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Lori Lander Murphy

News, People

A Rose by Any Other Name Is … Mairead

Mairead Conley, moments after being crowned Mid-Atlantic Rose of Tralee.

This August, when women from all over Ireland and the world gather in Tralee for The Rose of Tralee International Festival, Mairead Conley will be there to represent not only Philadelphia, but the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

A celebration of “modern young women in terms of their aspirations, ambitions, intellect, social responsibility and Irish heritage,” the festival could have crafted their definition of a Rose around Conley.

Aspirations: “I think it’s great how unexpected life can be. A year ago I never could have pictured myself here. I’m so excited for Ireland and the festival, but I’m even more ecstatic for the upcoming year—to take on such an active role in the Irish community in Philadelphia.”

Ambitions: “I’d always been interested in pursuing a career in non-profit management. Last year, my mom saw the interview that Denise Foley did with Siobhan Lyons [head of the Irish Immigration Center here in Philadelphia] on irishphiladelphia.com and sent it to me. I contacted Siobhan, and we talked about what I was interested in, and what the goals of the center were. I began interning there last August. I never even realized how ignorant I was about the immigration process in this country. So many positive things have come out of working there, including being on the IN-Philly Board.”

Intellect: “In 2007, I graduated from Temple University with a degree in sociology. If I could have, I would have majored in anthropology and African-American studies as well. I’ve always planned to go on for a master’s degree in social work.”

Social responsibility: “Growing up, service was always a part of my life. It was just another activity, like ballet or chorus. We volunteered at St. Vincent’s Soup Kitchen in Germantown, and every Saturday I’d go with my aunt, who was a nun, to collect food from restaurants and farmers markets and deliver it to the St. Francis Inn in Kensington. In the summers, we’d go and stay with another aunt in Ohio (my mom is one of 10 kids) and teach vacation Bible School in Appalachia. The year after I graduated from Temple, I spent a year with the Mercy Volunteer Corps volunteering at a Catholic grade school in Cincinnati. There are so many kids living in poverty, and I think it’s so important to give them outlets and hope. I really believe it’s an important part of my spiritual development and growth.”

Irish heritage: “The Conleys are from Ballina in County Mayo. They emigrated to Canada, and were in Newfoundland before coming down into the U.S., into Indiana and Chicago. My mom’s family is from Strabane, County Tyrone, and from Abbeyfeale, County Limerick. We just visited some family there last summer. And it’s really funny because I was actually in Tralee last year, too. I saw the rose gardens and we saw a show at the National Folk Theatre. It never entered my mind that I’d be going back, let alone as a Rose.”

But when deciding on the Rose, judges look beyond even those characteristics to discern “the truth in her eyes” as William Mulchinock’s song “The Rose of Tralee” characterizes it.

And just so, there is more yet to Conley:“I find it all so overwhelmingly exciting that it’s taking me a while to soak it all in. I really wasn’t going to do it, enter the Rose Festival—I’m someone who’s an observer of people and I generally don’t like the limelight—it’s so strange that the tables have turned,” Conley explained.

“Kathleen Murtagh encouraged me to enter the Miss Mayo Pageant last November, and Sarah [Conaghan, managing director of the Mid-Atlantic Rose of Tralee Center] was a judge there.

After Miss Mayo, Sarah encouraged me to go out for the Rose. I said I would think about it, but it seemed so out of my realm that I put it to the side,” Conley laughed.It wasn’t until more encouragement from City Councilman Bill Green, and the ladies at the Immigration Center’s Senior Lunch, that Conley threw her tiara into the ring.

“In March, at the Philadelphia Rose Selection, I got myself worked up and stressed out over it… so by the end of the night, I was shocked that I was a finalist. I find it difficult still. All of these women are so intelligent, savvy and dynamic. But camaraderie is really emphasized; there truly is a lack of competition.

“And so much is based on service. That’s an area I’m comfortable talking about. I still have a strong desire to do a service year abroad; I’d even started the application process for the upcoming year—I really didn’t think I’d win. I believe in thinking globally and acting locally, in doing something that will make a big difference in a small area.”

In fact, Conley chose two charities to sponsor as the Mid-Atlantic Rose: Holy Family Home and The Little Sisters of the Poor in Southwest Philly, where her grandmother lives, and the Southwest Community Arts Center where she did service work growing up.

“I feel like I’ve been blessed that I’ve had a lot of freedom to be able to choose what I want to do in life, and then do it. This past year has shown me that life is full of surprises and unexpected opportunities.

“Jocelyn McGillian did such an awesome job as Philadelphia’s Rose last year. I have some big shoes to fill. I’m really looking forward to working with Sarah, and the whole Conaghan family. I just have to say how genuinely kind everyone has been, even before the Rose. The Philadelphia Irish community is closeknit but so welcoming… I really think it’s going to be a great year.”

And on August 24, all Irish eyes in Philadelphia will be looking toward Tralee, and rooting for the home town favorite.

July 2, 2010 by Lori Lander Murphy

Genealogy

The 1901 Irish Census Goes Live Online

Waiting for the census taker? Image from iStockphoto digital restoration by Steve Wynn Photography.

Where was your Irish ancestor on the night of March 31, 1901?

If you thought that was a question you might never see answered, think again. Thanks to the National Archives of Ireland, the 1901 census for all 32 counties North and South, is available online.

This is Ireland’s earliest surviving set of census records (the 1911 census also survived intact and was put online a few years ago), but all others beginning with the 1921 records were destroyed long ago. The loss of so many population records, particularly in the 1922 fire at the Public Records Office, makes the existence of the 1901 census all the more precious to researchers today.

Ireland’s unique approach to census taking—the forms were filled out and signed by the actual head of each household on the night of March 31st, known as “census night”—means that the information was provided directly by the family. If the head of household couldn’t write, an enumerator filled it out in front of a witness.

Initially opened to public perusal beginning in 1961, those original forms are now transcribed and indexed exactly as they were filled out, and in this age of immediate internet access, both the transcripts and the originals are able to be accessed 24 hours a day by researchers worldwide.

The records are searchable by any member of a given household, and able to be narrowed down by county, townland or street, district electoral division (DED), and age (plus or minus 5 years is automatically tallied). In fact, if you were so inclined, you could enter just a county name, and call up all the people living in, say, Waterford, in 1901. If you were so inclined…

But the information found on the actual forms themselves is the true gold. Birthplace, marital status, religion and any physical disabilities are all noted. In addition to the basic family page, there are three more forms included for each return; they deal with “religious denomination, classification of buildings and out-offices and farm-steadings, filled out by the Enumerator for that townland/street.”

And just because your ancestors may have already emigrated before 1901 doesn’t mean you won’t find family. All those who stayed behind—parents and grandparents, siblings and cousins—they’re all there in the records, waiting to be discovered at 2 a.m. by a thrilled descendent.

So what are you waiting for? Go see where your Irish ancestor was on the night of March 31, 1901!

June 4, 2010 by Lori Lander Murphy

Music

A Weekend of Great Irish Tunes

John Brennan and John McGillian

When it comes to hearing great Irish music, some weeks it is a very good thing indeed to be in Philadelphia. Last weekend was one of those times.

On Friday, May 21, the Philadelphia Ceili Group brought together some of the best musicians around for the Festival Benefit Concert at the Irish Center.

Paddy O’Neill played slow airs! And sang! John Brennan performed some gorgeous tunes that he’s composed. Caitlin Finley played Sligo fiddle tunes. John McGillian and his accordion were brilliant. Tim Hill got to pipe. Judy Brennan accompanied on the keyboard. And Paraic Keane closed the evening with unforgettable fiddling.

And there’s a little town called Coatesville, about an hour’s drive from Philadelphia—perhaps an hour and a half, should you make a wrong turn or two—where Frank Dalton lures some of the biggest names to play for the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series, at the Coatesville Cultural Society. Last Sunday, Kevin Burke and Cal Scott filled Frank’s cozy concert hall with the kind of music that makes your heart smile and your feet dance.

His initial goal was to sell 50 tickets to be able to offer the concert; he far surpassed that number. What’s that? You weren’t able to make it to either of those events, but now you really wish you had? It is a lucky day, indeed then, for the Irish, because irishphiladelphia.com has some videos for you!

Here they are (and there are a lot):

May 26, 2010 by Lori Lander Murphy

Music

Calling on the Local Talent

For regular attendees of trad sessions around Philly, the playing of Paddy O’Neill, John Brennan and John McGillian is a highly regarded and well-anticipated event… to have the three of them, along with Caitlin Finley and Paraic Keane, come together to support The Philadelphia Ceili Group’s 2010 festival, is a guarantee of an evening of music worth listening to.

“People who pay attention to the local music have heard all these people playing before, but you don’t get a chance to hear everyone individually in a session,” Tom O’ Malley, PCG board member and organizer of the event, explained. “And all these guys are as good as anyone out there playing today.”

The Festival Benefit Concert is this Saturday, May 22, beginning at 8 p.m. at The Irish Center. Workshops are being offered for Northern Tunes on Flute, Guitar Accompaniment, Button Accordion from 4 to 6PM. There are no tickets to purchase, but there is a requested donation of $15 for the concert, or a combined donation of $25 for entry to both the workshop and the concert.

All the musicians are offering their talents free for the benefit. The PCG festival has been going strong since Tipperary singer Robbie O’Connell and Limerick’s Mick Moloney began the tradition in 1975. This year, Liz Carroll and Daithi Sproule are set to play the 2010 festival, September 11-13th. The PCG is hoping to be able to bring Dezi Donnelly and Dermot Byrne to the festival as well, and the upcoming benefit concert could help achieve that goal.

The players are looking forward to the concert themselves… Paddy O’Neill, flute player from Derry City, is known for his jigs and reels, but this Saturday he will be performing tunes which are more especially associated with the music and musicians of the North of Ireland.

“I think that sessions in the North tended to have a more varied repertoire than sessions I encountered in the rest of Ireland. You would get not only the usual jigs, reels and hornpipes, but also barndances, polkas, Germans, waltzes, marches and highlands. Expect to hear more of the latter than jigs and reels. Singers were a prominent feature of the northern sessions I attended, so I might even chance a song. There is, of course, the Orange fifing and drumming tradition in the North, and a fifing march or two might be appropriate,” O’Neill said.

John Brennan, on the fiddle and guitar, will be featuring his own original music, including several tunes that have been recorded by Liz Knowles and Bob McQuillen.

“John has some tunes, like ‘Owen G,’ that he dedicated to his nephew, that are just gorgeous,” O’Malley said. “Another great one is ‘The Couple That Married Themselves.’”

“John McGillian’s going to be playing some of his favorite stuff. His hornpipes, they’re gorgeous, he plays them so well. ‘The Sweeps’ and ‘Lad O’Byrne’s are two that he plays.”

In addition, Caitlin Finley will be playing fiddle tunes from Andy McGann. “Caitlin’s been under the tutelage of Brian Conway, the Sligo-style fiddler up in New York, and he learned directly from Andy McGann… she does them really beautifully.”

Fiddler Paraic Keane, son of The Chieftains Sean Keane, is going to include some of his father’s songs in the evening. “There’s a set of his dad’s reels, that Sean and Matt Molloy recorded, ‘Sword in Hand,’ ‘The Providence’ and ‘The Old Bush,’ and Paraic really kills that set… he really sounds like his old man.”

An open session will follow the concert.

More information on The PCG Festival Benefit Concert can be found on the group Web site: http://www.philadelphiaceiligroup.org/

May 20, 2010 by Lori Lander Murphy

Arts, History, People

How the Irish Maid Saved Civilization

The cover of Margaret Lynch-Brennan's landmark book on Irish domestic servants.

A footnote in a book she was reading while studying history and gender led Margaret Lynch-Brennan to a hidden trove of information about the group of Irish immigrants she now believes finally brought the Irish into the American melting pot: the Irish domestic servant.

She calls these young women who emigrated from Ireland between 1840 and 1930 “The Irish Bridgets.” She’ll be talking about them, the subject of her 2009 book, “The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930,” at the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion in Philadelphia on Saturday, May 8, from 2-4 p.m.

The book grew out of her 2002 American History Ph.D. dissertation.

“I was reading a lot of books,” she explained, “and one of the books mentioned that most Irish women started work as domestics.”

Lynch-Brennan wondered why there wasn’t more written on the topic. “The importance of Irish women generally has been underlooked, not overlooked,” she says. “Most of the history that’s been written about the Irish focuses on the men, but unlike other immigrant groups, the women who immigrated actually outnumbered the men…that’s very different.”

She began digging, and what she found convinced her that it was these Irish women, some as young as 13, who helped bring the Irish acceptance in American society where “No Irish Need Apply” was a familiar sign in many urban areas.

“The typical middle class WASP wouldn’t know any Irish men on a first name basis, but they would know Irish women because they lived in the house. Most Americans during that time period only employed one servant, and that was a ‘maid of all work.’ She worked 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, taking care of their homes and their children.”

It wasn’t an easy life, but these women found ways to have a good time.

“Going to church was a big part of their social lives. They could see people from their hometowns. The women who worked in domestic service didn’t live with other Irish people, so meeting and talking to others at church presented a way to keep up with the Irish community.”

Irish dances were another social outlet for the young Bridget. “The Irish counties associations were concerned with finding ways for the girls and boys to meet, so Irish set dancing was arranged. Most Irish women eventually married. It was an aspect of Irish culture in Ireland that one was not considered an adult until one married, and most wanted to get married.”

The name Bridget, or Biddy, became so associated with the Irish domestic servants that women actually changed their names to distance themselves from that stereotype. “For a long time, the name Bridget wasn’t used. There’s a period where you won’t find any girls being named Bridget. Irish-Americans today have forgotten that association,” and the name has become popular once again.

Lynch-Brennan’s book contains many personal letters, never before published, as well as photos. I was curious as to how she tracked down such hard-to-find treasures.

“It wasn’t easy,” she said. “They didn’t have time and leisure to leave important documents behind, plus so many of them changed their names. It was a challenge.”

Two historians in particular, Kerby Miller and Arnold Schrier, provided Lynch-Brennan with invaluable assistance.

“Both had gone to Ireland [Miller in the 70’s and Schrier in the 50’s] and put in a call for letters from Irish-Americans sent home to Ireland. They put ads in newspapers.”

Lynch-Brennan spent a week poring over Miller’s collection of letters, and he generously allowed her to quote from the ones that were relevant to her work.

Her husband told her she should advertise. “I had a card made up, and I would pass it around at talks I gave. I posted on genealogical websites, and found a treasure trove. One woman had her grandmother’s letters, and let me have them for the book.”

“Another historian, Hofstra professor Maureen Murphy, has written the most on the topic; she’s written all the articles. She’s known to all the historians, in America and Ireland. She’s a lovely person, and was very generous.” Murphy wrote the foreward to Lynch-Brennan’s book.

I had to know one final thing: Were any of Lynch-Brennan’s own ancestors an Irish Bridget?

“I have one,” she told me. “My mother’s great-grandmother’s sister, Jane Shalboy. She came over during the famine. She worked as a domestic. The family was from the village of Summerhill, in County Meath. Owen Shalboy left Ireland in the 1850s and brought his mother with him. There isn’t anyone left today in Ireland with that name, but a few years ago I went back there, and it was the first time in 150 years that descendants of two branches of the family had met. There was a memorial service in the parish while I was there, to honor all those relatives who had died. People came from all over Ireland to the home parish to remember their ancestors. I felt like the circle was complete.”

For information on Margaret Lynch-Brennan’s talk at the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, go to the Mansion Web site. Reservations are required.

For information on the book, “The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930,” go to the Syracuse University Press Web site.

May 6, 2010 by Lori Lander Murphy

Music

All-Ireland Champ Isaac Alderson, Singularly Focused on the Music He Loves

Isaac Alderson, on one of the several instruments at which he excels, the flute.

Isaac Alderson is many things…

At age 27, he‘s young.

As a musician, he’s talented in a manner many dream of but few can lay claim to: In 2002, he was named the All-Ireland Senior Champion on the flute, the whistle and the uillean pipes, in the process making this Chicago native the first American since Joanie Madden to win a tin whistle championship.

For a profession, he is making a living playing the Irish music he loves. “Irish music… I came across it when I was 11 or 12. My mom had a friend who gave me my first practice set of pipes, and I started playing them at 14. The pipes, they’re the most awkward thing for a beginner…I was really enthusiastic about it; through my high school years it was almost like an obsession. I practiced all the time,” Alderson recalled.

“I grew up in a musical household, not Irish music, but my dad had been a professional musician for a short time when he was young. He played the bass, the guitar, the harmonica. I played the saxophone when I was 10.”

Alderson’s teachers, once he discovered his passion for Irish music, were the likes of John Williams, Laurence Nugent, Al Purcell and Kieran O’Hare.

“I had a lot of people helping my interest along the way. I played a session in Evanston, and I learned a lot, hearing them play. Laurence Nugent was a primary influence.”

“My parents, my mother especially, worried about me a lot, about whether I’d be all right financially. When I was 17, my parents said, ‘Well, we think it’s about time you got a job,” and then I got handed down the session at The Hidden Shamrock in Chicago, paying $75,” Alderson laughed.

After graduating from Sarah Lawrence in 2005, Alderson made the decision to move to New York to pursue professionally the career that had begun as a fascination with Irish music and culture.

“I never saw myself getting into it in a professional capacity… I had no idea I’d ever make any money in it at all. New York’s a great place. There are tons of bars to play in, and always lots of traffic from Ireland… you don’t feel like you’re stepping on each other’s music toes.”

There’s a regular crowd of Irish musicians in New York, many of them around the same age, having arrived in the city about the same time. A camaraderie has developed among them, and an ease in playing together.

For Alderson, a collaboration between two of those musicians in particular has emerged: Fiddle player Grainne Murphy and guitar player Alan Murray.

“Alan and Grainne and I started playing together about two and a half years ago, a regular session at the Pig ‘n’ Whistle on 3rd. Six hours of playing together every Sunday for two years… slowly over the course of time, we’ve started to feel really comfortable together musically. We work very well together.”

The Philadelphia Ceili Group has thoughtfully and affectionately arranged for the trio to play at The Irish Center tonight, Friday, April 30, at 8:30 p.m. A last-minute scheduling conflict for Murray is bringing John Walsh and his guitar to town instead with Alderson and Murphy.

“I’ve played loads with Johnny. He was born in The Bronx, but raised in Kilkenny… he’s a remarkably versatile trad musician. He often plays with Paddy Keenan. He also has a recording studio in Westchester.”

The same studio, in fact, where Grainne Murphy recorded her recently launched CD, “Short Stories.”

Murphy hails from Boston, where she was gifted with her first fiddle at the tender age of 4. She learned to play from County Clare’s All-Ireland champion fiddler, Seamus Connolly.

Alderson is effusive in his praise for Murphy, with whom he “absolutely loves“ playing. In addition to her talent on the fiddle, “she has an incredible ability to pursue lots of different things at once. She’s a lawyer by trade, and an avid runner… she maintained her job as a lawyer, finished up her solo recording, kept up her running, and went back and forth to Massachusetts to help her brother, Patrick, in his campaign for city council, which he won.”

For Alderson, for now, his focus is on the music.

“It’s not a glamorous living, but I make enough to get by, and to have fun at the same time. I have thought at times of finding something a little more stable,” Alderson mused.

There doesn’t seem to be much need for that anytime soon. In addition to his regular gigs with Murphy and Murray, Alderson is pretty well booked.

“I freelance, and I get a lot of gigs by virtue of playing the pipes… I get way more gigs as a piper than as a flutist. They share me, I guess. The pipes are the quintessential Irish instrument, especially for stage gigs; people like to see the pipes.”

Oh, yes, Isaac Alderson is many things, including modest.

He can be seen playing with Shannon Lambert-Ryan, Fionan De Barra and Cheryl Prashker in RUNA.

He can be found performing with the group Jameson’s Revenge.

He recently returned from touring with Celtic Crossroads, and is set to go back out on the road with them in July.

And he is working on his first solo CD, which he hopes to finish up this June.

“What I like best above everything else is just playing tunes…playing trad music in its unadorned form.”

For information on their Philadelphia Ceili Group performance, Friday, April 30, visit their Web site.

April 30, 2010 by Lori Lander Murphy

Music

A Rare Showing in Philadelphia: Liam Clancy’s story in “The Yellow Bittern”

Liam Clancy figures prominently in "The Yellow Bittern."

“That Volcano” may have been the cause of many a travel upheaval for folks around the globe recently, but it wasn’t only people who got delayed. Planes grounded by airborne ash also temporarily waylaid the arrival of the brilliant feature documentary “The Yellow Bittern” from arriving at its Philadelphia destination.

The film, the brainchild of director Alan Gilsenan, is a riveting feature-length portrait of Liam Clancy, culled in large part from rare archival footage (some that had been tucked away, forgotten, in Liam’s attic for years, the discovery of which, according to Gilsenan’s comments on the film’s Web site, surprised and thrilled the man himself), and intimate interviews done over the past several years. And the Philadelphia Ceili Group is one of only a few American outlets to be granted the rights to a stateside showing of the movie.

“One of the researchers from the film found us online, and contacted one of the board members at the PCG,” explained Beth Ann Bailey, the Ceili Group’s treasurer. “I took it on as my project to chair because my parents always had The Clancy Brothers albums playing in the house when I was growing up. As far as I know, the PCG is the first to host it in the Philadelphia area.”

There were just a few moments of worry for Bailey when the flight delays continued…but those worries are over now. The documentary arrived safe and sound this week, awaiting its one and only Philadelphia showing on Friday, May 7, at The Commodore Barry Center (aka The Irish Center) in Mount Airy.

“This is a different event for the Philadelphia Ceili Group to host…we haven’t done anything like this in a very long while, and the showing of “The Yellow Bittern” is a great way to re-introduce film premieres to the group’s events,” said Bailey.

The film is indeed a feast of music, biography and poignant insight into the lives of the Clancy Brothers. Liam, who was the last surviving member of the group, and who passed away this past December, figures most prominently. He’s the man that Bob Dylan once called “just the best ballad singer I’d ever heard in my whole life.”

Admission to the screening is $10, and seating will be limited. Tickets can be purchased online at www.philadelphiaceiligroup.org. The PCG recommends you purchase your tickets early.

“We hope people take advantage of the opportunity. It will be a great evening at the Irish Center…a brilliant movie showing at 7 p.m., and then immediately following the film, there will be a session happening as well!”

For a peek at the online preview of “The Yellow Bittern,” check out the official Web site of the film at www.liamclancyfilm.com.

April 22, 2010 by Lori Lander Murphy

Genealogy

Finding Where the Faerie Folks Hid Our Ancestors

Deborah Large Fox

As anyone who has ever started down the road to discovering their Irish ancestors knows, it’s a path that’s beaten, fraught with stones, at times narrow and crooked, never the one of least resistance. Aand every once in a while a black cat will cross it in front of you.

In other words, Irish genealogy is a challenge.

I, myself, have been known to muse on occasion that clearly my missing ancestors discovered the portal to hell in a cave in County Roscommon, and a few of them liked it so much they stayed.

Deborah Large Fox, former-prosecutor-turned-family-historian, has a kinder, gentler theory to explain the difficulty in locating her forefathers and mothers: this past January she began writing a blog titled “Help! The Faerie Folk Hid My Ancestors!”

The blog developed out of classes and talks that she’s been facilitating over a number of years. Fox explains that she‘s always “receiving new information and research tips…and blogging might be the best way to pass these tips to a larger audience.”

Interestingly, when Fox first began teaching genealogy classes, it was on the general topic of family research. But she noticed a trend developing: the majority of her attendees were focused specifically on their Irish ancestry. And, fortunately for all of us here in the Philadelphia area, that’s a road Fox has been traveling for years.

She started her own family research back in the days before the Internet, making several trips to Ireland in her quest. Her visits included trips to her family townlands, as well as time spent researching at The National Library of Ireland in Dublin.

Locally, she did a lot of investigating through the resources at the Family History Center in Cherry Hill. When they approached her about facilitating a monthly group for Irish researchers about a year and a half ago, she was happy to do so.

The group meets on the first Thursday of every month, and as I discovered for myself a few weeks ago, it’s a magical place where folks can go and share information, brainstorm together about brick walls, discover new avenues to research, and sometimes even chance upon relatives.

“I had cousins meet here a few months ago,” Fox told me. “I love the people that come.”

Each month, Fox introduces a different theme, “something out of the ordinary, like music.” April’s topic was “Irish Culture,” and it centered on how to pick out cultural clues. “Many Irish family history researchers become frustrated when they can’t find the county or townland of origin of their ancestors,” without realizing that things like special recipes passed down within the family, or childhood games taught to them as children, hold an association with a particular county or region of Ireland.

“People talking about songs and poems…these are cultural hints to rely on, any little clues you can grab onto, which sometimes in Irish research is all you have to work with,” says Fox.

One woman had an immigrant grandfather who wrote poetry, so she brought copies of two of his poems to pass around the group. Even though it didn’t lead back to Ireland, the knowledge shared that day gave her some new inspiration. One of the poems, when decoded by new eyes, appeared to be telling a tale from the days of Prohibition; she remembered that her grandfather had owned a pub in Philadelphia back during that era–a light bulb moment.

“It’s the hobby that never ends,” Fox laughed. “It’s just amazing. And I’m having so much fun with it.”

Fox’s blog has many fabulous resources linked into it, far too many to even begin to try to re-list here. You simply must check out her site for yourself. But, I have coerced a promise out her that as I stumble down my own path of research, she will ably assist me, so look forward to more genealogy articles at irishphiladelphia.com in the near future.

April 16, 2010 by Lori Lander Murphy

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