How to Be Irish in Philly

Whoever came up with the idea of turning Mick Moloney, Robbie O’Connell and Jimmy Keane into a group, hurray for you.

These three traditional Irish musicians have been at the forefront of Irish music for more years than they care to count. And they’re coming to the Irish Center on Saturday night for a concert sponsored by the Philadelphia Ceili Group.

Singer and musician Mick Moloney, a Limerick native, is an honorary Philadelphia. He pursued his graduate studies at Penn in 1973 and stayed on for several years to revive the Irish music tradition in the city. He’s also the architect of two topnotch groups, Cherish the Ladies and The Green Fields of America. He is a Natational Endowment of the Arts Heritage fellow.

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Put up your dukes! This Saturday quite a few people will be doing just that at the Young Irelands Gaelic Football Club’s “Fight Night” fundraiser at The Irish Center in Philadelphia. There will be a real ring, real referees and real fighters. And yes, real blood. It’s real boxing. It happens.

You’re a lover, not a fighter? Well, Jamison is The Red Rooster in Philly on Saturday night. You’ll love their brand of Celtic rock. They’re also the only band in Philly whose fiddler is sometimes airborne. Said fiddler CJ Mills will also be at Reedy’s on Frankford Avenue on Friday, April 15, as part of Slainte, with Frank Daly, his Jamison bandmate.

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You have two ways to celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising this weekend and another mid-week.

On Saturday, Cherish the Ladies will be at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia playing tunes that celebrate this major event in Irish history. At least two local performers will be joining them onstage: Gabriel Donohue and Marian Makins, who produced a special song honoring one of the women of the revolution, Countess Constance Markievicz, which has been getting air time both in the US and Ireland.

On Sunday, the annual Easter Rising commemoration takes place at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon at the graves of Joseph McGarrity, considered the financier of the rising, and Luke Dillon, who was part of a bombing campaign in England and Canada. This ceremony will be followed by an event at Oaks Ballroom in Glenolden with music by The Spirit of 16 and food and drink.

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In some ways, we’ve entered a post-St. Patrick’s Day lull. In other ways, with the commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising, we’re heading into another period of celebration, with multiple events. You can read more about them here.

As for the rest of this week, a reminder that we’re up to our keisters in traditional Irish music sessions. You can get details on many of them on our calendar. With the exception of the sessions conspicuously not on our calendar. (Hey, you guys: free advertising! Get off your keisters and post them!) BTW, “keister” is ancient Irish Gaelic. It means “buns.” (OK, now we’re totally making this up.)

Here’s what else to look for this week—and, by the way, the second one is a biggie for you Celtic Thunder fans. Of which there are literally herds.

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It’s not over yet! Remember, it’s Irish Heritage month, so there are still plenty of ways to be Irish this week!

Irish musician, songwriter and producer Phil Coulter–winner of 23 platinum discs and a Grammy nominee—will be at the Upper Darby Performing Arts Center with popular singer Andy Cooney on Saturday night. He’s best known for his solo instrumental albums and for being part of the creative brains behind Celtic Thunder, the ultra-popular group of male singers whose fans, known as Thunderheads, follow them all around the country.

Andy Cooney is an Irish-American singer from Long Island who began his career at 17. He was already touring with Irish bandleader Paddy Noonan by the time he was 19. He’s one of the “New York Tenors,” and has performed to sell-out crowds at Carnegie Hall.

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Hope you love a parade. There are a few of them this weekend.

The biggest is the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday. It marches down the Parkway (and, heads up, around all the construction between the library and the Franklin Institute which PennDOT is referring to as “changing traffic patterns”) to Eakins Oval at the foot of the Philadelphia of Museum of Art. Fox29 is broadcasting the parade this year, but it’s even more fun experienced in person.

Some of the best spots to watch the parade: Around 16th Street, near Tir na nOg, though there’s construction there in Love Plaza that could cut down on the standing and sitting room; around the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, or, as one experienced parade goer recommended, from inside Con Murphy’s Pub on the Parkway. Seamus McGroary will be performing there.

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The first of several local St. Patrick’s Day parades happens Saturday in Mt. Holly, NJ, with a tent full of music afterward featuring Jamison, the Shantys, Galway Guild, Broken Shillelaghs, the Mulligans and Clancy’s Pistol. The annual Burlington County parade starts at 1 pm. The grand marshal is Bob Tippin, president and co-founder of the AOH Mike Doyle Division of Cinnaminson, NJ and a Philly natve )a grad of Northeast Catholic High School).

This weekend we also welcome a new parade to the tradition. On Sunday, March 6, for the first time ever in one of the biggest Irish enclaves in the region, Gloucester City, NJ, there will be pipers and marching bands celebrating the great and glorious St. Patrick, starting on Monmouth Street. The Gloucester County AOH will also be celebrating the evening before at Richard Rossiter Memorial Hall with its annual Irish Night featuring the Broken Shillelaghs, a buffet, draft beer, wine, dessert and coffee.

There are so many events this week that we’re just going to list them in chronological order.

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Here’s something that will make you happy: Blackthorn is doing happy hour at Tom & Jerry’s Sports Bar in Folsom on Saturday night. And you can catch their old bandmate, Seamus Kelleher, the same evening at The Dubliner on the Delaware in New Hope, a whole different part of the Delaware Valley.

It’s a week filled with Celtic delights, often overlapping. Saturday night you can also see and hear poet, musician, and Gaelic scholar Diarmuid Johnson who is presenting his one-man show, The Crooked Road: A Ramble Through History History in Words and Music at The Irish Center, a program sponsored by the Philadelphia Ceili Group. It’s one of many historical performances you’ll have the opportunity to see in March and April as the region celebrates the centenary of the Irish 1916 Easter Rising, which represented a major step forward in Ireland’s fight to become a nation independent from Britain.

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