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Denise Foley

Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Where’s CBS3’s Bob Kelly when you need him? The city’s on-air traffic controller needs to keep an eye out this week for the various buses shuttling revelers from pub to pub on a motorized version of a pub crawl. There are two of them going on in Philly on Saturday—the Center City-bound Erin Express (which has a second run the following weekend) and the Shamrock Shuttle, which will give you a tour of Northeast Philly’s bars. Fortunately, they’re not taking the same routes so we don’t expect any unfortunate pub crawl accident. At least, not involving the vehicles.

The third pub shuttle is the Running of the Micks (oh yeah, and we’ve taken grief because we call our e-newsletter Mick Mail) which starts out with a footrace before the drinking begins at Finnigan’s Wake at Third and Spring Garden. That’s next Saturday.

There’s so much else going on in this run up to the parades and St. Paddy’s Day we’re just giving you a list:

Saturday

As usual, the Mt. Holly, NJ, parade is the first to step off the curb on Saturday, March 5. Pearse Kerr, a former Northern Irish political prisoner and president of AOH Div. 25 in Philadelphia, is grand marshal.

Queen of Peace Parish in Ardsley is having its annual Irish Night with Jamison providing the music, the Timoney Dancers doing what they do best, and DJ John Purshock. This is a major fundraiser for the parish.

Pick up your kilt from the drycleaners. It’s Celtic Kilt Night at Temperance House in Newtown, sponsored by AOH Bucks Division 2, to benefit the Hibernian Hunger Project.

Team Ratty Shoes, a group of Blackthorn fans who walk every year to raise money for multiple sclerosis research, is having its big fundraiser at North Penn VFW Post 676 in Glenside with music, fun, door prizes, and an auction. When they’re not walking, this group is a party to be around, so you’ll have a good time.

The Shanachie’s genial host, Gerry Timlin, will be performing solo at the Yardley Community Center.

The play, “Brendan,” by Ronan Noone, continues its run at McCoole’s Arts and Events Place in Quakertown. Likewise, “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” is still at Plays and Players Theatre in Philadelphia.

This is also Gael Scoil weekend—an Irish language and culture immersion for kids 7 to 17, now in its fourth year at Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, NJ.

Sunday

A busy day for Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade Director Michael Bradley: In the morning, he’s picking up a “Spirit of O’Hara” award at Cardinal O’Hara High School in Springfield. In the afternoon, he’s presiding over the last and biggest of the parade fundraisers at Springfield Country Club, featuring Blackthorn. Expect to spend the day in Springfield. Lucky for us, O’Hara and the country club are on the same street.

In the afternoon, Father John McNamee, the poet-priest, will be reading from his latest book of poetry, “From Derrybeg and Back.” At the MacSwiney Club in Jenkintown.

Tuesday

The Dropkick Murphy’s will be playing the first of two shows at The Electric Factory. Count on them performing their St. Patrick’s Day singalong, “Kiss Me, I’m —-faced.” The second show is Wednesday.

Wednesday

Duo Gabriel Donohue (he’s from Galway) and Marian Makins (she’s from DC) return to the Shanachie in Ambler after their popular debut performance last month. Donohue is a remarkable musician and Makins has the voice of an angel. We really like them around here.

Thursday

The day starts with the annual wreath-laying at the plaque honoring the Irish who served in the American Revolution on the west side of Philadelphia’s city hall, followed by Mayor Nutter’s proclamation of March as Irish Month in the city. At noon, the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade Association holds its annual luncheon to introduce the parade Grand Marshal—this year, Sister James Anne Feerick, IHM—and the Ring of Honor. Association president Kathy McGee Burns this year has selected a group of eight women to form the Ring, including her daughter Kelly Wall, a judge in Montgomery County.

AOH Notre Dame Division 1 in Swedesburg is hosting its annual Irish Coffee Contest, featuring concoctions from restaurants and pubs in the Conshy area. This is a lead-up to the Conshy parade next weekend.

Dublin-based singer Paudy Timoney is on tap to do some foot-stomping ballads at The Plough and Stars on Second Street in Philadelphia. If you’ve never been the The Plough, whatever is wrong with you? On cold nights there’s a wood and peat fire in the fireplace and, despite the ceiling that reaches to the sky, it’s one of the coziest pubs around. Both real and plastic Paddys love it.

Irish Tenor Michael Londra, whose “Danny Boy” rendition is breaking all YouTube records for views, will be performing at Sellersville Theatre.

Catch Jerry and Shaun of the Broken Shillelaghs at The Blue Monkey Tavern in Merchantville, NJ.

Friday

The John Byrne Band will be performing at The Shanachie in Ambler. If you haven’t caught this group yet, here’s a chance to hear some wonderful Irish and folk music from some top-notch musicians. It’s debut album, “After the Wake,” has gotten lots of air time and critical acclaim. We’re expecting an Amos Lee-like breakout any minute now. (And not just because Byrne Band member Andy Keenan also plays with Lee.)

The Sellersville Theatre is presenting the first—as far as we know—performance in the area of a Canadian group called The Town Pants which mixes Irish trad with acoustic pop, American, and a little Australian and Mexican sounds tossed in. Sounds like stone soup to us. This group sells out quick.

Next weekend

All parades, all the time, including Philadelphia, Bucks County, Springfield (Delco), and Conshohocken. But we’ll cross that particular bridge next week. It’s all on the calendar however, so you can scoop us by taking a look.

March 3, 2011 by
News, People

An Irish Primrose Debuts at The Flower Show

The Kennedy Irish Primrose known as "Inisfree."

Shakespeare’s Ophelia warned her brother about treading down the “primrose path,” a phrase the Bard used more than once in his plays to refer to the pleasant path to self-destruction. But to the Irish, a primrose path meant something quite different. It became traditional to plant primroses around the entrance to one’s cottage to protect against evil fairies.

“And it must work,” says Kilkenny nurseryman Pat FitzGerald. “Have you met any?”

You’re certainly not going to encounter any evil fairies at FitzGerald’s nursery in Oldtown, Stoneyford, in southeastern Ireland, built on the farm where FitzGerald grew up. And you will find primroses. As a child, FitzGerald recalls picking wild primroses by the fistful in the Rath, or Neolithic ring fort, on the property. He and his siblings used to “play hideaway” in the fort, which was covered in primroses, violets, and bluebells and which he rescued from its bramble prison when he founded the nursery in 1990.

“But I’d never grown a primrose till three or four years ago,” FitzGerald told me a few weeks ago on the phone from Ireland. “They were so familiar I guess I treated them with a little bit of contempt.”

Then he met an amateur primrose breeder and retired dentist named Joe Kennedy, a Carlow man living in County Antrim, who has been collecting old Irish varieties of primula—the flower’s Latin name—some dating back to the late 19th century. Out of hardy Irish stock of a perennial primrose known as Garryard, Kennedy had bred some unusual plants with very dark foliage that makes them look almost sensual. They’re a reminder that the primrose’s only magic—its only use—is to look pretty. And they do.

FitzGerald is bringing some of these dark wonders with him to debut at the Philadelphia International Flower Show, which opens this Sunday, March 6, at the Philadelphia Convention Center. Though the theme this year is “Springtime in Paris,” Tourism Ireland is a show sponsor so, among the outdoor Paris cafes and the replicas of Versailles, there will be a tribute to the iconic Irish oak, now an endangered species. FitzGerald will introduce and talk about the Kennedy Irish Primroses on Tuesday, March 8, at 4 PM in the Subaru Gardener’s Studio. (And yes, he’s brought some to sell.)

Appropriately, each of the new primroses carries a name linked to Irish poet William Butler Yeats. The first, Inisfree, comes from Yeats’ poem “The Lake Isle of Inisfree,” and is a mat-forming variety with deep red and yellow blooms with very dark purple foliage. The second, Drumcliffe, named for the village graveyard where the poet is buried, is a rosette forming variety with a creamy white flower that opens with a slight touch of mauve.

And the timing is appropriate too, says FitzGerald. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, whose family comes from County Wexford. “But this collaboration between a Fitzgerald and a Kennedy to bring old Irish primroses to America is a typically Irish coincidence,” jokes FitzGerald.

Kennedy and FitzGerald are working on 36 more primrose selections, the next of which may be unveiled next year in a variety of colors, including yellow, white, peach, and pink with intensely dark purple foliage.

Patrick FitzGerald

When he started his company more than 20 years ago, FitzGerald had no idea that his was going to be anything more than a local business. In fact, he didn’t even start out to be a nurseryman per se. After college, he set up his first nursery as a workshop for people with special needs, affiliated with the Brothers of Charity. “Our work was to train people with disabilities, brain injuries, and various forms of mental disability to work in the commercial nursery.”

Then, January 2009, he discovered the social network. Facebook. Twitter. Blogging. He got himself Facebook and Twitter accounts and writes a blog called “My Plant” at Blogspot. Suddenly, his plants were showing up in the US, particularly a shrub called ceanothus, a small tree or shrub in the buckthorn family. His variety is called Tuxedo because it has black leaves—actually, a dark chocolate color with striking red stems and lavender blue flowers. And his carex—a kind of grass—called Everillo is making the rounds on other plant sites and blogs.

“The amount of people I’ve made connections with because of it is amazing,” says FitzGerald. “The first place to find out about plants these days is Facebook. People who are in the business are now scouting it. I’ve been using it pretty actively for 18 months now and spreading the word about our plants, and I don’t think it would have happened any other way. We don’t have the budget to take ads in major magazines. In my experience, getting plants into nurseries has never happened this fast. Going to a trade show would cost me something like 1500 euros and I sometimes would come back scratching my head and wondering, ‘Did anything really come of that?’ Social network sites are like a permanent trade show—your door is permanently open and the good and the bad come in.”

Others have noticed. FitzGerald’s company was short-listed for the Irish Times 2011 Innovation Awards in recognition not only of its unique plant cultivars but for the “unique and cost effective route” it took to access world markets.

But posting on Facebook isn’t his main focus, says FitzGerald, “You still have to do the day job. It doesn’t watch the dishes.” And that means getting his primroses ready for the American market. They’re being produced at his lab which is about 20 miles from the old Kennedy homestead in Wexford. Just another one of those typical “Irish coincidences,” he laughs.

March 2, 2011 by
History, People

Ghostly Doings at Philly’s Oldest Irish Pub

McGillin's owner Chris Mullins, Sr, left, and son Chris, McGillin's manager, don't let a little haunting faze them.

By SE Burns

Philly’s McGillin’s Olde Ale House on Drury St. in Center City was recently named “one of the coolest bars” in the U.S by Gourmet Magazine. But if you feel an actual chill there, it might be old Ma McGillin. She’s not “appearing nightly,” but her ghostly presence has been felt—and now captured in a photo—taken by paranormal investigators.

Like anyone else, Ma continues to be welcome at the 150-year-old pub. Manager Chris Mullins and I sat down not long ago to talk about the paranormal activity that has haunted, so to speak, McGillin’s over the years.

The  particular ghost in question is presumed to be  that of “Ma” McGillin. She owned the restaurant with her husband William McGillin, starting in 1860. On August 31, 1901 “Pa” McGillin died and “Ma” McGillin took over running the restaurant until her death in 1937 at the age of 90. Here’s what Chris has to say about McGillin’s spectral hostess:

Q. Do you like the idea of your restaurant being haunted?

A. The concept is both scary and intriguing!  We realize that we are just the current hosts of McGillin’s, there were great characters before us and it is great to know that they are keeping us company. Hopefully we make them proud.  I am not sure we are as wild as they were generations ago, but we try!  At the same time we are proud to be in their midst.

Q. Can you give us some examples of some paranormal activity that goes on in the restaurant?

A. Back in the 70’s and 80’s our longtime manager Anita would insist that Ma McGillin would follow her through the first floor, she said she saw Ma on several occasions.  The irony of this is that when the South Jersey Paranormal group did their overnight analysis of our building, they shot a photo of a “Lady in White” in a reflection of our mirror over the fireplace, pointing to the front door.  This image seemed to be Ma!

Q. Are you afraid to be in the restaurant alone?

A. It can be a little scary when we are alone in certain areas of the building. Our late night cooks feel a bit creepy when they sense a ghost, or see a shadow. When a full pot unexpectedly falls off a counter it gets your goat!

Q.  Why do you believe that this ghost is actually “Ma” McGillin?

A.   Ma spent the longest time on this property of any past owner – she raised her children on the second and third floor, her husband, the famous William McGillin, died in the basement; after his death in 1901 she  ran the tavern until her death in 1933. Who else would it be?  McGillin’s storied past surrounds Ma so much that it seems obvious that even in death she would reside here.

Could that be Ma in the looking glass? See insert for a close-up.

Q. Was “Ma” McGillin well-liked in Philadelphia?

A.  Ma was beyond well-liked here in Philadelphia – she was beloved!  She ran a very clean, very respectable tavern, and was one of the few female proprietors of her time.  For most of her ownership, women were not even allowed in the major part of the bar, so to have her own the place is pretty extraordinary.  Hundreds descended on Drury Street on the night of January 17, 1920 to watch Ma symbolically lock the front doors of McGillin’s and mourn the end of legal consumption of alcohol.  Each November 12, thousands came to McGillin’s to receive a white carnation from Ma herself, on her 89th birthday, her last, 4000 carnations were distributed!  When Ma died, she was the oldest living parishioner of St. John’s the Evangelist, and was one of the first women to have Broad Street closed for her funeral procession.

Q. What was “Ma” McGillin’s favorite dish to eat in her restaurant?

A.  Quite honestly during most of her time at McGillin’s there were few options, mainly a roasted potato from the hearth, beer was the liquid food of choice.  During Prohibition however, Ma hired the Executive Chef from the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, then the finest hotel in the Philadelphia, to create the first real menu.   Even then the menu was fairly simple: Broiled steaks, lamb chops, ham and egg platters, and oysters, along with surprisingly similar sandwich options that we offer today.

[Chris told me that his great uncle was found dead in the alley behind the pub.]

Q. Is anyone ever nervous about going to the back alley where your great uncle was found dead?

A. No, in fact this is the way most of our “in the know” guests enter and leave daily.  My great uncle left on a very high note, I am not sure he had any regrets!

Q. Has anything unusual happened in the alley since the death of your great uncle?

A. No not so much, though on an anniversary of his death, when my grandfather and a few staff were enjoying a few cocktails after a long night of work, they were sharing stories of their deceased relative and friend, Steve, my grandfather made a crude comment about his ghost telling him to just leave the bar and its patrons alone. Then he threw a wet rag at the window above where my great uncle had passed the last year, and the entire window fell right out of the pane – from what I understand, the entire group fell as white as a ghost, so to speak!

Q. Do you feel your great uncle’s death, or the window breaking, had anything to do with the ghost of “Ma” McGillin?

A. I think that each of these characters miss the fun and are slightly jealous of the living enjoying all that they worked so hard for.  I think it is all in good fun, and they find there is something irresistible and need to come back!  Let’s hope our living customers feel the same way!

SE Burns writes frequently for www.irishphiladelphia.com about the Celtic paranormal.

February 25, 2011 by
Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish In Philly This Week

You know what this means: St. Paddy's month is about to start!

Hope the words “busy week ahead” don’t scare you because you’re going to be hearing it for the next month. This weekend alone is jam-packed with Irish-themed events, including a visit from Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones (at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Glenside on Saturday) and the John Byrne Band, fresh from their appearance this week on The 10! Show, appearing at World Café Live on Saturday night – in the big room downstairs!

AOH Division 51 is having its pre-St. Patrick’s Day party at the Holy Name of Jesus Hall on Saturday night, with live music by Jamie and the Quietmen (why do we think they’re probably not all that quiet?).

The Second Street Irish Society is throwing a fund-raising bash for the benefit of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Saturday night. This is the second to the last fundraiser before the parade on March 13 (the last one will by at the Springfield Country Club, featuring Blackthorn).

St. Denis parish of Havetown is holding its annual St. Denis Irish Night on Saturday too, with entertainment by Misty Isle, a group that will get you up and dancing whether you like it or not.

The Broken Shillelaghs will be at McMichael’s Pub and Grill in Gloucester City, one of New Jersey’s most Irish towns, right on the river.

It gets serious on Sunday: A group of Irish community activists are gathering at Spencer Gifts at the Franklin Mills Mall to protest the derogatory Irish merchandise the store carries. (You’re welcome to join them at noon.) Expect to see more of this—we heard recently that a local supermarket agreed to pull its collection of Irish t-shirts after customers of Irish descent complained. What do the products say? Usually drinking and fighting are involved. We’re waiting to see what happens at the festivals—including the AOH festival in Wildwood—where you can see the same t-shirts and paraphernalia. Will ethnic pride triumph over capitalism? In a recession? We’ll see.

On Sunday afternoon, head to The Shanachie Pub and Restaurant in Ambler for the afternoon-long Sunday Irish Radio Shows benefit, featuring many great local musicians (including the aforementioned John Byrne), raffle prizes and auction items (and the stand-up auctioneering comedy routine of Publican Gerry Timlin).

If you’re in Lehigh County, Jack Callaghan’s Ale House on Tilgman Street is the headquarters for the Allentown St. Patrick’s Day parade fundraiser that features a Chinese auction, a DJ, and Jello shots (hey, sign me up).

Like to play the flute or tin whistle? There’s a free workshop at West Chester University’s Phillips Autograph Library by one of our favorite librarians and musicians Dennis Gormley. He’ll have a limited number of tin whistles for sale if you’ve been thinking of taking it up. Follow it up with am Irish session with Dennis and his wife, Kathy DeAngelo (a harper), at Kildare’s Irish Pub in West Chester.

On Tuesday, the Celtic folk group DeDannan, with founding members Alec Finn and Johnny “Ringo” Mcdonagh will be on stage at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington with special guest Eleanor Shanley. Mention Green Willow for a ticket discount—this is a Green Willow production.

We’re sorry we won’t be getting to those one – a fundraiser for the York St. Patrick’s Day parade for which a dozen York restaurants are creating a menu item containing Guinness. It’s called “There’s Guinness In It,” and we think it’s a great idea! This happens next Friday, March 4.

In Bucks County, the Bucks County St. Patrick’s Day group is honoring its grand marshal, John T. Galloway, at the Irish Ball at Kings Caterers in Bristol on Friday night, March 4.

That same night: Catch Solas in concert at the Sellersville Theatre or the play, “Brendan,” by Ronan Noone, about an Irish immigrant in Boston who is visited by the ghost of his mammy, at McCoole’s Arts and Events Place in Quakertown.

On stage all week is The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Plays and Players Theatre in Philadelphia.

There’s loads going on next week, including Gael Scoil—and immersion weekend in Irish—in Lawrenceville, NJ, the Erin Express has a warm-up voyage, Queen of Peace Parish in Ardsley is holding its annual Irish night, Celtic Kilt night kicks off at the Temperance House in Newtown,  the Gloucester County AOH is throwing its St. Paddy’s Party, and Blackthorn is rocking it for the Philly parade.

Plenty more where that came from—on our calendar, as well as details on all these events.

February 24, 2011 by
Columns, People, Travel

Return of the Wild Geese

Tom Finnigan: Son of Irish immigrants who moved to England, he's emigrated to Ireland.

Editor’s Note: Tom Finnigan is the son of Irish immigrants who moved to England, where he was born. This is the first of a series of essays he wrote about being an immigrant of a different sort: an Englishman of Irish descent who emigrated to Ireland–to the country’s northern most point, Malin, County Donegal.

We came to Malin and built a house in Goorey, on rocks above Trawbreaga Bay. My neighbor Connel Byrne calls it Ard na Si and tells us that Niall – king of all the fairies of Inishowen – holds court here. Barney Doherty used to come for gooseberries. Enid Stewart remembers it as a place full of hazel bushes, where fishermen came for wands to make lobster pots. She came for nuts when she was a child.

‘You’re nuts!’ shouted my father in Manchester when we announced our plans.

He remembers the poverty of Mayo in 1930; how De Valera suggested that he dance at the crossroads; how Doctor Walshe demanded a pound note before he would mount a trap in Ballyhaunis and visit my sick grandmother. Donegal, insisted my father, is full of rain and wind. The women wear shawls and fishermen drown.

“If ye go back and show an English number plate, some eejit from Derry will shoot ye.”

He couldn’t conceive of anyone choosing to live here.

And there’s the point. We have chosen. My father’s generation did not have choice. The Inishowen of holiday homes and art studios is inconceivable to the mind of my mother-in-law, the eldest of 13 children from Ballygorman in Malin Head. She has lived in Manchester for 70 years. When she comes to visit us, she doesn’t watch light stream through cloud. She has nothing to say about how mist hovers. She marvels at lights on the Isle of Doagh, the spread of houses in Carndonagh. Her memory is of blackness at night, the lighthouse at Inistrahull flashing, oil lamps smelling of kerosene. Her talk is of neighbours and where they went–to the tunnels in Glasgow, the towers of Boston.

And we?

We observe the light. We read John McGahern or something by Seamus Heaney. We identify birds–herons rigid on the shore, wood pigeons flapping, oystercatchers piping. We wonder if we shall cook scallops from Malin Head or some pasta from Sainsbury’s. We listen to Lyric FM or watch a DVD, put a bottle of Frascati in the fridge and rustle the business pages of the Irish Times. We are anxious about our SSIs. We lobby for broadband and sing in church. We e-mail Holland and Singapore, sell in Ballsbridge and Cork. We book a flight to Stanstead, then walk on Five Fingers strand, amazed at the light.

The children of the Wild Geese are back. We have sold our English property and returned to claim our heritage. We talk of Colmcille, visit Gartan and Derry, discuss the peace process. In Malin, once the demesne of the Harveys, Gaels with broad English vowels oust Planters with rich Irish consanants. Our Jeeps climb Knockamany and frighten the goats. We learn Irish, join writing groups, take up water colours.

On Five Fingers strand, wind lashes the Atlantic. Gulls scream. I raise my binoculars and scan the Bar Mouth. A sail billows, then another. Oars flash. Steel glints.

The Vikings are back.

Editor’s note: Who are the Wild Geese? Read more about them here.

February 24, 2011 by
News, People

All That Glitters

The Newbridge Ladies: Kathleen Reagan, Fidelma McGroary, and Linda Maguire.

Since the 1930s, many Irish newlyweds were choosing their silver pattern from a small company in Newbridge, County Kildare, that grew out of an economic vacuum after the British Army abandoned its garrison there in 1921, leaving Newbridge in financial crisis.

It didn’t take long for Newbridge Silverware to take over the cutlery market from the English companies, such as Sheffield, to become the iconic Irish wedding gift. But it wasn’t until the 1990s that Newbridge made a move that gave the company, feeling the pinch of cheaper foreign imports, a whole new life. It started when one of the company’s craftsman started playing around with the scraps of silver left on the factory floor, making pendants and bracelets out of the valuable detritus of soup spoons and butter knives. Owner William Doyle knew a good idea when he saw one, and the Newbridge Jewelry line took off.

Until this year, though, if you wanted a piece of Newbridge, you’d have to get it on your trip to Ireland or in one of the rare shops in the US that carried it. Today, thanks to an Erdenheim woman, Linda Maguire, you can get a Tara pendant, Rose earrings or a sterling silver baby frame right in your own livingroom.

Maguire recently founded Curragh LLC, the only company in the US licensed to sell Newbridge, and she’s taking a page from hugely successful companies like Silpada, Pampered Chef, and Avon and going the home show route.

A jewelry designer herself, Maguire had a special place in her heart for Newbridge. Her husband, Paul, a native of Newbridge, often bought a piece for her when he was home for a visit. “I absolutely love Newbridge and always have,” Maguire said as she took a moment from toting up a jewelry order at a recent Newbridge party hosted by the Philadelphia Rose of Tralee Centre to talk about her brand new venture. “It’s a simple, classic design, and even though it’s very modern for the most part, it does harken back to traditional Irish images.”

Many pieces are the modern equivalent of Celtic knots, spirals, and the interlacing Book of Kells calligraphy patterns that are so recognizably Irish. Even more modern is the giftware, also sold a home shows, from executive desk clocks to baby gifts to wine holders. But there are also replicas of vintage items—Grace Kelly’s string of pearls and pendants based on William Doyle’s Paris flea market finds—as well as the chunky bead bracelets that have become so popular in the US. And they’re all relatively modestly priced.

If Paul Maguire hadn’t been buying his wife a piece of Newbridge the last time he was in Ireland, there might not be a Curragh LLC. “Paul and William Doyle went to school together,” explains Maguire. “He hadn’t see the Doyles in 30 years and be was buying me a bracelet when he ran into Oonagh Doyle (William’s sister).”

The idea that eventually became a serious move to market Newbridge in the US came with the innocent question Paul Maguire asked. “Why don’t you think about coming into the US market?”

And the home show seemed like the perfect fit. “I’d done them before with my own jewelry,” says Linda Maguire. “Home shows and fundraisers are a big area. I remember doing one to benefit Heifer International. It was very successful.”

When Linda Maguire set up her company, she called her sales people “Irish ambassadors” and the two in the Philadelphia area really are Irish—Kathleen Regan and Fidelma McGrory, both immigrants. She also created an incentive program for the home hostesses who can earn up to a 50 percent discount on any Newbridge silver product—with lots of smaller discounts, depending on how much is sold at the show.

“It’s a really attractive program and women seem to really like it,” says Maguire. Around her, the din of chatter had died down as the party-goers got down to the serious business of actually deciding what to buy, their heads bowed over their catalogs and order forms. “I think it’s going to be very successful.”

To find out more about Newbridge in the US, you can contact Linda Maguire through her website.

Check out our photos of the Newbridge party that was a fundraiser for the Philadephia Rose of Tralee Centre. (Newbridge is a longtime sponsor of the Rose of Tralee Festival and Pageant in Ireland.)

February 18, 2011 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish In Philadelphia This Week

Shannon and Matt Heaton

Less than a month away. That’s right. St. Paddy’s Day—and all the local St. Paddy’s day activities are less than a month away. In fact, this week many pubs are celebrating “St. Practice Day” to help folks get ready for March 17, commonly known among Irish bartenders as “amateur night.”

Well, there’s plenty to do to get yourself conditioned. On Friday night, for example, Tir Na Nog in Center City is hosting the Bogside Rogues for “The Great Guinness Toast,” an international more-or-less simultaneous quaffing of the brown stuff.

And the 19th annual Greater Philadelphia Mid-Winter Scottish and Irish Festival gets underway in Valley Forge with a concert featuring the Scottish tribal drum group Albannach and The Dubliners, as well as locals Jamison and The Hooligans. This one runs all weekend and features everything from swordplay to whiskey tasting, with a whole lot of music and dance thrown in. There are people who need to practice for this event too. Not us—we’ll be there all weekend and you can see how we handle all things Celtic.

Direct from Boston, Irish duo Matt and Shannon Heaton will be making their magic at Trinity Episcopal Church in Swarthmore on Friday night.

And you have your choice of two great Irish plays – Terminus at the Zellerbach Theatre and The Lieutenant of Inishmore at Plays and Players. Better yet, go to both. If you buy tickets for two or more plays in Philadelphia’s Irish Theatre Festival, you get  a 20 percent discount. Go to the Philadelphia Theater Alliance website to order.

On Sunday, Dr. William Watson, director of the Duffy’s Cut Project in Malvern, where the bodies of 19th century Irish immigrants have been unearthed, will be speaking at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Glenside.

At 12:30 PM on Sunday, Irish Network-Philadelphia is holding a public meeting at the Irish Immigration Center in Upper Darby to discuss future events. Tea, coffee and sandwiches will be provided. If you’re not a member of this networking group, here’s your chance to join and. . .network.

There are still a few spaces in a one-day course at Temple University-Fort Washington on Celtic Christianity, which will be held on Wednesday evening. Dr. Ken Ostrand will take you from Irish Christianity before Saint Patrick to today, and introduce you to a variety of Irish saints (some with amazing powers).

Big day next Friday. The Irish American Business Chamber and Network Ambassador’s Awards Luncheon will honor Aramark Corp, the Rev. Timothy R. Lannon, outgoing president of St. Joseph’s University, and businessman James Hasson and his wife, Sarah. The event will take place at the Crystal Tea Room at 100 East Penn Square in Center City. Irish Ambassador to the US, Michael Collins, will make the presentations.

Later that evening, Collins along with Consul General Noel Kilkenny will be attending a fundraiser for the Duffy’s Cut Project. Money raised at the event, which will feature the music of Paul Moore and Friends, will be used to cover the costs of continued DNA tests on the remains found at the archeological site and to erect a memorial to the dead at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in East Falls.

The details for all these events and more are on our amazing calendar. If you have an event you want to publicize, you can add it to our calendar yourself or email me at denise.foley@comcast.net.

February 17, 2011 by
Music, People

Halfway to Spring: The Midwinter Festival Arrives!

Festival organizer Bill Reid gets a bagpipe lesson from Rathkeltair's Neil Anderson.

When I caught up with Bill Reid on his cellphone early Monday morning, he admitted he was “in panic mode.”

By next Friday, the first of thousands of people would be coming to the Valley Forge Convention Center for the opening concert of the Mid-Winter Scottish-Irish Festival Reid and his wife, Karen, have been organizing for 19 years. This year, he bagged his mailing list because he thought it was too old and used the list compiled by the organizers of Irish weekend in Wildwood. Some of his regulars didn’t get their usual postcards and they were calling. “Aren’t you having the festival this year?”

Yes he is. And it’s bigger than ever. And I have to say, for a guy in panic mode, Reid is really funny. I may call him every Monday morning to get the week off to laughing start.

The best part of this year’s festival: “There’s nothing downstairs,” says Reid, who is of Scottish ancestry. That means no pet lovers, computer geeks or swingers competing for parking spaces in the convention center lot or stools at the local bar. There’s only one convention in the building and it’s Celtic.

That sent Reid off on a trip down memory lane. The Pet Expo was a mess, he says. Really. And you know what he means. But the swingers’ group provided an even more embarrassing moment for Reid.

“I came in to the pre-convention meeting and was sitting with everybody and I innocently asked, ‘Where’s the swing group’s band?’ They all looked at me and someone finally said, ‘Billllll.’ Not those kind of swingers. On the bright side, at night after the festival is over we usually go over to the bar and there was plenty of room. They were off doing what they do.”

Then there was the gay and lesbian group who held a pajama party one night on the floor of the convention center. “If anybody else had walked around the corridors the way they were dressed—or not dressed. . . .” He laughs.

He’s had to handle plenty at his own festival too. “One year we had the Daughters of the British Empire take a table and we put them next to an AOH group. The first thing the ladies did was put up a picture of the Queen and a Union Jack. The AOH guys came to me and said, ‘Hey Bill, we thought there was no politics here.’ So I went over to the ladies and said, ‘do you know where you are?’ They were nice about it. They said, ‘Maybe we can take the flag down.’ What I about the Queen? I asked. The guys said, “Oh no, she can stay.’ By the end of the weekend the ladies were feeding them biscuits and the guys were helping them take down their display.”

At this point I’m thinking that maybe they should have tapped this Scotsman who traces his roots back to Paisley, near Glasgow, Scotland, to hammer out a peace accord in Northern Ireland. He accomplished in three days at Valley Forge what it took decades there. He even handles the division of labor among the vendors. “I like to be on the floor at 6:30 AM to make sure that the husbands who are there to help their wives set up help their neighbor instead. The woman there won’t yell at the guy and he won’t yell at her. It’s all peaceful then.”

That may be the only time during the three-day festival that’s it’s peaceful. Reid keeps the music cranking all day and all night long, with headliners such as the Kansas City-based group, The Elders, who describe themselves as “arse kicking Celtic Music from the heartland;” The Young Dubliners, who hail from L.A.; Seven Nations, a Florida-based Celtic/punk/metal band with longevity (around since 1993, the year the Reids launched their festival); and Albannach, whose warlike tribal music (heavy on the drums) every year draws the kilted goth crowd wearing the traditional t-shirt that reads “Outlawed tunes on outlawed pipes.”

Albannach almost got Reid into trouble with his 90-year-old mom. “She’s learned to do the Internet, email and all this. One day she went online and put in our company name, East of the Hebrides. The next thing you know my sister gets a call. ‘What is your brother doing with those tattooed men?’”

One festival regular, Brother, an exciting band with an unusual sound, is especially near and dear to Reid’s heart. Formed by a group of Australian brothers, it combines tribal drums, bagpipes and didgeridoo, a wind instrument invented more than 1,000 years ago by aboriginal people in Northern Australia. Brother’s didgeridoo player is not Australian however. He’s a local native known widely “DidgeriDrew”—and he’s the Reids’ son, Drew.

“He’s the only American,” says Reid proudly. “We were once on a plane with Solas and they wanted to know, ‘how come you never hire us?’ I said, ‘Because you’re too expensive.’ We were on our way to Denver to an Irish festival to see our son and we told them he plays with a band called Brother. Winnie, their fiddler, looks at us with surprise. ‘Your son is DidgeriDrew!’ We ran into Joanie Madden of Cherish the Ladies and she said the same thing. Turns out Drew had backed up Cherish the Ladies. That’s when I realized that I was no longer important.” He laughs.

Also on the bill this year are rockers Rathkeltair of Florida and Hadrian’s Wall from Ontario; the McLeod Fiddlers (an amazing group of young musicians from Canada); the Paul McKenna Band from Scotland; Scottish folkies, the Tannahill Weavers and Annalivia, a fiddle band drawing on musical traditions from Appalachia, Cape Breton, Scotland, Ireland and England; and local talent Seamus Kennedy, Charlie Zahm, Jamison Celtic Rock, and the Hooligans.  There are also plenty of workshops , including dance classes with Rosemarie Timoney on the Irish side and Linette Fitch Brash on the Scottish end; fencing lessons; Irish lessons; a didgeridoo-making class, and a session with Hadrian’s Wall (bring your own instrument). There’s even a workshop called “What the heck is a bagpipe?” for those inquiring minds who’ve always wanted to know and, as always, Scottish and Irish whiskey tastings. And, of course, vendors—about 40 of them, hawking everything from fine Celtic jewelry to rude t-shirts.

You’ll also see Bill Reid running around, putting out fires and occasionally starting some. He’s sharing emcee duties next weekend with Dennis Carr of the Brigadoons of Canada.

And he assures us that most of the “snowbergs” are gone from the parking lot so there are plenty of spaces. Planning a festival whose first name is “midwinter” can be fraught with anxiety. “I got an email today from someone who asked me if I was worried about the weather,” says Reid. “I said, ‘Did you have to bring up that word?’”

The 19th Annual Mid-Winter Scottish-Irish Festival kicks off on Friday, February 18, with an evening concert with Albannach, the Young Dubliners, the Hooligans and Jamison, and runs through Sunday at the Valley Forge Convention Center at Gulph Road and First Avenue in King of Prussia, just off the Valley Forge exit of the Pennsylvania turnpike. Check out our calendar for details or go to the East of the Hebrides website.

Check out some of the action from past festivals.

February 11, 2011 by