.

The 40th Anniversary Show featuring Timlin & Kane in Bethlehem was cancelled and will be rescheduled later.

In the run up to Bloomsday (June 16), the annual celebration of Leopold Bloom’s famous walk around Dublin chronicled by James Joyce in “Ulysses,” the Rosenbach Museum and Library has launched a Bloomsday Exhibition of Contemporary Art and Literary Manuscripts. The Rosenbach owns a hand-written copy of “Ulysses” that you can get pretty close to. There’s also the entire text of a novel written out in 310 yellow rubber kitchen gloves. Don’t ask. Or, rather, ask—that’s what the Rosenbach is all about. It’s a magical little spot on Delancey Place in Philadelphia and worth the trip.

If you’re down in Holmes on Friday night, catch Jamison at RP Murphy’s.

If you’re closer to Philly on Friday night, come and celebrate with us. We’re having a party to honor the musicians who play on our own CD, Ceili Drive. The musicians get in free (let us know if you’re coming, guys and gals!), and there’s a $25 charge for everyone else which gets you hot and cold appetizers, wine, beer, and soft drinks, and, of course, music. It’s at the Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, starting at 7:30 PM. All proceeds from anything we do go right back into the website, which Jeff Meade, Lori Lander Murphy, and I do in our spare time and on our own dime.

Here’s our dream: To be able to hire reporters to get to the events and write about (photograph and video) the terrific things we see in the Irish community that we don’t have time to do. We have started paying some of our formerly volunteer photographers (a pittance of course) and we’d like to have some extra cash to pass to writers. We don’t take any money ourselves. Our reward has been the wonderful people we’ve been blessed to meet while doing this for the past seven years—and the great craic we’ve enjoyed with them. But we all have spouses who think it would be nice to have a weekend where they’re not hearing yet another version of “The Fields of Athenry” (I never get tired of it) or baking in the broiling sun watching Gaelic football (I never get tired of it), so we can’t be everywhere and do everything (okay, that does make me tired).

Thanks for all the support you’ve given us in the past, especially those of you who helped us fund “Ceili Drive” in about 24 hours (we cried). Come out and let us thank you in person. (Oh, and we all have birthdays within weeks of one another, so you can help us celebrate that too.) Hope to see you there!

Click below to hear Blackthorn’s John and Michael Boyce, with their sister, Karen Boyce McCollum, sing “Peggy Gordon,” a track from “Ceili Drive.”

May 31, 2013 by Jeff Meade

History, News

Remembering Commodore Barry

Joe Tobin of the Emerald Society Pipe Band.

With an honor guard of University of Pennsylvania Navy ROTC cadets, an Irish piper, and dozens of churchgoers and representatives from local Irish organizations, the life and accomplishments of Commodore John Barry, revolutionary war hero and father of the US Navy, were remembered again, as they always are on Memorial Day, on Sunday at Old St. Mary’s Church in Philadelphia.

Barry, who was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1745, came to the colonies as a young man with a long history at sea to offer his service to the new American Congress. The government bought his ship, the Black Prince, and renamed it Alfred. Lt. John Paul Jones hoisted the first American flag in its rigging.

Barry took over the Lexington, a ship with 14 guns, which sailed out in March 1776 and barely a week later, engaged in battle with the British man-of-war Liverpool, which he captured and brought into Philadelphia. Over the course of the next few years– the Revolutionary War years–Barry served valiantly in several campaigns, including on land in the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. In 1780. Barry and his men captured three enemy vessels and he was later wounded in battle.

After the war, Barry was appointed number one on the list of Captains in the US Navy, his commission signed by General George Washington.

He died at 58, and was buried in the graveyard of his parish church, St. Mary’s, the second Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia. Built in 1763 as an adjunct to the city’s oldest Catholic Church, St. Joseph’s, St. Mary’s is celebrating its 250th birthday this year. Archbishop Charles Chaput, head of the Philadelphia archdiocese, co-celebrated Sunday’s Mass with Pastor, Msgr. Paul A. DiGirolamo.

View our photos of the day.

May 31, 2013 by Jeff Meade

News, People

Rest in Peace, Mary O’Kane

Mary O’Kane

A well-loved member of Philadelphia’s Irish community has passed away. Radio personality Mary O’Kane died Thursday night in hospice, attended by daughters Bonnie Kelly and Teri McQuaid.

Local radio host Marianne MacDonald remembered Mary O’Kane as “a great friend.” MacDonald will be doing a tribute show in her usual noon slot on WTMR 800 AM. Tune in to “Come West Along the Road,” and share your memories.

A funeral Mass will be held at Sacred Heart Church, in Manoa, on June 5 at 10:30 am. Burial at Holy Cross Cemetery. Reception to follow at Sacred Heart Parish Hall. All are welcome.

We’ll have more to share in days to come.

May 24, 2013 by Jeff Meade

Sports

Irish Heritage Night at the Phillies 2013

Brittany Killion and friend

We already know how amazingly talented the local band Runa is. What we didn’t know is that they can put a spin on the National Anthem, the likes of which you probably haven’t heard before. And we mean that in a really good way—not in the Roseanne Barr sense of things. Syncopated yes, with drummer Cheryl Prashker setting the pace on her djembe, a tiny bit Celtic, a tiny bit rock. All in all, probably the best version we’ve heard. Bring them back.

Runa was on the field at Citizens Bank Park last week for Irish Heritage Night at the Phillies. Many of the regions’s Irish organizations joined in the pre-game festivities. It seemed like every local dance school was jigging and reeling along the first and third base lines and the warning track. 2013 Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade Grand Marshal Harry Marnie threw out the first pitch. (Good arm, possible middle relief. Sign him.) The Philly Phanatic smooched 2013 Rose of Tralee winner Brittany Killion. You couldn’t get more Irish.

Did the Phillies win? We forget.

We snapped a few dozen photos of the evening’s proceedings.

Check them out here.

May 24, 2013 by Jeff Meade

History

Old St. Mary’s Church Celebrates 250 Years

Old St. Mary’s

For a pastor, every church has its challenges, and its unique rewards. The Rev. Msgr. Paul A. DiGirolamo has been a pastor before, at St. Joan of Arc parish in Kensington, but for the past five years he has overseen the day-to-day running of one of the most treasured churches in Philadelphia, if not the nation. Its cemetery is a who’s who of historical figures, not the least of which is Commodore John Barry—who was born in Ireland’s County Wexford, emigrated to America, and would become known throughout American history as the father of the U.S. Navy.

Old St. Mary’s is marking its 250th anniversary on Sunday, and hosting a Memorial Day weekend observance to celebrate the life of the illustrious Commodore Barry.

Msgr. DiGirolamo is a South Philly native with a master’s degree in history from Villanova. He is also the judicial vicar for the Metropolitan Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which oversees matrimonial cases. Like any priest, Msgr. DiGirolamo has pastoral responsibilities—masses, baptisms, funerals—but he is keenly aware that the church is also a landmark.

“I might not be dealing with 3,000 families in a large suburban parish,” he says, “but I’m running a smaller operation, and I’m doing it myself. We’re open most of the time—we’re part of the tour.” Administrative skills are required, but, he adds, “the master’s in history helps, too.”

From the outside, Msgr. DiGirolamo observes, Old St. Mary’s can seem unassuming. An entry on history.org describes it best: “The facade of the building is flat and made of brick.” But the listing goes on to say: “The church’s interior, and especially the balcony, is captivating and worth a visit. A revealing slice of religion in early America awaits.”

That’s precisely how Msgr. DiGirolamo believes visitors respond to the worship space of Old St. Mary’s. “First, they are struck by the beauty of the church,” he says. “Given the fact that it reflects different renovations, it is quite beautiful, and no one expects that. On the outside, most people don’t know it is a church. There’s just an added dimension here that a lot of parishes don’t have.”

Sunday offers a unique opportunity to visit Old St. Mary’s. The 250th anniversary observance begins with a commemorative Mass, starting at 11 a.m., and celebrated by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput and Msgr. DiGirolamo. After Mass, a procession led by members of the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band and the University of Pennsylvania ROTC Honor Guard will make a stop outside the church for a reading at the Commodore Barry Plaque, and will continue on to the commodore’s gravesite, where a wreath laying ceremony will take place.

Several prominent organizations will take part, including Irish societies from the Philadelphia irish Center/Commodore Barry Club, the Commodore Barry Club of Brooklyn, the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, and the American Catholic Historical Society.

May 24, 2013 by Jeff Meade

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