Haley
One of the great things about Robin Hiteshew’s photo exhibit in New York this week was this: he hasn’t only documented the older stars of traditional Irish music, he’s also captured images of some of the rising stars, too.
Robin took the photo of All-Ireland fiddle champ Haley Richardson at the Philadelphia Art Museum, according to mom Donna.
There were a lot of photos from the exhibit, but this is one we liked best.
Robin Hiteshew, Pat McGann and Haley Richardson
Robin Hiteshew joined the Philadelphia Ceili Group to learn how to dance.
It didn’t take long before he had moved well beyond learning jigs, reels and polkas. The entire world of Irish dance, music and culture opened up to him quite unexpectedly—right from the start.
“People were very welcoming,” Hiteshew recalls of his first night of lessons in the early fall of 1978 at the Water Tower Recreation Center in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. “When they put on the music for dancing, and I heard those wonderful jigs and reels, it was like the muse bit me. The next thing you know, I was going down to all the record shops on South Street looking for Irish music.”
He was so inspired, he booked a flight to Ireland just under a year later, searching out the pubs and bars where traditional Irish tunes were played, soaking up the music and chatting with the musicians. “I heard Irish music three out of the four nights I was there.”
One thing led to another, and Hiteshew soon found himself in the Philadelphia Ceili Group, eventually rising to a leadership position. In time, he came to realize the importance of documenting the many Irish music superstars—although they probably wouldn’t think of themselves in those terms—who passed through the city. Ultimately, that documentation found its fullest expression in the form of yet another of Hiteshew’s passions—photography, until recently done the old-fashioned way—on film. “I knew right from the beginning that what the Ceili Group was doing was important. And so I began to document.”
Hiteshew came to know many of those musicians as they traveled through Philadelphia for Ceili Group concerts. “Musicians would wind up staying with me in those days, and I would photograph them the next morning after the concert,” Hiteshew recalls. “With Irish and early mornings … well, they were a little groggy, and sometimes they were getting on the next plane, but they were very gracious. A lot of them are sitting, holding their instrument or playing.”
Some of the photos were also taken in Ireland.
Hiteshew quickly came to understand the importance of documenting the old guard, but also the new young musicians who in turn went running with the music, making it their own. “In two cases,” Hiteshew says of his portraits, “it was a father teaching his child.” (Such as Mike and Mary Rafferty.)
The now extensive collection, he says, “demonstrates the passing of the tradition, from one generation to the next, and the vitality and relevance of the tradition in the 21st century.”
The fruits of Hiteshew’s labors were recognized Thursday night at an exhibition at the Irish Consulate in New York City.
So many faces, 50 in all, lovingly preserved in stark black in white, incredibly crisp silver prints: Leitrim flutist Eddie Cahill, fiddler Paddy Reynolds (“The Music Master of Dromard”), County Sligo master fiddler Andy McGann, Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll, singers Mary Black and Dolores Keane, multi-instrumentalist and folklorist Mick Moloney, the late great Belfast flutist and Altan co-founder Frankie Kennedy, the family trio of Seamus, Siobhan and Rory Ann Egan (taken when they were very young), and so many more … including Philadelphia’s own young All-Ireland fiddler Haley Richardson.
The simply framed prints lined the walls of the consulate’s bright 17th floor exhibit space. There were so many guests it was hard to move. Some of the region’s all-star musicians were also on hand, including fiddlers Tony DeMarco and Don Meade, and piper Jerry O’Sullivan. Later on in the evening, about a dozen of them played a rocking impromptu session—and then it got a lot harder to move, because no one was moving. They were just standing there listening.
Most who attended Thursday night’s event at the Consulate seemed overwhelmed by Hiteshew’s lifelong labor of love—including the Consul herself Barbara Jones. “This is Ireland,” she said as she gestured around the room. “Fifty photographs that have never seen the light of public space. This is the work of a genius.”
“And of course,” she added, drawing laughs from a large local contingent, “that genius is from Philadelphia.”
Hiteshew, for his part, takes a more modest view.
“I want the viewer to know something about the person in the photo and want to know more. If you look at a photo and it speaks to you, then I feel like I’ve done my job.”
Plans are currently under way to move the exhibit to Philadelphia. Stay tuned.
Photos and video below.
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Jennifer Devlin and her husband, Steve
Celtic fair skin stems from a single gene from a single person who lived 10,000 years ago in the Middle East or the Indian continent, found a recent Penn State University study.
I know what you’re thinking: Damn him! Not only can’t we tan, that ghost-pale sensitive skin makes us more susceptible to skin cancer and rosacea, an acne-like condition characterized by reddened facial skin and pimples.
And cosmetics? If you’re like me, you have a closet filled with potions and creams that promised you youth and beauty but made your skin look and feel like you’d dozed off under the broiler.
Jennifer Devlin found herself in a similar situation, and she was filling up that closet for free. For 10 years, she worked for many of the top names like Estee Lauder and Lancome and was once the beauty director for Nordstrom’s.
“We were given all the products to use because they wanted us to sell them. I would put them on my skin and they would sting and they would tell me, oh. It’s just your skin, not our products. I never thought to ask what was in the product that was causing the skin to fall off my face,” says the red-haired Devlin, the founder of a rising company called Celtic Complexion, headquartered in Raleigh, NC. Celtic Complexion is one of the sponsors—and an apt one–of the Philadelphia Rose of Tralee event and seven others across the US. Celtic Complexion was also a sponsor of the Philadelphia’s Mary from Dungloe pageant and the Mayo Ball in 2014.
Devlin has had rosacea since she was in her 20s (she’s in her 40s now) and used her makeup artist skills to conceal her overly rosy cheeks. And she tried every product on the market to curb that permanent blush, with few results.
Then she met a holistic esthetician. “I told her what I was using and thought she’d be impressed with all the labels, but she just rolled her eyes and told me that the chemicals, fragrances and dyes were exacerbating my rosacea and prematurely aging my skin,” recalls Devlin.
And as someone whose livelihood depended on the sale of beauty products, she was understandably reluctant to follow the esthetician’s advice. “I believed in those companies and their products—why would they lie to me?—but she said to get off all the chemicals and use only coconut oil on my skin. I did it because this woman was in her early 50s and had gorgeous skin. I figured she must know something.”
She did what the woman recommended and, over the course of a few months, she experienced results: No more redness, no more burning—and no more concealing makeup. (In fact, she rarely wears makeup anymore, she says).
She also said goodbye to the big name beauty industry. “At 31, I went back to school to become an esthetician and began experimenting with making my own beauty products.”
Unlike mainstream brands, Devlin’s homemade beauty treatments weren’t 70 to 80 percent water. “In fact, there’s no water in them,” she says. “Once you put a water-based product on your skin, it feels good but an hour later you don’t feel anything. Once the water evaporates, your skin is left vulnerable.”
At first she just shared her products with family and friends. Then 10 years in, she decided to write a business plan and, with an angel investor, launch her own brand for women with skin like hers, women who trace their fair skin back to that one individual with the unfortunate pale skin gene from the Middle East or India. Celtic Complexion was born.
She sells her artisanal products online and makes them in her home studio, prepared and blended all by hand, by herself, in micro batches of no more than 24 products at one time. “I don’t have things sitting on the shelves getting old,” she says.
They include a non-foaming cleanser made from organic aloe juice, coconut oil, green tea extract, and several essential oils, oils made from the aromatic compounds of plants such as rosemary and lavender; a cream moisturizer rich in fatty acids from coconut and shea butter, vitamins, and pure essential oils; a hydrating winter skin bar available only October 1 through March 31 since it doesn’t withstand warm temperatures; several serums to combat aging and hypersensitive skin; an exfoliant, and tinted moisturizers containing 25% zinc oxide with an SPF of 31 for sun protection.
“Most over-the-counter products contain about 3-5% zinc oxide. Celtic complexions are usually quite fair and burn with anything, and most products don’t have enough of the active ingredient to keep you protected,” says Devlin.
She also provides a number of kits which also serve as samplers for newbies who aren’t sure they want to spring for a $60 or $70 moisturizer or pay $97.50 for a high potency anti-aging serum, her highest priced item. They include winter skin, antiaging, acne and rosacea, hydrating, or love your skin travel kits that range in price from $36 to $79.
The testimonials on her website are impressive: Her products have garnered stellar reviews from beauty bloggers and from the various Roses who have used her product. The North Carolina Rose, Nancy Boyce, even wrote about her and her products in the magazine, Carolina Style.
Devlin got involved with the Rose of Tralee pageant when someone from her local Rose Center reached out to her. She contacted other Rose centers and some, like Philadelphia, tapped her. “I became friends on the phone or on email with a lot of people at the centers,” she says.
It’s a perfect match. The Rose of Tralee International is one of the longest running festivals in Ireland (this summer it will be 56 years old) and the selection of the International Rose—who this year is the Philadelphia Rose, Maria Walsh—is one of the best-watched shows on Irish television. The young women fall right into Celtic Complexion’s demographic–women of Celtic descent. Devlin attended last summer to cheer on her local Rose.
Full disclosure: I’ve been using Devlin’s cleanser, moisturizer and anti-aging serum for several months now and my Irish skin has never looked or felt healthier. Well, maybe it looked a little better when I was the right age to enter the Rose of Tralee pageant, but the last few decades have wrought some changes and, while the products haven’t totally reversed them, they’ve made a visible difference.
If your Celtic skin doesn’t respond the way mine did, no worries. Devlin offers a 100% money back guarantee and, in keeping with the personal nature of her business, when you contact the complaints department, you get Devlin herself. “I have no storefront, so I live and die by testimonials,” she says. “I like to take care of problems right away. You can use a whole bottle of something and if it doesn’t do what I say it can do, you get a refund and we part friends.”
You can find out more about Celtic Complexion products by visiting Jennifer’s website.
Kathy McGee Burns
“I’m bored with my story,” Kathy McGee Burns tells me as she settles down on a chair in front of her fireplace, where a gas fire leaps and dances. “You’re probably bored with my story too,” she laughs. She’s wearing a black and white dress with a commanding statement necklace of silver and pearlized globes the size of ping pong balls around her neck. “Like it?” she asks. “I was wearing it the other night at a meeting when I was introduced as ‘the shy’ Kathy McGee Burns. And I stood up and said, ‘Yes, I’m shy.’” She laughs again.
“Shy” is last adjective anyone would ever use to describe Kathy McGee Burns. And boring? Never. But over the past few years, as she racked up honor after honor—president of the Donegal Association, president of the Irish Memorial, president of the St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association, president of the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame, board member of the Duffy’s Cut Project, the Claddagh Fund, and St. Malachy’s School—she’s had to tell her story again and again to reporters, including me. And now, as the Grand Marshal of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade—only the fourth woman since 1952 to receive that honor—Kathy McGee Burns has other things on her mind.
She suspects she was chosen GM this year because she is the mother of nine children and the theme of the parade is “St. Patrick, Bless, Strengthen and Pray for our Families,” appropriate for the year when Pope Francis will visit the city for the 2015 World Meeting of Families, a Catholic Church event held every three years. “I love and I’m proud of all my children, but I don’t want to just be known as the mother of nine children,” says the 78-year-old, who is a fulltime realtor.
For Kathy, “family” means more than the children she raised—for a few years supporting seven of them as a single mother on $100 a week—in the little house in Lafayette Hill where she’s lived for decades. But some of the story deserves a recap: She was a teen bride who had six children under the age of four—including a set of twins–by the time she was 20, and went on to have three more, the last two with her second husband, Mike Burns.
And despite her early start at motherhood. Kathy McGee Burns has nevertheless earned a berth in the Late Bloomers Hall of Fame—where, if past performance is predictive, she’ll wind up as its president. She enrolled in college when she was pregnant with her eighth child. It took her 16 years to graduate—she has a bachelor’s degree in history from Chestnut Hill College – and she attended Temple University Law School.
She also came late to her Irish heritage, though once she found it, it led her to a much deeper understanding of what “family” means.
Like many Irish Americans of a certain era, her father, Timothy Francis Aloysius McGee, a wholesale florist born in Philadelphia’s Swampoodle neighborhood, spoke little about his ancestry, though he unconsciously carried it on.
“I was baptized Mary Kathleen,” says Kathy. “I would always get teased. ‘Do you think you’re Irish?’ We were the only Irish family living in Flourtown, which is where my father settled. Like a lot of Irish people, he always wanted something better for his family. But in those days it really wasn’t popular to be Irish. I just wanted to be Kathy with an ‘i,’ which is what I was until I changed it to ‘y.’ “
Her father, she says, “always saw potential in me, always made me think I could do anything and be anything,” and pushed her to want more for herself. “I wanted to go to Springfield High School but he gave me two choices: I could go to Little Flower, which was two buses and a trolley, or I could go to Mount St. Joseph, which was within walking distance.”
She chose the Mount where she was, by her own account, “a controversial student.
“I questioned a lot of things,” she explains. “I was always rebelling against wearing the uniform. I always had a rip in it somewhere so I could wear street clothes–until Mother Superior caught on. I was asked to leave several times, but my father supplied all the flowers to the St. Joseph’s nuns, so. . . .” She grins.
She was 50 before she learned that her father’s family came from Donegal.
On his deathbed, her father gave her the only clue he had to their heritage. “He said, ‘Kath, you want to know where you’re from? We’re related to every McGee in Bridgeport.’” So she wrote to every McGee in Bridgeport, a little river town across from Norristown, until she found a woman, likely a cousin, who gave her an even slimmer clue: a song she’d heard her parents sing, “We come from Donegal where they eat potatoes skin and all.” “That’s all I needed, I joined the Donegal Society,” Kathy laughs.
And other organizations followed. She not only joined, but said yes to every task that was offered and ultimately came to head most of them. And with each one, she fell deeper in love with her heritage and more determined to find out where her McGees had come from. “When I walked into the Irish Center for the first time, I felt like I had come home,” she says. “The more I learned, the more I felt my family around me. I still think they’re around me all the time, pushing me in the right direction.”
It was her family, she says, that drew her to St. Malachy’s School in North Philadelphia, the celebrated K-8 parochial school whose graduates—most of them non-Catholics from the impoverished city neighborhood just off Broad Street—go on to higher education in larger numbers that most other city schools. She now sits on their board and helps raise money to keep this independent mission school, glowing as “a beacon of hope,” as it’s often called.
“St. Malachy’s is the parish where my grandmother, Mary Josephine Callahan, was born, baptized, confirmed and married. Her parents were Timothy Callahan and Bridget Clancy and she went to St. Malachy’s with her six sisters. She married Hughie McGee, my grandfather. I never met her, but I knew I got involved there because she made me.”
Likewise, when she was chosen to be Grand Marshal of the Donegal Association’s 125th Ball a year ago, her penchant for history led her to discover a family connection with the organization. “You know the money collected by the Ball is used for charity the whole year so I wondered what they’d raised money for that first year,” she says. “After that first ball, they donated money to a Father James McFadden, the parish priest in Gweedore.”
By this time, Kathy had traced her family back to this coastal town near the Bloody Foreland that was devastated during the Great Hunger, largely because they had been turned out of their homes for nonpayment of rent. Landlords had set rents at gouging prices largely, say historical records, to evict the Irish farmers from lands that could be more profitably used for livestock grazing by English and Scottish landlords. Father McFadden was a priest in the mold of the activist priests of the 1960s: Outspoken, he was the head of the National Land League which sought to reduce the outrageous rents levied by the largely absentee landlords in England and organized a boycott which resulted in his imprisonment for six months.
In February 1889, he was just finishing up Mass at St. Mary’s Church when a detective inspector came to the church to arrest him for encouraging parishioners to resist evictions. “One of my ancestors, Conal McGee, went to prison for his part in defending Father McFadden as they tried to pull him off the altar,” says Kathy. “That made being Grand Marshal of the Ball so meaningful to me. I believe,” she says, “that the spirits of our ancestors call us to them.”
It’s why she thinks she became so emotionally entangled with the story of Duffy’s Cut, the deaths of 57 Irish immigrants working on the Pennsylvania Railroad in Malvern in 1832. She shows me two small rusty nails she keeps in a bowl in her sitting room. They came from the coffin of John Ruddy, the 18-year-old Donegal immigrant who was one of the 57 victims, scholars now believe, of both cholera and religious intolerance that led to murder. Ruddy’s was the only body that was able to be identified because of his age, ship records, and a dental anomaly found in a Ruddy family from Inishowen in County Donegal.
Kathy helped pay for John Ruddy’s remains to be shipped to Donegal to be buried in his home soil and visited his grave in Ardara when she was in Donegal two years ago. Dr. William Watson, the Immaculata professor who helped locate the Duffy’s Cut remains and keep their memory alive, gave her the nails in thanks for her help in returning John Ruddy home.
“I just know that one of those people is related to me,” she says with conviction. “How else would I have been so drawn to them. Bill Watson talks about how he and his brother [Frank] were drawn to the story and so dedicated to finding them. I was drawn too.”
And family was on her mind in 2011 when, in her first year as president of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade committee, she stood at the lectern at St. Patrick’s Church Philadelphia during the pre-parade Mass and looked out at the audience. There, in the first few rows, were her children, grandchildren and siblings, but also her Donegal family, the McGees of Gweedore, found at last and confirmed through DNA testing. They included patriarch Hugh McGee, to whom she introduced her brother Hugh and his son, Hugh—all known as Hughie. There in spirit, her grandfather and her father’s brother, both Hughie (Her Gweedore cousin “looks just like my Uncle Hughie,” she says) and, of course, her father.
“While I was standing there, I found myself talking to my father. I know I’m going to cry as I say this.” Her hand goes to her eyes where the first tears are starting to well. “I said, ‘Dad, look at me. How did I get here?’ Whenever someone has a big accomplishment in our family, we all say the same thing: ‘I wish Pop-Pop was here to see this.’ I wish he had been there, though I think he was.”
And she expects him to be with her on Sunday, March 15, when she watches the St. Patrick’s Day Parade from the Grand Marshal’s seat overlooking the performing area near Eakins Oval on the Parkway. “This honor, this is the biggest thing that has ever happened to me,” she says. “I know he would be proud of me.”
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A Message from Kathy McGee Burns’ Family in Ireland
The news that our own Kathy Mc Gee Burns has been selected as Grand Marshal for the Saint Patrick’s day parade in Philadelphia for 2015 has been received with great excitement and pride by her extended family in Donegal. Kathy has been doing Trojan work since 1986 for the Irish diaspora in Philadelphia. Her relations from Donegal are very excited about Kathy’s achievement. The McGee family from Carrick, Gweedore believe that her selection as Grand Marshal is a very historic moment for the extended family. They wish Kathy and her family all the best and the Mc Gees from Gweedore hope to be part of the parade on this very special day.
What Others Have to Say About Kathy McGee Burns
The Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association received dozens of letters nominating Kathy McGee Burns as the parade Grand Marshal. Here are excerpt from a few:
“At the Mount we believe we are in the business of training our young women to be leaders. Kathy is a fine example of our mission which states, ‘On the education of women largely depends the future of society.’ Throughout her personal and professional career, Kathy has demonstrated faithfulness to the Irish community that is to be admired.”
Sister Kathleen Brabson, SSJ
President
Mount Saint Joseph Academy
“I have had the privilege of working with Kathy on several boards and have always been inspired by her unwavering commitment to success for every organization she chooses to serve. Her enthusiasm and her love for all things Irish in the Philadelphia community are truly second to none.”
Bill Donohue
President
Sons and Daughters of Derry
“There is an old adage that says: If you want something done, ask a busy woman or man. I don’t know how Kathy has managed all that she has done while at the same time raising a large family.”
[The late] Joseph E. Montgomery
AOH Div. 65
“. . .Everyone who knows Kathy feels the same way about her—that her love and commitment to the Irish community as a leader, a friend, and a mentor is simply amazing.”
Kathleen Sullivan
President
Irish Memorial Board
“Kathy is a good friend and willing mentor, generous with her time, experience, and advice. Her support was invaluable as I was trying to find my feet in our community and I am deeply grateful for her continued support of my work at the Immigration Center. Kathy is a strong role model for women in our community and has helped pave the way for many younger women to get involved. . . .[Kathy’s] enthusiasm for all things Irish is infectious and allows her to draw people from all walks of life into causes that she cares about, and the Parade is no exception.”
Siobhan Lyons
Executive Director
Irish Immigration Center of Greater Philadelphia
“One doesn’t achieve success in our business like Kathy McGee Burns without extraordinary dedication and passion. Kathy has such dedication, not only in her profession of helping people find the home of their dreams and her unwavering loyalty to our company over the years, but also an exceptional passion for her Irish heritage.”
Lawrence F. Flick IV
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Fox & Roach Realtors
Berkshire Hathaway
“I cannot imagine a more worthy selection for Grand Marshal. Her passion and dedication for both her Irish heritage and this parade have always been infectious among our family and friends. I’ve seen it firsthand, as two of my closest friends, who had no previous ties to the event whatsoever, became ardent parade followers and attendees after one conservation with “Grammy” about what it means to be Irish. That may be the most extreme example, but it is hardly the only one.
The commitment to her roots is only exceeded by the one to our large family, within which she has maintained matriarch status for as long as I can remember. To me, it truly isn’t a family function until she is there. Her ability to juggle all of these responsibilities is made possible by one simple thing. She has to be the youngest 78-year-old on Earth, which is just another reason she makes such a great ambassador for the parade and the Irish community of Philadelphia. “
Alexander Lee
Grandson
“I knew this would be no ordinary mural,” said artist Eric Okdeh as he looked across a freezing parking lot to the side wall of Marty Magee’s pub on Route 420 in Prospect Park.
More than 100 people who came on Saturday for the dedication of Okdeh’s masterwork, depicting scenes from Irish history, apparently agreed. Bundled up in heavy coats, scarves, mittens and hats, they disregarded the cold and took it all in. It’s a lot to take in. Most seemed enraptured by it.
Commodore Barry, Michael Collins, the immigrant railroad workers of Duffy’s Cut, the Molly Maguires and more—they all grace the side of the pub in a theme that, if you look at it carefully, artfully blends in the green, white and gold colors of the Irish flag.
Owner Joe Magee had suggested some slightly more in-your-face rebel themes, Okdeh kidded, “but I said, ‘We can’t do that—we’ll scare everyone away.'”
Okdeh, Magee and Prospect Park Mayor Jeff Harris presided over the brief ceremony, with Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade Director Michael Bradley as emcee.
After the dedication, the crowd filed into Magee’s bar to warm up with a drink or two, and to celebrate the occasion with music from Blackthorn, and guests from several other area Irish bands.
We have the pics.
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Joe Magee in the midst of his mural.
A canvas was too confining for artist Eric Okdeh. That was clear when, after graduating from Tyler School of Art , he got an opportunity to exhibit in a gallery. “All throughout college I was painting murals and the idea of painting on canvas just didn’t click,” says the Philadelphia native. “I like being able to work on public art. I like the inclusiveness, the ability to tell people stories.”
You’ve probably seen one of Okdeh’s murals. He’s done more than 80 all over the city, most for the city’s Mural Arts Program, including an homage to work, based on interviews with local residents, called ‘How We Fish,” at 8th and Cherry Streets and a poignant look at the effects of incarceration on families, “Family Interrupted,” on Dauphin Street which included the work of some of the men from Okdeh’s mural arts classes at Graterford Prison. He’s had commissions as far away as Aman, Jordan, and Sevilla, Spain.
One of his most recent works tells a story that is very personal for the region’s Irish community. It was a private commission from his childhood friend, Joe Magee—“we both grew up in the same Southwest Philly Irish Catholic neighborhood”—who, along with being a director, partner and information security expert at Deloitte and Touche, owns Marty Magee’s, a pub in Prospect Park, Delaware County.
Drive down Route 420 into the heart of Prospect Park and you can’t miss it—a masterpiece on the wall of the pub, overlooking the parking lot. It tells the story of Duffy’s Cut—57 Irish immigrants who died working locally on the railroad. It pays tribute to Commodore John Barry, the Wexford man and Philadelphia transplant who is considered the father of the US Navy. It portrays the Molly Maguires, a group of Irish coal miners who fought—and died—for equality in Pennsylvania’s mines, and Black Jack Kehoe, the leader of the Mollies, whose memory is kept alive by the local Ancient Order of Hibernians division to which Joe Magee belongs. The mural images also stretch back to Ireland—there’s Michael Collins, a hero of Irish independence, and a tribute to other muralists, the Bogside Artists, whose murals, including one of a child in a gas mask, are synonymous with more recent struggles in Derry City in Northern Ireland
“And if you squint your eyes and take a step back, the color base we did was the tricolor,” says Magee. “I wanted to meld all the local Irish history with some of what I spent a lot of time researching—where my family comes from, Antrim, the heart of the troubles.”
Magee bought the pub about eight years ago and had just enough money left over to do a basic renovation of the place, which was always a local tappy (and for a time, a biker bar) that drew construction laborers at the end of their shift, usually still wearing their grubby work clothes.
But Magee wanted his pub to be “more of an Irish pub and a place where someone would be comfortable taking their wife,” so this year he embarked on a renovation on a grander scale. But not before he engaged the “regulars” in a discussion about what changes he wanted to make. “My goal was to keep everybody who was here now here, but to be able to have anyone else walk in and feel comfortable.”
When he held his first ersatz “town meeting” of bar regulars, 80 people showed up and they were, he says, “very open-minded about it,” even the establishment of a dress code. There was buy-in, which made Magee feel like he was on the right track.
Today, Magee’s Irish Pub is more Irish inside and out. A renovated second floor holds three high-end billiards tables which attracted the local pool league. “We added some traditional Irish décor, but with a modern American feel,” says Magee. “It’s like Frank Daly (of Jamison and American Paddy’s Productions) says, it’s all about being Irish-American. “
And the mural, he says, makes the statement loud and clear. “We’re so close to 95 and we wanted to give people enough reason to pull off the road and check it out and also come in an have a beer—maybe.” He laughs.
It was a no-brainer to tap his friend Eric for the job. “I called him two years ago and sent him a picture of the building and told him we were going to clean it up (it was covered in siding) and that I wanted him to do something awesome with it.”
Okdeh, who usually does voluminous research on his mural projects, didn’t have to do much for this one. “Joe felt really strongly about what he wanted to see on the wall.”
Since the Duffy’s Cut incident occurred in 1832, there were no photographs for Okdeh to use for reference. “I went through loads of old photos searching for railroad workers, and many of them were clearly Chinese,” he says. He found enough information on the era and the clothing to allow him to imagine the Duffy’s Cut victims, standing and stooping as if they were posing for a picture.
Portraying the Bogside murals was trickier. They’re someone else’s art, so instead of reproducing the gas mask mural, he found the original photo of the boy and reproduced that rather than the mural itself. “Reproduced” is probably not the right word for what Okdeh does. It’s not like tracing. “I put my own kind of spin on what the photo is depicting. It’s not like lifting someone else’s photos.”
The mural will be dedicated on Saturday, starting at 2 PM at Marty Magee’s, 1110 Lincoln Avenue, in Prospect Park. Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade Director Michael Bradley will emcee the event, which includes an introduction of Eric Okdeh, remarks by Prospect Park Mayor Jeff Harris, a musical tribute by Blackthorn, and an open social event in the pub with the Ancient Order of Hibernians featuring Galway Guild, Joe Magee’s band.
For Joe Magee, the mural has many meanings. Besides a new image for his pub, it also represents the same kind of thing a reunion does—an unforgotten and unbreakable bond formed in childhood. “The neat part for me is that I didn’t have to wonder how to make this happen,” says Magee. “Eric and I grew up playing soccer together at St. Barney’s (St. Barnabas) and then we went out and did stuff with our lives. I’ve always supported his work. It meant a lot to be able to work together on this.”
View our photos of the mural below.
You can view Eric Okdeh’s other murals here.
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Sean McMenamin and Kathy McGee Burns were the welcoming committee.
For the Philadelphia Irish Center/Commodore Barry Club, 2014 ended on a hopeful note.
Faced with a huge financial shortfall, friends of the venerable institution set a fundraising goal of $50,000. By early October, the drive had passed $60,000, and the dollars kept pouring in. The grand total as of November 1: $84,416.
So what better way to close out the year but by dancing, singing, and raising a glass or two? The Irish Center is not one community—it’s many, from John Shields’ marvelous dancers to the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day parade committee to the Philadelphia Ceili Group to the county associations … and we could go on. Many of them were represented on New Year’s Eve, all of them up and kicking their heels.
2015 brings another round of fund-raising—the first big event is a painting party January 11—and with any luck at all, the next New Year’s Eve bash will bring another round of fun-raising.
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Dennis Gormley did double duty–band member and Santa.
There were a couple of fake wrens on hats, but the annual Comhaltas Wren party on St. Stephen’s Day, December 26, was more about music, singing, dancing, and laughing than it was about marking the wren’s betrayal of St. Stephen, who was discovered by Roman soldiers thanks to a noisy bird and martyred. (Yes, there’s a story to it. In Ireland, crowds carrying a fake wren around on a pole, often dressed in straw costumes and masks, and collect money which is then given to charity.)
Kathy DeAngelo and Dennis Gormley led the evening’s cdili band, which included Kevin and Jimmy McGillian, young Irish music phenoms Haley Richardson, Alex Weir, Keegan Loesel, Dylan Richardson, and Alana Griffin, and a surprise guest, champion accordionist John Whelan who came to the Knights of Columbus Hall in Glenside from Connecticut for the craic (he not only played, he danced too).
See the photos below for a look at all the fun.
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