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Denise Foley

How to Be Irish in Philly

How to Be Irish in Philly This Week

Uillean piper Paddy Keenan will be at Shanachie in Ambler this week.

Irish festival!

We love the sound of that. This time it’s in Phoenixville, one of our favorite places, and it’s free and on the street. You can hear local greats including Barleyjuice, The Brigade, Oliver McElhone, Charlie Zahm, the Ted the Fiddler Band, and the Irish Thunder Pipe Band. Also on tap, the New York Celtic Dancers and the Pride of Erin Irish Dancer. There will be vendors and there are plenty of places to enjoy a bite and a beer—Phoenixville is filled with Irish pubs and restaurants, and many others that aren’t Irish. Afterwards, head down to Gwynedd Friends Monthly Meeting for a concert by the Jameson Sisters, Teresa Kane and Ellen Tepper, two fabulous and funny musicians. That starts at 8 PM.

When you’re all festivalled out, go golfing with the girls. Specifically, the Mairead Farrell Senior Ladies footballers who are holding their third annual golf outing on Sunday afternoon at Edgemont Country Club in Newtown Square. It’s a fundraiser for the team, which edged out the competition in Chicago last year to become national ladies Gaelic foot ball champs! This year the championship games are in San Francisco—that’s some serious moola they’re going to be needing if they earn the right to compete.

I’ve seen these women play and a word to wise, ladies—no unnecessary roughness out on the links!

But before that, you can help a vet in need by contributing to the AOH/LAOH Div. 51’s seventh annual Spring Fill-a-Cart-Help-a-Vet-in-Need collection at Port Richamond Village Thriftway in Philly Friday and Saturday. Food, personal items, and gift cards will be gratefully accepted.

Also on Sunday, at Friends Center on Cherry Street, you can meet Roy Bourgeois, a former Maryknoll priest, who founded the human rights group, School of the Americas (SOA) Watch. A former Navy officer who was wounded in action in Vietnam, earning him the Purple Heart, Bourgeois spend many years in Bolivia as a Maryknoll missionary, ministering to the poor. He was excommunicated three years ago for publicly supporting the ordination of women. The event at Friends is co-sponsored by the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and American Friends Service Committee.

On Thursday, May 18, the amazing Irish uillean piper Paddy Keenan will be playing in concert at the Shanachie Pub and Restaurant in Ambler. Keenan came from a travelling and musical family and was born in County Meath, though he grew up in Dublin. He was a member of the famous Bothy Band, founded in 1974, whose members over the year included fiddler Paddy Glackin, accordion player Tony McMahon, fiddlers Tommy Peoples and Kevin Burke, and guitarist-singer Micheal O Domhnaill.

This week’s the end of the line for Inis Nua Theatre Company’s brilliant production of “Dublin by Lamplight” at Broad Street Ministries—unless, by some good fortune, they extend the run. It’s also the beginning of the line for the Druid Theater of Galway’s version of Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy (does he do any other kinds of comedies?), “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” at the Anneberg Center for the Performing Arts.

Get yourself to the Phillies website or stubhub.com asap if you want to tickets to Irish Heritage Night at the Phillies on Friday, May 20, to see the Irish dancing, listen to the Irish music, and watch the Phils host the Texas Rangers and hopefully beat the pants off them. You can also meet the 2011 Philadelphia Rose of Tralee, the lovely Beth Keeley.

And get yourself to www.inspirationalirishwomen.com to buy tickets to this gala event on Sunday, May 22, at the Irish Center. Twelve local women of Irish descent whose lives serve as an inspiration to others will be honored. And if you’re a big WXPN Kids Corner fan—or were when you were a kid—you can meet Peabody Award-winning host, Kathy O’Connell, who is one of the winners.

Lots more coming up in the next few weeks, including the Penns Landing Irish Fest on June 5. More on that lineup later.

In the meantime, peruse the calendar at your leisure and pick a few things to do this week that will remind you that you’re Irish.

 

May 13, 2011 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Our Galway friends will be dining and dancing, not marching this Saturday.

Here’s something you don’t often hear us say: It’s a relatively quiet week in Irish Philadelphia. But there’s still craic going on.

This is the weekend that you can dine and dance with the Galway Society—yes, all of them–at their annual dinner-dance at the Philadelphia Irish Center. The Vince Gallagher Band and Friends will provide the music for this Saturday night gala.

This is also a good week to see the Inis Nua Theatre Company’s production of “Dublin by Lamplight” at Broad Street Ministries in Philadelphia. We saw it last weekend and smiled the whole time, even during the “tragedy” parts. It runs through May 14.

And Spike TV’s new reality series, “Bar Rescue,” is coming to town in the early part of the week to Downey’s at 526 South Street in Philadelphia. Like Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares,” this show will be chronicling struggling pubs’ last shot at avoiding last call. The producers want you to look your best because there will be TV cameras there and you may get your chance at stardom. Okay, probably not. But dress nicely anyhow. The crew will be there Monday at 7 PM, Tuesday at 8:30 PM, and Thursday at 8:30 PM.

Let John McDevitt help you find your ancestors—the ones who left a trail, that is—at the monthly genealogical meeting at the Irish Immigration Center in Upper Darby (be there at 11 AM and stay for lunch) on Thursday, May 12.

On Thursday night, head to the Irish Center for a meeting of the newly formed Irish Anti-Defamation Federation to help strategize a way that we never have to encounter any more of those stupid “[Blank] Me I’m Irish” and “Drink Till You’re Green” t-shirt on St. Paddy’s Day or ever again. We’re tired of photoshopping that out of pictures. And no, I don’t want to see your leprechaun or your blarney stones. You’re making us cranky.

Starting on Friday, the AOH/LAOH Div. 51 will be out in force collecting food and personal items for veterans at the Port Richmond Village Thriftway at Aramingo and York in Philadelphia. They’ll be there all weekend on behalf of the Philadelphia Veterans Multi-Service and Education Center in Philadelphia.

On Saturday, May 14, the Phoenixville Celtic Street Fair celebrates its fifth with music, food and vendors—and no admission fee—on Bridge Street between Main and Gay Streets in this most Irish of towns. It runs from 10 AM to 5:30 PM.

That gives you plenty of time to get to the Gwynedd Friends Coffee House in Gwynedd to catch the Jameson Sisters—Terry Kane and Ellen Tepper, two of the most talented and funniest people we know.

Also, local AOH groups are supporting a New York fundraiser for Gerry McGeough, an author, teacher, and president of the Tyrone County Board of the AOH, who is in Maghaberry Prison in Lisburn, Northern Ireland as the result of a 1981 incident in which McGeough and a British Ulster Defense Regiment soldier  were wounded.

Be sure to go to the Inspirational Irish Women Awards website to order your tickets to this totally feel-good event. Tables are going fast. The wonderful Gabriel Donohue and Marian Makins, along with Dennis Gormley and Kathy De Angelo, will be performing at the afternoon cocktail reception at the Irish Center on Sunday, May 22. You can also read about some of the women–including a Philadelphia police officer who spends her vacation time volunteering in El Salvador, a local kids’ radio host who has won a prestigious Peabody award, and  a nurse who won an award for courage.

Check out our calendar for all the pertinent details, and few not so pertinent ones that we throw in there just for kicks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 5, 2011 by
News

When Irish Eyes Stop Smiling

Joe Fox, second from left, during the Spencer Gifts protest.

It’s not that the Irish have suddenly lost their sense of humor or gotten touchy about their heritage, says Joe Fox, president of the Philadelphia County Ancient Order of Hibernians Board.

The reason he and other leaders in Philadelphia’s Irish community have formed a new Irish Anti-Defamation Federation is because there’s a big difference between the Lucky Charm’s “magically delicious” leprechaun and things like restaurant chains offering free potatoes in honor of the Irish famine and t-shirts that read “When my Irish eyes are smiling you know I’m drunk”—and worse.

“’Kiss me I’m Irish’ is not offensive,” says Fox, whose maternal grandparents came from Ireland.  “’A Million Mick March’ is mildly offensive. What’s really offensive is the “Irish Today, Hungover Tomorrow” type of merchandise that we’re seeing that is very derogatory towards Irish people.”

That’s why the newly minted organization is holding a community-wide meeting on Thursday, May 12, at the Philadelphia Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street in the Mt. Airy section of the city.

“We’re trying to create a united front of Irish organizations that will address defamation issues all year long, not just in March,” says Fox.

What’s providing the impetus now is a set-to the AOH had this winter with Spencer Gifts that culminated in a peaceful protest outside the Franklin Mills branch store which, like every other Spencer’s, sells all kinds of gag gifts, risqué items, and raunchy t-shirts and cards. At the time, Spencer Gifts’ general counsel Kevin Mahoney told www.irishphiladelphia.com that there was “an enormous market in the Irish community who are willing to buy these shirts. Most of them have a good sense of humor and understand it’s all meant as a joke, not to be demeaning or derogatory.”

Several other stores in the Philadelphia, including Old Navy and Acme, removed questionable Irish items when the AOH requested it. Last year, Denny’s, the restaurant chain, yanked a TV ad offering free potatoes to commemorate the Irish Famine after AOH National President Seamus Boyle along with hundreds of other angry Irish-Americans flooded them with calls and letters. Local radio stations have also scuttled on-air St. Patrick’s Day promotions at AOH request, says Fox. On St. Patrick’s Day, Philadelphia Councilwoman Joan Krajewski rallied support for the cause by reading a proclamation denouncing Spencer Gifts and other outlets for selling the merchandise that raised Irish ire. But Spencer Gifts refused to remove the merchandise.

Now, the AOH is seeking community-wide support, says Fox, because they’ve seen that without it, the problem gets worse every year. “And that’s because we’re so laid back about it and don’t let them know,” he says. “Not acting on it sooner allowed it to escalate. They’ll push it as far as we’ll let it.”

Fox is hoping representatives from many of the region’s Irish organizations show up for the strategy meeting. And he particularly hopes to see plenty of Irish immigrants. “I know from my own experience that there are things that I of Irish descent may find offensive, while the Irish born may not,” he says. “We need their input. But we want to expand this to all Irish organizations to show that this is not just an AOH thing—this is an Irish thing.”

 

May 5, 2011 by
Arts

Review: Inis Nua Theater Company’s “Dublin by Lamplight”

Jared Michael Delaney as "Frank and others." Photo by Katie Reing

 

Delight (noun):

1. Great pleasure; joy

2. Something that gives great pleasure or enjoyment.

3. Inis Nua Theatre Company’s current production of “Dublin by Lamplight.”

Take a little vaudeville, throw in a little silent film comedy the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and Harold Lloyd, sprinkle liberally with cheap gags, commedia dell’arte makeup, and, because it’s Irish, a smidge of Republican sentiment (and we’re not talking the GOP here), and you have the recipe for one delightful evening at the theater. Even if the theater is a century old gothic church on Philadelphia’s Broad Street.

In Inis Nua Theatre Company’s production of the Michael West wild “Dublin by Lamplight,” six actors play 30 to 40 parts in white face, the only prop is a chair, and the painted backdrop plays a role for about six minutes. Still, your imagination takes you through the streets of Dublin, on stage and back stage at a turn-of-the-century theater, a dingy garda station, and the catwalk of a bridge, led by the actors who use broad gestures and a physicality just short of mime to bring everything you can’t see to life. The story is told in third person, with the actors describing each scene as they jump into it. Composer John Lionarons sits stage left at a piano, playing accompaniment, adding to the silent film ambiance of the play.

The story: In the early 1900s, Willy Hayes (Charlie DeMarcelle) is the proverbial starving artist (really starving) who is attempting to launch a new theater company, the redundant Irish National Theater of Ireland. To produce the debut play, “The Wooing of Emer,” he must woo the wealthy and the Republican-leaning feminist, Eva St. John (Megan Bellwoar), who is promised a starring role in both the play and Willy’s life. Willy’s brother, Frank (Jared Michael Delaney), is an actor and a drunk, not necessarily in that order. He is also a patriotic Republican who is only slightly torn between loyalty to his brother’s theater company and exploding a load of gelignite under the limo of the King of England who is visiting Dublin. Frank has been carrying on an affair with a young maid, Maggie (newcomer Sarah Van Auken), who is also erstwhile seamstress for the company. She is much coveted by Jimmy (Kevin Meehan), a young man with a rolling gait that suggests a birth defect or many years before the mast. Though the play needs no comic relief, if it did, it would be ably provided by Martyn (Mike Dees), an effeminate actor who is given many of the best lines.

As Willy and several other characters, Charlie DeMarcelle is a wonder. He brings impeccable timing and strong comic physicality to the part—slipping and sliding on the stage as precariously as if it were coated in ice.  He would have made Buster Keaton jealous. Jared Michael Delaney transformed himself so well and so often (Frank, a British undercover man, and several others) that it was hard to remember that one actor was playing many different roles. It takes more than a quick wardrobe change to pull that off—it takes acting, and Delaney acted the hell out of those characters. Mike Dees’s Martyn is hilarious, and Sarah Van Auken, as the maid who plays Eve to Megan Bellwoar’s Margo Channing (see: Bette Davis’s “All About Eve”) when Eva St. John is jailed for demonstrating in the streets, was just delightful.

And, I’m happy to say, so is this play. I’d see it again.

“”Dublin by Lamplight,” by Michael West, is directed by Tom Reing, artistic director of the Inis Nua Theatre Company. It runs until May 14 at the Broad Street Ministries, 315 South Broad Street, Philadelphia. To order tickets, go to the Inis Nua website. You can also call 215-454-9776.

 

May 4, 2011 by
News

12 Inspirational Irish Women Awardees Announced

A Philadelphia judge, an award-winning kids’ radio host, a decorated firefighter, and the regional president of the Sisters of Mercy are among the 12 women to be honored this year at the second annual Inspirational Irish Women Awards event on Sunday, May 22, at the Commodore Barry Club (The Irish Center) in Philadelphia.

Founded last year, the awards are given to women of Irish descent whose lives are an inspiration to others. Among last year’s honorees were Siobhan Reardon, first woman president of The Free Library of Philadelphia; Denise Sullivan Morrison, poised to become the next CEO of Campbell Soup Company; Rosemarie Timoney, founder of a school of Irish dance and longtime promoter of Irish culture; Emily Riley, executive vice president of the philanthropic Connelly Foundation; and Kathy Orr, Emmy-winning CBS3 meteorologist who will serve as emcee for this year’s event.

Two of last year’s winners, Liz Kerr, RN, a nurse on Temple’s transplant team, and Kathy McGee Burns, president of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association, were part of the 2011 selection committee.

Proceeds from the event, an afternoon cocktail reception at the Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, will go to the Irish Center.

For more than 50 years, the Center has served as a home away from home for thousands of Irish people living in Philadelphia. As a meeting spot for Irish cultural organizations, dance, and music groups, it has been the solid foundation of the city’s vibrant Irish community. Without this home base, many of the region’s Irish cultural and charitable organizations would be left without a meeting and event space; some would not be able to continue their activities without the crucial support that the Center provides.

This year, the Irish Center has launched a capital improvement fundraising campaign to repair its roof and to finish construction of an elevator—two jobs that will require a significant influx of cash.

The awards program is co-sponsored by the Irish Immigration Center of Philadelphia, a 501 (c)(3) organization that has been serving the needs of the region’s Irish immigrants since 1998. Through the Immigration Center’s fiscal sponsorship, donations, sponsorships ranging from $100 to $1,000, and the purchase of reserved tables is tax deductible.

Tickets to the event cost $40 and cover beer, wine, soft drinks, as well as various hot and cold appetizers. Table reservations are $450. No tickets will be sold at the door. Ads in the program booklet range in price from $25 to $100.

To purchase tickets, tables, or ads by mail, make checks out to the Irish Immigration Center of Philadelphia, and send them to the center at 7 South Cedar Lane, Upper Darby, PA 19082.

For more information on the event or to purchase tickets or tables online at a secure site, go to www.inspirationalirishwomen.com. You can also send an email to inspirational.irish.women@gmail.com.

The 2011 Inspirational Irish Women Honorees are:

Sister Christine McCann, the Regional President of the Sisters of Mercy in Merion, serves as the Board Chair for Mercy Health System and the Coordinator of the Catholic Health East Sponsor Council. In addition, she is active on the Boards of Catholic Health East and Gwynedd- Mercy College. The Sisters of Mercy, an Irish order, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

Margaret Reyes is retired from the Department of Fire and Rescue Services in Montgomery County, Maryland, where she was a firefighter, emergency medical technician, and instructor in specialist rescue training. She currently works as a trainer/educator of the courts in Delaware. Ms. Reyes is also a nationally certified Swiftwater Rescue Technician Instructor and Hazmat Specialist. She was activated by FEMA to several natural and man-made disasters, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and received a meritorious Service Medal from President Bill Clinton for her service there. She is now an activist on immigrant issues. She holds dual Irish and American citizenship.

The Honorable Pamela Pryor Dembe is the president of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and former president of the Brehon Society.

Kathy Fanning is president of the Philadelphia County Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians. This year, Fanning, who is a charter member of LAOH Division 39, received her national life membership from the LAOH.

Kathy O’Connell is the longtime host of WXPN’s “Kids Corner,” a Peabody Award-winning radio show for children.

Anne McDade Keyser Hill, at 86, is still at the helm of two local companies, Plasti-Seal Corporation and John F. Keyser & Sons, in Huntingdon Valley. She was a female business owner at a time when she felt she had to sign her name with just a first initial because “men didn’t want to do business with a woman.” She was active in organizing and heading up parish-linked programs for singles (where she met her current husband, Joe, a retired teacher and writer).

Mary Ann McGinley, PhD, RN, is senior vice president for patient services and chief nursing officer at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Under her leadership Jefferson was granted magnet program status for nursing excellence in 2009, a designation granted to fewer than 5% of US hospitals. She is also recipient of many awards including The Clara Barton Award for Courage in Nursing, 1997 and The Distinguished Alumni Leadership Award from Gwynedd Mercy College in March, 2000.

Carmel Boyce, a mother of six from Letterkenny, Donegal, is, with her husband, Barney, a pillar of the Philadelphia Irish community. She serves on the board of the Irish Center, is financial secretary of the Donegal Association, and has been involved in countless charities. All of her children are actively involved in the Irish community, many in music and dance, helping to keep the culture alive.

Karen Boyce McCollum, Carmel Boyce’s youngest child, is a graduate of Drexel University. She is the associate director of corporate communications for Cephalon, an international biopharmaceutical company. She is also community relations director for and on the board of Irish Network-Philadelphia, a member of the Donegal Association, a singer (she sang at last year’s event), a former Rose of Tralee, and mother of two (soon to be three). She has been named one of the Irish Echo’s 40 Under 40.

Christine M. Coulter is an Inspector in the Philadelphia Police Department’s traffic divisions (special operations). For the past eight years, she has gone on yearly missions to El Salvador with the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus where she has worked on neighborhood projects, including building a bridge, a medical center and a library, as well as teaching computer skills and English to children. She also sponsors a child from the Honduras through Amigos de Jesus, a project founded by Philadelphia-based priest, Father Denny O’Donnell.

Posthumous Awards

 

Liz Crehan Anderson was a tireless promoter of Irish traditional music, dancing, and Irish-speaking in the Philadelphia area until her untimely death at age 54. The niece of Junior Crehan, the famed Clare fiddler, she was a familiar figure at session, house concerts and workshops and was playing and encouraging people to attend workshops until two days before she died.

Sister Peg Hynes SSJ, born in Philadelphia to parents from Galway, was director of the Heart of Camden Housing which helped Camden resident become homeowners. She was honored by the UN, the Fannie Mae Foundation, and many other organizations for her work to provide affordable housing for the poor. A two-time cancer survivor, she was killed in a tragic car accident in 2002.

Looking for a few reasons to be inspired? Check out these four recent profiles:

April 29, 2011 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish In Philly This Week

Jack Wink is dressed for the Derry Spring Social.

I don’t know about you, but that Royal Wedding tired me out. I stayed up all night making my hat. I donated it to Habitat for Humanity and a family of four is living in it now.

But I’m not too tired to be heading into Philadelphia tomorrow night to see “Dublin by Lamplight,” the latest play in the Philadelphia Irish Theater Festival, produced by the Inis Nua Theatre Company. The play, a tragi-comedy (which is to say it’s Irish) will be at the Broad Street Ministries until May 14. Read more about it here.

There’s plenty going on this week to keep everyone happy. You dancers! The AOH Notre Dame Division 1 in Swedesburg is holding a ceili on Saturday night at 7 PM featuring the musical stylings of Kevin, Jimmy and Judy—that’s two McGillians and a Brennan—family names synonymous with ceili music in the Philadelphia area. It doesn’t get any better.

On Saturday, AOH Div. 87 is holding a beef and beer at their hall on Wakeling Street in Philadelphia to raise money for the families of Irish prisoners of war. Raymond Coleman and Pat Close and the Brigade are providing the music.

Remarkable fiddler Randal Bays and guitarist Davey Mathias will be performing at the Coatesville Cultural Center—another blockbuster concert from Frank Dalton.

On Sunday, bring the kids and yourself to the Irish Center as the Derry Society holds its second annual (we hope) Derry Social with three bands, great food, and lots of games for the kids. We went last year and had a ball.

The AOH is busy this weekend. The Gloucester County AOH is holding a memorial event on the 30th anniversary of the Irish political prisoners’ hunger strike of 1981 during which 10 young men, including Bobby Sands, died.

On May 5, Irish Network-Philly is going to mix some ethnic metaphors. They’re holding a Cinco de Mayo Happy Hour at Tir na Nog on Arch Street in Philly. Actually, it’s a celebration of the first anniversary of this organization founded to bring together disparate parts of the region’s Irish community. Happy Birthday, IN-Philly!

Speaking of anniversaries—the Galway Society is celebrating its 102nd (gosh, you don’t look a day over 100) on Saturday, May 7, by throwing a dinner-dance at the Irish Center, starting with an open bar at 6 PM, followed by dinner and dancing to music by the Vince Gallagher Band and Friends. Happy Anniversary to our friends from Galway!

As always, check our calendar for all the details. And check back during the week, since we’re always adding more.

 

April 29, 2011 by
People

The New “Rose” Talks About Her “Pet” Project

2011 Philadelphia Rose of Tralee Beth Keeley with CBS3 reporter and host for the Rose event, Jim Donovan.

By Beth Keeley

2011 Philadelphia Rose of Tralee

I grew up in a typical Irish-American household. I knew my family came from Ireland and I took pride in being Irish, but I didn’t have much more information beyond that. I didn’t know what counties my family came from or even which generation it was that came over. My Irish pride spanned the likes of taking Irish step dancing classes, eating ham and cabbage for dinner on St. Patrick’s Day and crying whenever “Danny Boy” played on the radio. My family, like many Irish-American families, is more culturally Irish by choice, rather than having a history passed down.

In the past few years, though, I’ve started to take a more serious interest in my Irish roots. I recently hired a genealogist to trace my father’s families – the Keeleys and the McKeevers. It turns out that they are from County Donegal and County Mayo. More shockingly, I discovered that I am fourth generation. For not knowing a thing about my family tree to learning that I am fourth generation was a pretty big and exciting shock.

Since then I have started to seek out ways to become more in touch with my Irish heritage. I entered the Rose of Tralee contest on a last minute whim. A week before the contest I decided to give it a try just to see what would happen. I wanted to become more involved with the Irish community and the Philadelphia Rose of Tralee Centre focuses heavily on charity work, which was a huge draw for me.

The Philadelphia Rose of Tralee selection night was a big success. There was live music, great food and – most importantly – the friendliest and most welcoming people I have come across in a long time. All of the Rose contestants embraced and encouraged each other. We all joked and danced together and had the best intentions for each other while each girl stood in front of the audience to answer questions. The Rose motto, “camaraderie, not competition” proved to ring very true.

The families and friends of other Rose contestants were just as welcoming. Even though the night started out as a room full of strangers to me, I quickly felt at home. People I had never met before were wishing me well and I could tell that they genuinely meant it. I felt the true Irish welcoming spirit.

As the end of the night neared, the Rose contestants knew a winner would soon be announced. As much as we all wanted it for ourselves, we all wanted it just as much for one another. When I was named the winner at midnight, I just stood there frozen. I didn’t believe it. I was handed flowers, a sash and a crown, but it still didn’t seem real. So I did the only thing I could do, the one thing the Irish do when they are happy: I cried.

Once the reality of winning settled in, I decided that the charity I would fundraise for would be the non-profit organization PAWS, The Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society, the only no-kill animal shelter in Philadelphia. A few months prior to entering the Rose, I adopted a cat from PAWS. I never was much of a cat person before, but Ronan has become a part of my family. The Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society treats their shelter animals properly and has proven to be a shelter that deserves additional recognition and support.

Although my trip to Ireland for the Rose of Tralee Regionals is fast approaching (the first week of June!), I have already begun to organize fundraising events for PAWS. On July 24 from 2-6pm at the Willows Mansion in Radnor, the Rose Centre will be hosting a “Dog Days of Summer” BBQ family social. Adoptable pets will be present and all proceeds from the event will go to PAWS.

The Rose of Tralee started out as a last minute decision, but has quickly exploded into a valuable and rewarding aspect of my life. I am honored to be the 2011 Philadelphia Rose of Tralee. The never-ending opportunities for charity work and socializing are irreplaceable experiences. Beyond that, though, the Rose of Tralee has brought me closer to my own Irish heritage, which is something that I could never be thankful enough for.

Editor’s note: The Philadelphia Rose of Tralee Centre will also be participating in the Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure to raise money for breast cancer research. The race is held in Philadelphia on Mother’s Day, Sunday May 8. To donate to the Rose team, visit the donation page online.

 

April 21, 2011 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

NicGaviskey: a group from both sides of the Atlantic will perform Saturday at the Irish Center.

The Easter Bunny isn’t the only visitor showing up this weekend.

On Saturday at The Irish Center in Philadelphia,  the Philadelphia Ceili Group is hosting NicGaviskey, a lively and authentic Irish traditional band from both sides of the ocean that includes flute player Sean Gavin, fiddler Bernadette Nic Gabhann, concertina player Caitlin Nic Gabhann and accordianist Sean McComiskey. Think of it as the girls from County Meath meeting the boys from Counties Detroit and Baltimore. And actually, that’s what happened. They all ran into one another at the Catskills Irish Arts week in upstate New York in 2009 at an early morning session and the rest, they say, is history.

Caitlin NicGabhann is a three-time All-Ireland concertina champ and a regular on National Irish Radio as well as an accomplished Irish dancer who has toured with “Riverdance.” Her sister Bernadette has performed with Michael Flatley’ “Lord of the Dance” and done solo gigs and tours throughout the world.

Sean Gavin’s from Detroit but this flute player is the son of Clare-born, Mick Gavin, a fiddler. Sean McComiskey of Baltimore is the son of celebrated accordian player Billy McComiskey.

It promises to be an amazing evening.

It’s always an amazing evening with RUNA, the award-winning local Irish band that combines some interesting musical sensibilities—a little jazz, a little country—with some solid Irish traditional style. They’re at Godfrey Daniels in Bethlehem on Saturday night.

You can also catch the Broken Shillelaghs at McMichael’s Pub and Grill in Gloucester City (fabulous place!) and The Shantys at Daly’s Irish Pub in Philadelphia on Saturday night.

Just a note on Molly Maguire’s in Phoenixville: They’ve instituted “Supper and a Session” on Sunday at the pub and kids eat for $1! They’re hoping that plenty of young Irish dancers will come for dinner and a jig, not necessarily in that order.

On Monday, join the Gloucester County AOH at the Richard Rossiter Memorial Hall in National Park, NJ (right over the bridge from Philly) for its Easter Monday flag raising. The event is followed by a Mass and lunch and is open to all.

The Inis Nua Theatre Company’s ambitious production of “Dublin by Lamplight” opens for preview on Tuesday at Broad Street Ministries in Philadelphia, across from the Kimmel Center. It opens the following day for a two-week run. Read more about it here.

Later in the week, a post-Easter treat. Cappella Caeciliana, Northern Ireland’s foremost liturgical choir, will be performing two free concerts, the first at St. Thomas Church on the Villanova University campus on Wednesday and the second at St. Malachy’s Church in North Philadelphia on Thursday. Read our story on this remarkable choir.

On Friday, The Reading Phillies are holding Irish night as they go up against the Portland Sea Dogs at First Energy Stadium in Reading. If you’ve never been, the Reading Phils play ball like it should be played—in a stadium where you’re close to the action and food doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. It’s a great family evening.

Check our calendar for all the details, and Happy Easter!

 

 

 

April 21, 2011 by