Denise Foley

Not soccer, Gaelic football!

If you’ve given up on the Phillies already, why not try some Gaelic sports? The University Gaelic Football and Hurling Tournament is in Philadelphia on Saturday. Hosted by St. Joseph’s University Gaelic Football Club, the match between a dozen or so college-level Gaelic footballers and hurlers will take place at Monsignor Bonner High School, 403 N. Lansdowne Avenue in Drexel Hill, starting at 1 PM and going till sundown.

If you’ve never been up close and personal with Gaelic football and hurling, we can promise you an action-packed day.

Then on Sunday, head over to Bishop McDevitt High School in Wyncote for an open house with the Glenside Gaelic Athletic Association, the latest club for youngsters interested in football, hurling, and camogie (the ladies’ version of hurling). It’s a way for kids to have fun, get exercise, and help carry on Irish culture in America.

On Saturday night, Jamison provides the music for the AOH Black Jack Kehoe Div. 4’s annual fundraiser at the Regal Banquet Hall in Prospect Park. All proceeds benefit AOH charities, such as the Hibernian Hunger Project, which provides food to the needy.

On Sunday, the Derry Society is holding its annual spring social at the Irish Center. There will be music (The Shantys and the Derry Brigade), a DJ playing music for the kids—the social is always very kid-centric. Of course, there’s food and Irish dancers.

On Monday, the Teetotallers—the extraordinary fiddler Martin Hayes, multi-instrumentalist Kevin Crawford (Lunasa) and guitarist John Doyle—will be performing at Ware Recital Hall in the Swope Building on the West Chester University campus. These are world-class Irish musicians (and Kevin Crawford is really funny).

On Wednesday, the individuals and groups that won awards in the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be honored at an event at Finnigan’s Wake, 3rd and Spring Garden Streets in Philadelphia. The $25 price includes a buffet dinner, beverages and entertainment. And you don’t have to be an award winner to attend. The CBS3 parade team often shows up.

On Thursday, the Irish Pub at 20th and Walnut Streets in Philadephia is holding its annual Gathering of Heroes to benefit the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, founded in 1995 to provide support for children of Marines and federal law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty or under exceptional circumstances. This year, four Medal of Honor recipients will be in attendance, all veterans of the Vietnam War. There will be opportunities to meet and talk to these men—two Navy Seal veterans, one Army vet, and a Marine—who will also sign autographs and pose for photos.

Also on Thursday night, there will be a free screening of the documentary “Embrace the Brutality: A Continental Divide Adventure,” by local film maker Shane O’Donnell at the McSwiney Club in Jenkintown. The film, about a group of hikers who hit the trail from Mexico to Monday, features the music of local group RUNA, the John Byrne Band, Rorey Carroll, and others.

And a real treat for you Saw Doctors and Water Boys lovers—you know who you are. Leo Moran of the Saw Doctors and Anthony Thistlethwaite of The Water Boys will be performing together on stage at the Tin Angel on Second Street in Philadelphia on Friday night. Opening for them, half of the John Byrne Band: John Byrne and Maura Dwyer. (We don’t know where Rob Shaffer is, but Andy Keenan is touring with Amos Lee.) To get reserved seating at the concert at this tiny venue, you need to make a reservation for dinner at Serrano, the restaurant downstairs. And you have to eat there—they only honor reservations for actual diners. (You folks who made reservations and didn’t show up for dinner—shame on you!)

It’s not too late to get tickets for the annual Charlie Dunlop Memorial Fundraiser, slated for next Saturday, April 19. Named for a beloved Delaware County man with roots in Tyrone, the Charlie Dunlop Memorial Fund carries on the work of the man who died too young—offering a helping hand to those in crisis. Look for more information on this event and others on our calendar.

The descendants of Patrick Murphy look at special photos at the Irish Center.

Constructing an Irish family tree poses particular challenges. First, there’s the dearth of written records. Not only were the most fruitful life events—birth, marriage, death—not recorded until 1864, many of those records were lost to fire during Ireland’s 1922 Civil War and to other calamities (including being pulped to support war effort in World War I).

And in many Irish-American families, roots run deep and wide. Siblings were separated, by oceans or land, as they sought new opportunities. For some, contact became sporadic and eventually faded to black. The prejudice the new immigrants encountered in America propelled them to quickly shed their Irishness and with their self-imposed rapid Americanization, family histories were lost in the silence. For modern family historians, those roots remain hidden from view, sometimes forever, sometimes until some fate intervenes.

In the 21st century, fate uses social media: You suddenly come across photos of your great grandparents on flickr.com or read familiar names in a post on a genealogy page on Facebook that you stumbled upon.

It was social media that finally brought the roots of Marianne MacDonald’s mother’s family, the Murphys of Tuosist, Collorus Point, County Kerry, to the surface, and a couple of weeks ago, she gathered about a dozen long-lost cousins from Florida, Tennessee, New York, and North Jersey at the Commodore Barry Club (The Irish Center) in Philadelphia where they shared their separate “bits and pieces” of family history.

Including letters from the girls their Great-Aunt Peggie met when she lived for a time in Ireland with an aunt, after the death of her mother. And photos of the Murphy headstones in Tuosist, some barely legible, that cousin Ellen Dyal of Jacksonville, Florida, took when she was in Ireland last year.

It was when Dyal was preparing for her trip, her second, that she came across a Facebook page dedicated to Tuosist, the parish on the scenic Beara Peninsula where the Murphy clan lived. There, she saw Marianne MacDonald’s post seeking information about her grandmother, Julia, Peggie Murphy’s sister. And the sister of Dyal’s grandfather, Patrick.

“I read it and thought, oh my God, my sister had just given me a piece of paper with a lot of the family names and Julia’s name was on it,” says Dyal. “I realized that she was the sister of my grandfather, Patrick Murphy. I tried to message Marianne and Facebook told me it would cost me $1 to send a message to her since I didn’t know her and I decided to pay the dollar. Five minutes later I heard from her. ‘Oh my God, we’re cousins!’”

The two got on the phone and talked for an hour and a half. MacDonald, a special education teacher from Mantua, NJ, who hosts the “Come West Along the Road” Irish radio hour every Sunday on WTMR, 80 FM, was able to hook Dyal up with people in Tuosist she met during her many trips back who knew the Murphy family. That included the postmistress, Maureen O’ Sullivan, who helped Dyal find the family home, a large, rambling house on secluded wooded point that had been vacant for many years before being turned into a holiday home. “She even remembered my grandfather going back every year,” says Dyal.

During her last trip, MacDonald says, she spent two hours talking to O’Sullivan whose prodigious memory turned up another cousin, Ed Murphy of Monmouth County, NJ, who attended the Philadelphia reunion. “She said to me, there was another Murphy here a couple of years ago and she pulled out a big ledger, and there was his address and phone number, so I called him.”

It turned out that their paths had likely crossed before. “We started talking and realized that we had been at the same Irish events at the same time,” says MacDonald, laughing. They just don’t remember meeting.

That wasn’t the only coincidence these Murphy descendants uncovered. When MacDonald was looking for her grandmother on the 1930 US Census, she discovered that Dyal’s grandfather, Patrick Murphy, was rooming with her grandparents in New York. And Ellen found a letter from her grandfather, written after MacDonald’s grandmother’s death, saying, Julia, had been his “favorite sister.”

The family lost touch for many reasons. For one, there were 10 children scattered all over, some across the country, others in Ireland and England. There’s no information on two of the siblings at all. Dyal’s mother married a man named Shapiro and was, for a time, ostracized by the family for marrying out of the Catholic faith. Her grandfather, Patrick Murphy, had only daughters, so their Murphy line was subsumed by other family names.

Not all the Murphys could make the Philadelphia reunion, including Kevin, whom MacDonald met via email several years ago after he saw her photos from Collarus Point on flickr.com, a photo storage site.

But they’re planning another one. “We were all so thrilled to meet each other—it was the best thing eve,” says MacDonald, “so we’re thinking of going to Ireland next spring. Ellen is in touch with the cousins in England, so they may come.”

In Irish genealogy circles, that’s what’s known as a sublimely happy ending.

See our photos of the Murphy Family Reunion.

2013 Philadelphia Rose, Brittany Killion, singing “Rose of Tralee.”

On April 11 at the Radnor Hotel, 27-year-old Congressional caseworker Brittany Killion will be giving up her crown as the Philadelphia Rose of Tralee. The Rose of Tralee is one of Ireland’s oldest festivals, celebrating Irish culture, heritage, and the beauty and talent of young women of Irish descent. Thousands flock to Kerry in August for the festival and even more watch it on television.

So last Saturday’s Rose of Tralee Mother-Daughter Tea in Radnor was bittersweet—like the song, “Rose of Tralee,” Killion of Glen Mills sang to the dozens of young women—the little Rosebuds and tween and teen Rose Petals and some of this year’s Rose candidates—who attended the event.

The Rose of Tralee Selection will be held at the hotel on Friday, April 11, starting at 7 PM, with CBS3’s consumer reporter Jim Donovan repeating his role as master of ceremonies. The judging panel will be chaired by David Brennan, GM of the Wayne Hotel. He will be joined by the 2007 Philadelphia Rose, Colleen Gallagher and the President of the Glenside GAA Club, Brendan Gallagher.

The Mary O’Connor Spirit Award, which honors Irish and Irish American women who have made contributions to the community, will be presented to Aisling Travers, a college student who has traveled to Honduras with Amigos de Jesus to work with children and who, while still a student at Great Valley High School, started a program called Kid to Kid which recruited more than 150 student volunteers to work in the Child Life Center at Nemours/Alfred I. Dupont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE.

Here are some photos from the Mother-Daughter Tea. You can also click on the slideshow at the top of the page.

You can win a $100 gift certificate by posting a photo of your favorite Irish eyes on Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #2014IrishEyes.

A St. Baldrick’s celebration–like this one with the Second Street Irish Society–involves serious hair loss–for a good cause.

This Saturday morning, Archbishop Charles Chaput will celebrate the 17th annual cultural heritage Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. Members of the Irish community are invited to attend along with other ethnic groups served by the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

On Saturday afternoon, the Theresa Flanagan Band will perform at a fundraiser for St. Lucy School for the Blind at the Holy Innocents School Hall in Philadelphia.

The Shantys will be on stage at Molly Maguire’s in Lansdale on Saturday night.

Then on Sunday, the Broken Shillelaghs will be providing the music as the Collingswood Firefighters for a Cure will be having their heads shaved as part of the St. Baldrick’s Fundraiser for Pediatric Cancer at Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood.

The Derry Brigade will be at the Anglesea Pub in North Wildwood, NJ on Friday, April 4, followed by the Shantys on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, April 5, spend an evening with Gerry Timlin. The popular singer and storyteller will be at Act II Playhouse in Ambler.

On April 6, view the documentary, “The Ballymurphy Massacre,” about a controversial case of 10 people by British soldiers in West Belfast in 1971, with a Q&A following with some of the victims who will be answering questions via Skype.

Look for more details on our calendar.

Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis, and Billy McComiskey

How much do they still love Mick Moloney in Philadelphia? When the Limerick-born musician and folklorist, who sparked new interest in Irish culture in Philadelphia when he moved to the city in 1973, brought a few of his musically gifted friends to the Irish Center recently, it was standing-room only. And that’s after the concert was shifted from the small Fireside Room to the larger Barry Room to accommodate the overflow crowd.

Moloney studied and later taught at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his PhD in folklore and folklife studies. Though he currently teachers at New York University, he makes at least one trip to his first American home every year, to play in the annual fundraising concert for St. Malachy’s Church and School in North Philadelphia in the fall. Billed as “Mick Moloney and Friends,” the gig showcases some of the best traditional music talent in the world–from Billy McComiskey and Athena Tergis to Tommy Sands and Robbie O’Connell–with the added spice of local musicians like 12-year-old All-Ireland fiddle phenom Haley Richardson, Dublin-born fiddler Paraic Keane, and folk singer Dick Swain.

And his Irish Center appearance was like the St. Malachy’s concert, but without the stained glass and holy statues. He was joined by accordion player Billy McComiskey, a Brooklyn native. Athena Tergis, a fiddler from San Francisco, Michelle Mulcahy, a virtuoso harpist (All-Ireland in harp, accordion, concertina and fiddle) from Limerick, Dick Swain, who delighted the crowd with his rendition of “Off to Philadelphia in the Morning,” a tune set to a satirical poem by Rudyard Kipling, and Gerry Timlin, who sang “The Rose of Aranmore.”

Here are some photos from the evening and a video of Gerry Timlin’s performance, thanks to Rosaleen McGill of the Philadelphia Ceili Group, which sponsored the concert along with The Irish Center and www.irishphiladelphia.com. You can also click through the slideshow at the top of the page.

The Ceili Group is planning its 40th annual festival for this September and is running a crowd-sourcing campaign to bring hot new trad musicians Full Set to Philadelphia. You can contribute to the campaign, which closes on April 1, by clicking here.  There are some great incentives–including a stay in an Irish cottage–for donating.

The reigning Philadelphia Rose of Tralee, Brittany Killion.

If you’re not tired of being Irish, there’s still plenty to do this week (though nothing to match last week’s revelry, and may we say as our Granny used to, “Thanks be to God!”)

This Saturday, there’s a mom and daughter tea at the Radnor Hotel that’s free to all the participants, from Rosebuds to Petals to Roses, in the upcoming Rose of Tralee pageant. Even if you can’t go, you can win a $100 gift card by posting a photo of your favorite Irish eyes (selfies are fine) to the Rose of Tralee Center’s Facebook page (https://m.facebook.com/PhiladelphiaRoseCentre) or tweet with the hashtag #2014irisheyes @phillyrose.

Also on Saturday, St. Anne’s Shamrock Fest, featuring the group Ceili Rain, will take place at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square. This is an annual fundraiser for the school.

First Highland Watch—bagpipes go rock ‘n roll—will be performing at Molly Maguire’s in Lansdale on Saturday to celebrate the release of their new CD.

On Sunday, the McDade Cara School of Irish Dance holds its annual “Step into Spring” Showcase at Archbishop Carroll High School where you can see some of the school’s world champion dancers (they recently competed in Scotland).

On Thursday, at Delaware’s Hagley Museum in Wilmington, you can learn about the lives of the Irish immigrants and their descendants who settled along the banks of the Brandywine Creek, many employed at the DuPont Company’s powder yards—a dangerous job involving explosives. Yet, these employees remained grateful and loyal to the DuPonts who helped them to emigrate, provided free or low-cost housing, interest-bearing savings accounts and widows’ pensions.

On Friday, Andy Maher and his band will be playing songs from the ‘70s and ‘80s (suitable for dancing) at The Irish Center in Philadelphia.

There are other, regular events on our calendar that might interest you. Give it a visit.