Who could resist?
Homemade floats, string bands, Irish step dancers, AOHers, dogs in green gear, babies in green gear. . .Bucks County’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, held on a March 15 as warm as spring, was everything you’d want from a small town parade. Even more–they had the Shriner’s on motorcycles too!
Gwyneth MacArthur was there and took photos of the parade as it wound its way through Levittown. View her pictures here.
Our prize for capturing the spirit of the parade–not the get-up but the great big smile.
It may have been windy and brisk–the nice if misleading way to say cold–on Sunday, but that didn’t stop record crowds from lining the Parkway for the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day parade. Until the clouds rolled in, it was warmer in the sun. What appeared to be every Irish organization in the city and then some marched to the tunes of pipe bands, string bands, high school bands, and some infectiously rhythmic drum lines to the reviewing stand near Eakins Oval where a beaming Grand Marshal Jim Murray waved to every single one.
Some parade-goers took over their usual spots along the route. We even met one family that set up a table and chairs (and we spied some red Solo cups) on a traffic island. They did it every year, they told us. It was their annual St. Patrick’s Day party, right there in the middle of the street, where the parade passed by.
We took loads of photos. If you’re looking for a particular group and you don’t see it in our four sets, drop us an email and we’ll see if we have what you’re looking for.
Set 1. The Mass at St. Patrick’s
Set 2. Parade Photos
Set 3. Parade photos
Set 4. Parade photos
Here’s a list of the prize-winning marchers:
Hon. James H.J. Tate Award
(Founded 1980, this was named the Enright Award Prior to 1986)
Sponsored by: Mike Driscoll & Michael Bradley
Group that Best Exemplified the Spirit of the Parade
Philadelphia Fire Department
Msgr. Thomas J. Rilley Award (Founded 1980)
Outstanding Fraternal Organization
Sponsored by: AOH Division 39 Msgr. Thomas J. Rilley
Second Street Irish Society
George Costello Award (Founded 1980)
Organization with the Outstanding Float in the Parade
Sponsored by: The Irish Society
Irish of Havertown
Hon. Vincent A. Carroll Award (Founded 1980)
Outstanding Musical Unit Excluding Grade School Bands:
Sponsored by: John Dougherty
Bishop Shanahan Cheerleaders & Marching Band
Anthony J. Ryan Award (Founded 1990)
Outstanding Grade School Band
Sponsored by: The Ryan Family
St. Aloysius Academy Marching Band
Walter Garvin Award (Founded 1993)
Outstanding Children’s Irish Dance Group
Sponsored by: Walter Garvin Jr.
Rince Ri School of Irish Dance
Marie C. Burns Award (Founded 2003)
Outstanding Adult Dance Group
Sponsored by: Philadelphia Emerald Society
Tara Gael Dancers
Joseph E. Montgomery Award (Founded 2006)
Outstanding AOH and/or LAOH Divisions
Sponsored by: AOH Div. 65 Joseph E. Montgomery
AOH Division 22 Firefighter John J. Redmond & LAOH Division 22 St. Florian
Joseph J. “Banjo” McCoy Award (Founded 2006)
Outstanding Fraternal Organization
Sponsored by: Schuylkill Irish Society
St. Thomas More High School Alumni Association
James F. Cawley Parade Director’s Award (Founded 2006)
Outstanding Irish Performance or Display Chosen by the Parade Director
Sponsored by: AOH Division 87 Port Richmond
Cara School of Irish Dance
Father Kevin C. Trautner Award (Founded 2008)
Outstanding School or Religious Organization that displays their Irish Heritage while promoting Christian Values
Sponsored by: Kathy McGee Burns
St. Denis Parish/Cardinal Foley School Havertown
Maureen McDade McGrory Award (Founded 2008)
Outstanding Children’s Irish Dance Group Exemplifying the Spirit of Irish Culture through Traditional Dance.
Sponsored by: McDade School of Irish Dance
McDade-Cara Championship Irish Dancers
James P. “Jim” Kilgallen Award (Founded 2011)
Outstanding organization that best exemplifies the preservation of Irish-American unity through charitable endeavors to assist those less fortunate at home and abroad.
Sponsored by: Michael Bradley
AOH Division # 39 Monsignor Thomas J Rilley
Mary Theresa Dougherty Award (Founded 2012)
Outstanding organization dedicated to serving the needs of God’s people in the community.
Sponsored by: St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association Board
Haverford HS Best Buddies
Paul J. Phillips Jr. Award (Founded 2012)
Outstanding parade marshal.
Sponsored by: Robert M. Gessler
John Gallagher
Phillip ‘Knute’ Bonner Award (Founded 2013)
Award given to the outstanding organization dedicated to preserve our freedom and protect us through sacrifice and compassion for others.
Sponsored by: Mary Beth Bonner Ryan
Irish Immigration Center
Photos by Jeff Meade, Gwyneth MacArthur and Denise Foley
TImlin & Kane at the Capitol. And yes, that’s President Obama at right. Photo courtesy of Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick
People who know musician Gerry Timlin know that he’s rarely—make that never—at a loss for words. Or a joke. Or a story.
Until now. Timlin, a native of Tyrone, Northern Ireland, who has been performing for more than 41 years with Tom Kane as Timlin & Kane, falters and tears up when he talks about their March 14 performance at a very special venue—the Capitol building in Washington—in front of an audience that included the President and Vice President of the United States and the Prime Minister (Taoiseach) of Ireland.
“I don’t have the words to describe the feeling,” he says haltingly. “In my mind I was back at number 8 Main Street in Coalisland (County Tyrone) in my barber shop, then there I was walking out of the Capitol Building and shaking hands with the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Ireland. I can’t describe it properly It was. . .surreal? I keep grasping for words.”
Timlin and Kane were the only performers invited to entertain the dignitaries at the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon in the Rayburn Room on Capitol Hill, formally hosted by Speaker of the House John Boehner. Also in attendance, a group of ministers from Northern Ireland, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and House Majority Whop Kevin McCarthy.
The musicians even got the disparate group to join in the chorus of “Wild Rover,” a St. Patrick’s Day sing-along staple, with requisite hand claps. “They were all singing and clapping, the four claps, the two, and then the one,” says Timlin, who starts to regain his story-telling powers. “It was a pretty cool thing to see those Republicans and Democrats sitting there singing, having a wine and clapping to the song.”
And yes, the president joined in. After the performance, during which the two performed “Isle of Hope,” which tells the story of Annie Moore, the first immigrant through the gates at Ellis Island, and “Black Velvet Band,” President Obama stood with them on stage for a photograph. Timlin wasn’t tongue-tied then. “I just leaned over to the president and said, I’m a big fan, nice to meet you, and I hope that first song got you another vote for the immigration bill.”
Timlin had chosen “Isle of Hope” as the duo’s opening song because he knew that Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Enda Kenny’s address to the group would touch on Irish immigration. Members of the immigration reform lobby from Pennsylvania last week walked the halls of Congress, buttonholing local legislators seeking their support for immigration reform and more green cards for Irish immigrants. Although the Irish economy is on the upswing, unemployment is still in the double digits and more educated young people are emigrating—just not to the US.
He was sure it had been the right choice, he said, when he caught the eye of Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein deputy first minister of Northern Ireland. “ I looked down at his table and there he was with a glass of wine in his hand, giving me the thumbs up. Afterwards he said, ‘Good for you, Northern Ireland.’”
Timlin and Kane’s most unusual gig came about because one of Timlin’s closest friends and golf buddies works in the office of the Sergeant of Arms, which provides security at the Capitol. “He’s in all these meetings because of the security issues and I guess they were tired of the bow-tie tenors and long gown sopranos coming in a doing, ‘Does Your Mother Come From Ireland,’ and were looking for something more lively. So he recommended us.”
His friend had given him a personal tour of the Capitol before, but he was thrilled that his partner, Tom Kane, was able to get his first this time, escorted by Bucks County Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, who Timlin has known since he was a child. (Congressman Fitzpatrick obligingly sent us photos from his phone during the performance.)
“Tom is a Vietnam vet—he was wounded in Vietnam—and he taught in the Camden schools for 31 years. He deserves it,” says Timlin. Both were also able to have their wives there for the performance “and that’s never done,” he says. “When the performance was over, Nancy Pelosi went to the back of the room to bring them to the front. She said, ‘Come on girls, we’re going to get a photograph’ and we all had our photograph taken with her.”
Their “in” also got them another “no-no:” a photo in front of the President’s limo, which is nicknamed “The Beast.”
Besides the photographs, both men also received American flags which has been flown over the Capitol earlier that morning. It was the second such flag for Timlin, who was given one by former Bucks County Congressman Jim Coyne many years ago to mark the day he became an American citizen. It came with a congratulatory letter from then President Bill Clinton.
As he talks about the flags, Gerry Timlin speaks haltingly, choked with emotion. “All I could think was what a show-and-tell this will be or my grandson,” he says. “When have you ever known me to be stuck for words? I guess I wept buckets of tears in a quiet sort of way—I was just blown away by this.”
Follow this link to a recording of the event from C-Span.
She hitched a ride in the parade.
Parade-goers staked out their spots on Saxer Avenue in Springfield, Delaware County, hours before the first marching band turned on to the street at Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. They were buying bottled water at the Wawa at the corner and, the closer it got to noon, eyeing pizza slices through the windows of Drexel Hill and Thunderbird Pizza.
It was so warm and sunny, most people were shrugging off the winter coats they donned out of habit that morning. And residents along the Sycamore-lined street were setting up tables, chairs, kegs and even barbecues—the Irish version of the lawn party.
We were there and took loads of photos.
Paul Maguire with Sister Conchita McDonnell, left, and Sister Monica Devine, right.
At the age of 26, after finishing her university studies and working for two years as a lay missionary in Nigeria, Monica Devine left her home in Roscommon to join the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary. She spent more than 30 years of her life working in Nigeria and Tanzania in Africa and today, in her 70s, she’s among a group of more than 20 retired nuns from her order who are about to move into a retirement home in Dublin. A home with a mortgage they can’t afford because, while they had experience raising money for their missions, they’ve never before done it for themselves.
The words “retirement” and “home” have different meanings for this order of nuns, founded in 1924 by Bishop Joseph Shanahan in Killeshandra, County Cavan, to minister to the underserved women in Africa. Their job: teach, heal, farm, help, and become part of the community in which they lived. “We were told, wherever you’re going, these are your people,” says Sister Monica, a tiny, slight woman with glasses and a cap of silver-streaked hair.
The Sisters took that guidance to heart. In the late 1960s, the Killeshandra nuns, as they’re known, even found themselves on different sides in the Biafran Civil War, in which more than 1 million civilians died as the result of the fighting and famine. They didn’t return home because, says Sister Conchita McDonnell, they were home.
“The sisters on both sides of the civil war made the choice to stay with the people with whom they lived,” said the nun, who, with Sister Monica, visited the Philadelphia area recently as part of a fundraising campaign coordinated by a group of local Irish community leaders to help them pay for their Dublin home. Sister Conchita was stationed with the Igbo people of Southeastern Nigeria who were farmers, crafters and traders; Sister Monica with the Tiv, mainly farmers living around Benbue river in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. And the two peoples were at war.
At one point in the early days of the conflict, says Sister Conchita, also in her 70s, she and her community were visited “surrounded by the local chief and the elders of our little village who assured me that I would be protected as one of their own.” Later, when famine began taking lives in Nigeria, Sister Conchita went to the US and Europe to the US to talk to whoever would listen about the plight of her people, a program called the “Save the Igbo People.” Last year, she was given a chieftaincy title by one of the communities she served.
The sisters’ devotion to their chosen people often had profound consequences, as Sister Monica found when she was approached by a Tiv man who told her that he had converted to Catholicism because “you knew trouble was coming and you stayed with us because of the God you believe in.” So it wasn’t surprising to her that when she reunited with some of her former students in Nigeria a year or so ago, they were perplexed by her talk about plans to build a retirement home in their native Ireland. “One of them said to me, ‘Why do you have to go to Ireland to go home? Isn’t this your home?’”
It’s how the sisters still feel—Africa is still home, though much of their work has been taken over by African Holy Rosary sisters and other congregations trained by the order, which was part of the original plan. “We were told our job was to work ourselves out of a job,” says Sister Conchita. “The whole idea was to develop the potential of the people so they could find their own giftedness.”
But as the sisters got older and began experiencing some of the illnesses that can accompany aging (“I was only at the brink of death once,” quips Sister Monica) they also felt the need to return to Ireland. ” An early plan to live in government-subsidized housing for the aged was eight years in the works when it died suddenly, along with the economic boom of the Celtic Tiger. The sisters were disappointed, largely because living with elderly poor people would have allowed them to continue to be missionaries, a calling that has not been silenced just because they’ve retired. “I would have given the sisters the opportunity to use their pastoral care experience,” says Sister Monica.
The retired nuns are temporarily living in house provided by other orders while their own home, which will provide a “simple small bedroom for every sister,” is completed, says Sister Monica.
But even when those little bedrooms are ready, the Sisters will still have to find a way to satisfy the debt they incurred to build them, says Paul Maguire, a Kildare native and principal in the accounting firm Maguire Hegarty LLC, who learned of the nuns’ plight from Father John McNamee, retired pastor of St. Malachy’s Church and School in Philadelphia.
“We’re launching an international campaign to raise $4 million for the nuns, with $2.5 million to come from America and the rest from the Irish,” explains Maguire, who is on the board of the nonprofit Friends of the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary, Inc. and a principal in Archeim Solutions, a marketing and strategic planning organization that’s coordinating the campaign.
“We have as our patron, Sabina Higgins, the wife of Irish President Michael Higgins, whose two cousins are members of the order,” says Maguire.
Over the next three years, he explains, the campaign will spread across the country with fundraising events in cities with large Irish populations, such as New York, Boston, and Chicago, but the start in Philadelphia is appropriate. One of the order’s founding nuns was Sister Philomena, born Isobel Fox, a graduate of Hallahan High School in Philadelphia, who died in 1999 at the age of 97 after spending many years in Nigeria. Maguire has introduced the sisters to some of the influential people in the region’s Irish community and to many of the county societies, asking for their financial support.
It hasn’t been easy for the nuns. “We’ve never done any fundraising for ourselves; it’s all been for the missions,” says Sister Conchita. They had really never given any thought to their own futures until now.
But what made it less awkward for them is that they’ve always seen those who contribute to them as “co-missionaries,” she says. And they’ve always had something valuable to give back in thanks. ”We pray for them every day,” she says. “many times a day.”
There are some who would say that’s better than a tax write-off.
To donate to the Killeshandra nuns, make checks payable to the Friends of the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary, Inc., and send it to P.O. Box 589, Norristown, PA 19404. For more information, email Donations@knuns.org. The organization has filed for charity status so donations can be tax deductible.
Philly Grand Marshal Jim Murray with Miss Mayo, Erin Carroll, and that Super Bowl ring.
We’ve already been to three St. Patrick’s Day parties. You? Well, if you’ve yet to have your first Irish potato—of the fluffy and buttery or the coconut cream Philly-style versions—or hear your first diddly-eye tune, come along with us virtually to the parties that got a jump on St. Patrick’s Day.
View of our photos of:
The Irish Immigration Center’s shades of green senior lunch, featuring the music of John Byrne with Cormac Brady and Vincent Gallagher.
Then, let’s head over to the Philopatrian Mansion in Center City for the Brehon Law Society’s after work cocktail soiree.
And then to the Grand Marshal Gala for the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade, where everyone wanted to touch Grand Marshal Jim Murray’s Superbowl ring (he was GM of the Eagles when they made it there).
We also dropped by the annual Friendly Sons of St. Patrick wreath-laying and the mayor’s proclamation of March as Irish month, both at City Hall.
Aisling Travers
Okay, let’s just get to it. There’s a lot to cover—this weekend and St. Patrick’s Day take up an entire page of our calendar (and that’s not even the half of it—not every performer adds gigs to our calendar). Here’s the week, day-by-day, hour-by-hour:
Saturday, March 15
Parades today: The 26th Annual Bucks County St. Patrick’s Day parade kicks off at 10:30 from the parking lot of St. Joseph the Worker Church on New Falls Road; the Springfield (Delco) parade launches itself down Saxer Avenue at noon; the Wilmington, DE, parade also starts at noon; Bethlehem starts its march at 1 PM, and the Conshohocken St. Patrick’s Day Parade takes over Fayette Street at 2 PM. We’ll be at three of these parades—Bucks, Springfield, and Conshohocken—so look for us and smile for the camera. Yell, “Irish Philadelphia” to get our attention.
There are some great after-parade parties too, including one at St. Kevin’s Church in Springfield and a post-Bucks bash with the Broken Shillelaghs at the Fraternal Order of the Eagles Hall in Fairless Hills.
Here’s how the day shapes up otherwise:
10:30 AM
The 69th Irish Volunteer reenactors will participate in a special flag ceremony at Independence Hall and will be marching in Sunday’s Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day parade with a new flag they’ll receive at this event.
11 AM
The First Highland Watch (bagpipes and rock ‘n roll) at Molly Magiure’s Pub in Lansdale
“The Legend of Finn McCool,” will be showing at the Ambler Theater in Ambler.
Noon
St. Patrick’s Event in the Tent with Blackthorn at the Ridley Marina in Ridley Park
1 PM
Galway Guild at Chickie and Pete’s at the Tropicana in Atlantic City
Irish music and wine at Crossing Vineyards in Newtown, PA
Belfast Connection will be starting its multi-pub marathon at Halligan’s Pub in Flourtown.
5 PM
The Bhoys of County Bucks will be playing at the historic Brick Hotel in Newtown
5:30 PM
The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick is holding its annual banquet at the Union League in Philadealphia
6 PM
The Knights of Columbus has its holiday gala at the Red Clay Room in Kennet Square
7 PM
Get ready to rock out with the second annual Jamison Paddypalooza at Curran’s Irish Inn on State Street in Philadelphia—look for the big tent.
The Sumney Tavern in Lansdale is hosting the 69th Irish Volunteers for an evening of Irish Civil War period music.
7:30 PM
We look forward every year to a visit from musicians from St. Malachy’s College in Belfast, and they’ll be performing tonight at Bonner-Prendergast High School in Upper Darby.
Berklee College of Music grads Mark Kilianski, Lukas Pool, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes will be performing a combination of Celtic, bluegrass, and jazz at this concert at Birdhouse Center for the Arts in Lambertville, NJ.
8 PM
Sharon Corr, of the Corrs, will be on stage at World Café Live in Philadelphia.
Celtic Nights, featuring some of the best young Irish performers—both singers and dancers—will be at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
First Highland Watch will be rocking out at the Shamrock Café in Wildwood, NJ.
The Glengharry Boys bring their Celtic rock style to the Sellersville Theatre. Dancing in the aisles is encouraged.
Some of the greatest trad performers in the world will be at the Irish Center in Philadelphia—Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis, and Billy McComiskey, with special guest Michelle Mulcahy—thanks to the Philadelphia Ceili Group, along with The Irish Center and irishphiladelphia.com. Put this in the “must see” category.
The Shantys will be at JT Brewski’s Pub in Secane, Delco.
9 PM
Joe Magee and the Galway Guild will be at The Deck in Essington.
SUNDAY, March 16
It’s the big one—the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade marches down the Parkway starting at noon, following a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Charles Chaput at St. Patrick’s Church at 20th and Locust. Many of your favorite pipe and Celtic rock bands will be in the parade, along with world class Irish dancers (really, they win awards on the world stage too), local celebrities, and floats. Dress warmly-it might be a little brisk, but hey, we’re used to that here. At least it’s not supposed to snow.
Here’s what else is going on:
9 AM
You can stay warm if you keep up with the runners at the 29th Annual Leprechaun Run at The Navy Yard which benefits the Special Olympics. (There’s also a two-mile walk for you slowpokes.)
11 AM
Head House Irish Festival features music and dance at O’Neals and Cavanaugh’s Head House—free admission if you have a parade badge.
3 PM
McDermott’s Handy—that’s the soon to be Comhaltas Hall of Famers Dennis Gormley and Kathy DeAngelo—are performing at the Princeton Public Library.
3:30 PM
Post-Parade party at the Irish Center, featuring music by the Vince Gallagher Ban and the Derry Brigade, with dinner catered by The Irish Coffee Shop. The Cummins School of Irish Dance will perform and there will be sets and other dances in the Fireside Room. This is your chance to buy tickets for a huge raffle basket filled with all sorts of Irish goodies. The new Glenside GAA will have an information booth.
If you’re staying in town after the parade, head over to the Philopatrian at 19th and Walnut for a free post-parade party sponsored by the Irish American Business Chamber and Network, the Brehon Law Society, and the Irish Immigration Center.
4 PM
Tryone’s own Raymond Coleman will be featured performer at Philly’s newest Irish pub, St. Declan’s Well on Walnut Street, near World Café Live and the Penn/Drexel campuses.
4:30 PM
Blackthorn is also throwing a post-parade party at the Springfield Country Club.
6 PM
Local singer Rosaleen McGill will be performing at Jack McShea’s in Ardmore.
And catch Galway Guild at the Green Parrot in Newtown, which has Irish music pretty much nonstop throughout the weekend.
Monday— March 17
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
The weather report is calling for snow today, which a Canadian friend of ours tells is is common up North, where they call it “Shelagh’s Snow,” after St. Patrick’s wife. . .or housekeeper, she wasn’t sure which. Let’s hope the weather report is wrong.
Start your day with a nice hearty Irish breakfast. There are two on offer this morning, one at Fado Irish Pub on Locust Street and the other at the Plough and the Stars on Second Street in Philadelphia. Both raise money for charity (and we know people who go to both, so it’s possible).
Or, start your day with some live GAA sports. The Irish Center is showing two games on pay-per-view this morning starting at about 10 AM.
10 AM
“The Legend of Finn McCool” gets a replay at the Ambler Theatre.
11:30 AM
Consider giving back (it’s the Irish thing to do): Einstein Healthcare Network on Broad Street in Philadelphia is holding a free Tay-Sachs disease screening for Irish people as part of a long-term study looking at the prevalence of this deadly disease of babies in the Irish population. It’s believed that the Irish are at higher risk than the general population for Tay-Sachs which has traditionally been considered disease of European Jews. The results of this study may help determine if people of Irish descent need to be tested routinely. Even if you don’t have anyone in your family with the disease, you may still be a carrier. The always fatal disease manifests in babies born to two carrier parents.
The Shantys are appearing at Erin Pub in Norwood.
Noon
The John Byrne Band, Belfast Connection, and Irish comedian Joey Callahan are the headliners for an all-day festival at Canstatters on Academy Road in Northeast Philadelphia.
The Theresa Flanagan Band will be playing all your dance favorites at McGillicuddy’s in Upper Darby.
1 PM
Seniors can enjoy a special luncheon at the Irish Center.
1:30 PM
You may not be able to bust the moves of the young Irish dancers you see, but anyone of any age can learn sean nos dancing. That’s old style Irish dancing that doesn’t require great leaps. One of the finest sean nos dancers in the country, Siobhan Butler, will be holding a dance workshop at Villanova in the Alumni Hall gymnasium.
2 PM
Jamison is performing at Finnigan’s Wake in Philadelphia.
5 PM
Belfast Connection has left Canstatters and is now celebrating St Patrick’s Day at Doc’s Pub in Burlington, NJ.
The Bhoys of Bucks is taking the stage at Kenny’s in Southampton.
6 PM
The Gloucester County AOH is holding its St. Patrick’s Day Open House at Rossiter Memorial Hall in National Park, NJ (that’s right over the bridge from Philly) with The Broken Shillelaghs providing the musical entertainment (they’re also supposed to be at McMichael’s in Gloucester City, but this is St. Patrick’s Day and magic can happen).
7 PM
Blackthorn is performing at the Ardmore Music Hall.
First highland Watch is at Magerk’s Pub in Fort Washington.
8 PM
Jamison is at RP McMurphy’s in Holmes.
8:30 PM
The Shantys are at Reedy’s Pub on Frankford Avenue in Philly.
9 PM
Galway Guild is at Ri Ra at the Tropicana.
Monday, March 18
You’d think it would let up, but no.
7:30 PM
View the movie, “Kings,” about a group of Irish immigrants who do not make good in the promised land, starring Colm Meany. It’s at Villanova.
Tuesday, March 19
4:30 PM
Eamonn Wall, the Heimbold Chair at Villanova, will discuss Irish writing in American with Daniel Tobin, a professor of writing, literature and publishing at Emerson College.
Thursday, March 20
6 PM
The Consulate General of Ireland is partnering with International House Philadelphia to present a special showing of “Death on the Railroad,” the story of Duffy’s Cut. Dave Farrell, the producer of the documentary, will be flying in from Dublin to join Bill and Frank Watson, who discovered the mass grave in Malvern of the Irish immigrant railroad workers who died of cholera or were killed, will join the discussion and Deputy Consul Peter Ryan will be there for a reception.
Friday, March 21
4 PM
Experts from The Ulster Historical Foundation and the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania will help you explore your Irish and Scots roots at the Haverford Township Community Rec and Environmental Center in Havertown.
8 PM
Cap off the perfect St. Patrick’s Week with a pint and the musical stylings of Andy Maher and his Band at The Irish Center. It’s ’70s and ‘80s music, which you may not have heard at all this week.
Please check our calendar frequently for late-breaking events and for details on these.
Ray Coleman with George Donaldson
George Donaldson may have been a Scot, but the Celtic Thunder lead singer, who died yesterday at the age of 46 of a massive heart attack, held a special place in the hearts of Philadelphia’s Irish community.
“He was a great man, down-to-earth, a good friend, great musician, was great craic to hang with,” said Raymond Coleman, a Tyrone-born musician now living in Philadelphia who often performed with Donaldson at the Plough and the Stars on Second Street.
Coleman recalled going out one night with Donaldson after their show. “And the great fella he was, we were out and didn’t get home till 4 in the morning. Jaclyn [Coleman’s wife] was pregnant and ready to pop, and we landed at my house and I didn’t have my key, so we banged on the door and Jaclyn came down and I was like, ‘George, you’re going through the door first, it’s your fault, you gotta take the blame and fair enough he did!”
It was also Donaldson who “got me in with those crazy Thunder Heads,” said Coleman, referring to Donaldson’s many fans, most of them female.
Like Maggie Costello of Philadelphia, who was part of the George Donaldson Street Team—a group that promotes concerts and events on a grassroots level—which now numbers about 1,200.
“George was a big bear of a man, his hugs were wonderful and given out to his fans and friends alike,” said Costello. “ He called his guy friends and costars in Celtic Thunder, “brother, , was loved by everyone who knew him. He was an extraordinary folksinger, song writer and history teacher to his fans. We learned more about Scottish history than if we took a college course, through his songs and stories. . .He wasn’t just a folksinger, he was our friend.”
One of his favorite books, she said, was “The Alchemist,” a novel about finding one’s own destiny. “He said it taught him it was never too late to follow your dream,” she said.
George Donaldson was one of nine children who grew up in Glasgow where he started his singing career in local pubs and clubs while working as a bus builder. In 2008, at the age of 39, he joined Celtic Thunder, a group introduced to Americans through many concert specials on PBS and which went on to gain international fame. But when he was home in Glasgow, in between tours, Donaldson still gigged at his local, Jinty’s, on Sunday night.
Margaret King met Donaldson in 2008 at WHYY in Philadelphia when he and his Celtic Thunder “brothers” were doing the first of many PBS specials and she was manning the phones along with others from the Cara School of Irish Dance in Delaware County. “They all got on the phones to talk to the people calling in and they were so nice to the dancers,” King recalled. She spent a little time talking to Donaldson during the breaks. “He was such a nice guy. He told me about his wife and daughter and how exciting it was to be starting this tour, which was their first.”
She even remembered some of the lyrics of the song he sang, called The Voyager. “Life is an ocean, love is a boat, In troubled waters, it keeps us afloat
When we started the voyage, there was just me and you. Now, gathered ’round us, we have our own crew.”
“You could tell it that he meant it when he sang that song, that he was thinking of his wife and daughter who were at home.”
Donaldson leaves a wife, Carolyn, and a 13-year-old daughter, Sarah.
The Plough and the Stars, where many Philadelphians and others came to hear the big Scot sing and play, issued this statement on its Facebook page:
“George was a longtime friend of the Plough and was loved by his loyal and devoted fans who traveled here from all over the USA and even as far as Australia, his concerts at the Plough were always sold out. He was a gentleman. Good humored, kind and thoughtful, when we had to reconfigure the whole restaurant for his concert he was always amused and very patient. His concerts were a lot of fun, we will remember the good times during and after. I was talking to him this past Tuesday he was looking forward to playing at the Plough on 17th July it is shocking and tragic. May he rest in peace.”
View more photos of George Donaldson in Philadelphia, courtesy of Maggie Costello, Raymond Coleman, and Margaret King.