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Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, right, with two of the symposium organizers, John O’Malley, left, and Joseph Kelley, center.
This week, Enda Kenny, Taoiseach of Ireland, became the first Irish Prime Minister to visit Philadelphia in. . . no one could remember how long.
Kenny, who was leader of Fine Gael, was invited to the city by the Brehon Law Society, which held its second annual Legal Symposium at the Rittenhouse Hotel on Rittenhouse Square October 10-12. The first was held last year in Dublin and Mayo, and Kenny also attended.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Ireland’s Prime Minister.
On Friday morning, accompanied by a phalanx of Philadelphia police, State Police, and Secret Service agents, Kenny greeted more than 200 people who paid $250 a ticket to have breakfast with him. On Thursday night, he had dinner at the Union League with about 50 people, including Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett.
At a jam-packed breakfast Friday morning at the Rittenhouse, Kenny heaped praise upon his host city.
“There is something about this city of Philadelphia,” he said. “It’s a city of light, of illumination. Right now, I understand there’s a magnificent 3D installation, open air, over on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. That light, made and shaped by thousands of Philadelphians, is a symbol of the light of liberty and democracy, and actually what it means to be a citizen.”
He then went on to deliver a message to those who might be interested in doing business back home: Ireland might not have recovered completely from the economic downturn, but it’s getting extremely close.
Calling Ireland a “changed country,” he promised potential investors that the government will not rest until the job’s done.
“Back at home in Ireland, a time of enormous challenge for the country, we are on the path back to economic revival. That journey is long and challenging and we still have a distance to go, but we are equal to that challenge in the same way we have faced adversity in so many areas, over so many years.”
We captured some video of the event. You can watch it here.
See all the action in our photo essay.
Recognize this dance? It's the Siege of Ennis.
Mary Lou Schnell McGurk was five years old when she took her first Irish dance lesson with Maureen McDade. Like most kids, she sampled just about everything else life had to offer, from ballet and tap to sports. But in the end, she settled on a single activity. Irish dancing won.
“It was the only thing I was really good at and liked,” laughed McGurk, who was one of hundreds of people who filled the ballroom at the Springfield Country Club on Sunday, September 30, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the McDade School of Irish Dance by a young Philadelphia woman, the granddaughter of Irish and Scottish immigrants.
But when she was 18, McDade, then Maureen McGrory, gave McGurk a gift. “She told me that I was getting to be too old to be taking lessons with her and that I should go to the Irish Center where I would be with other people my own age,” says McGurk, who is president of the Philadelphia Ceili Group, the organization that ran those dances at the Irish Center that McGurk attended. “So I went to the Irish Center,” she said, “and I never left. To the people who like me, that’s why. To the people that don’t, Maureen’s to blame.”
There were plenty of stories, punctuated by dancing, throughout the night as Irish group after Irish group presented awards to Maureen McDade McGrory’s family. That included daughters Sheila McGrory Sweeney and Maureen Heather Lisowski who, as teenagers, took over their mother’s school with friend, Bridget O’Connell, after Maureen McGrory’s tragic death from cancer. O’Connell, frequently tearful, remembered the early days. “Maureen turned my life upside down and inside out,” she said to laughter. To allow the school’s students to continue to compete, O’Connell got her certification as an Irish dance instructor. Sheila, the oldest McGrory daughter, was only 18, and instructors had to be 21 to become accredited.
At one point, O’Connell looked at the two McGrory sisters and smiled. “Thank you both for being the sisters I never had,” she said. She then directed her attention at the two McGrory boys, John, the oldest, and Jim. “And thank you for going to dances with us when we didn’t have a date!”
Barney McEnroe, an old family friend, took the microphone from event host Tom Farrelly and recalled taking Maureen McDade to her first Irish dancing lesson with noted teacher Sean Lavery, who had a school in West Philadelphia. “She came to me and said she wanted to take Irish dance lessons but she was wondering how she could get to Lavery’s school. I told her I’d take her though I didn’t know where he lived. I dropped her off.” He paused slightly. “I don’t know how she got home,” he said, as the crowd started to laugh. He paused again, until it got quieter. “But there’s no good worrying about it today,” he continued, to renewed laughter. He looked up and smiled. “But I think she was a success,” he said.
That’s abundantly clear. McDade dancers regularly qualify for both national and world competitions. In fact, there are so many students that the McDade School merged with the Cara School of Irish Dance to accommodate the crowds. And, 50 years later, students from year one gathered with current students—some, their grandchildren—to say thank you. And happy birthday.
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Irish Thunder takes to the field.
The t-shirt you see pretty much everywhere says it all: “What happens in Wildwood, stays in Wildwood.”
Which is not so suggest that the Irish Fall Festival is some kind of South Jersey Irish bacchanal. OK, so there are bars, and let’s face it, there is drinking, but … for the most part the festival is G-rated, with lots of music, dance, endless rows of vendor tables, and enough food to sink a battleship. Think of it as an excuse to wear a ridiculous leprechaun hat. (And pray the guys back at the office don’t see the picture we took of you.)
The 2012 festival, hosted by the Cape May County Ancient Order of Hibernians, lucked into some picture perfect weather, with sparkling blue skies, a gentle caressing wind, and temperatures in the 70s.
Hundreds of Irish folks flocked to the Wildwoods, in the way that swallows return to Capistrano, to take in the Irish pipe band exhibition on Saturday, and the big parade on Sunday.
We have the pics. Maybe you’ll see yourself. And don’t blame us … the hat was your decision.
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Peter Gallagher and friends lead the cheers.
John Kildea was supposed to be getting ready for a christening, but, he confessed, he “sneaked out” wearing his Donegal shirt to catch the Donegal-Mayo match for the coveted Sam Maguire Cup, broadcasting live from Dublin’s Croke Park on six screens at the Commodore Barry Club “The Irish Center” in Mt. Airy.
“I have to be back by half 12,” he said. Kildea lives in Delaware County and could have gone to Paddy Rooney’s Pub. But he said, laughing, “it’s more of a Mayo bar. Win or lose we could get hammered.”
Now, we’ve seen photos of the crowd at Paddy Rooney’s in Havertown, and it was looking mighty green and gold to us. And that was the prevailing color at the Irish Center as well though the red and green of Mayo was well represented in hats, shirts, socks, and in a few cases, faces and hair.
More than 300 people saw the game at the center, where they could also enjoy a full Irish breakfast. Well, at least some of them could. Tyrone-born Geraldine Quigg, who helped prepare the meal, said they sold 180 breakfasts. “Then we ran out of food.”
That sounds bad, but it’s a good thing. It was also a good thing that there was barely room at the bar to breathe and that just about every seat in the place was taken. No one was complaining.
“This is the way it was when we were kids,” said Muireann McGill McFeeters, who is Philly-born and bred but whose father, Jim McGill, is one of the earliest members of the Irish Center. “We would wear our jerseys and paint our faces.”
Another infrequent visitor said it reminded him of Sundays when he was a kid. “Nothing’s changed,” he said, over the din at the bar. “It’s the same bar and the same nice people.”
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Whoo--hoo! I'm having a good time!
There were three–count them–three lovely Irish pageant winners at the fourth annual Brittingham’s Irish Fest in Lafayette Hill on Sunday, September 2. There were also hundreds of happy folks who braved a spritzing of rain to attend the parking lot-sized festival that kicks off festival month in the region.
There was music–Jamison, the Paul Moore Band, and No Irish Need Apply (which features 2012 International Mary from Dungloe, Meghan Davis)–as well as vendors and some kick-butt barbecue. And dancing? There’s always dancing at this event, by those who know what they’re doing and those who don’t. It’s always a happy time.
If you don’t believe us or that adorable baby to the right, check out our pictures.
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Tea party essentials!
It was a tea party. If you didn’t know it by the pretty pots and cups and the table groaning with sweets, you could tell by the hats.
Especially Sylvia Tolan’s hat, a floppy, sparkly J. Lo hat from Kohls, decorated with. . .a hot pink bra. “I made it myself this morning,” said the Havertown woman with a grin. “I needed something girly.”
Clearly, this was no ordinary tea party. And, in fact, it wasn’t. It was a fundraiser for Carmel’s Crew, a group of women, friends of Carmel Bradley of Havertown, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009. The group of 20 women each must raise $2,300 to participate in the 3-Day Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in October.
Aisling Travers, a 19-year-old education student at West Chester State University, who has been part of the group since it began, planned the tea party—right down to delicate china cups and the “Keep Calm and Fight On” posters. It was held on Sunday, August 19, at the Malvern home of her parents, Seamus and Marie Travers.
Why a tea party? Travers is blunt: “I hate asking people for money. Plus, fundraisers are usually beef-and-beers and bar-oriented, and being the youngest on the team, I thought it would be cute for the kids to be involved. I wanted it to be a Mom-and-Me event, and there’s nothing more girly than a tea party.”
She signed on for the 3-Day because “it was on my bucket list and I’ve known Carmel and most of the girls since I was little,” says Travers. It was all she hoped for and more. “It was awesome,” she says. “I was nervous the first time, first because we’re walking 60 miles and I was hoping I’d survive, but also because I didn’t know everyone that well. But by the end of the three days, we all became unbelievably close.”
All of Carmel’s Crew are friends of Bradley, a 47-year-old mother of three and Donegal native. In May 2009, after a routine mammogram, she learned she had an aggressive form of breast cancer.
“I know all the controversy about mammograms,” says Bradley, referring to a 2009 recommendation from a government task force that women in their 40s not get screened. “But a mammogram found my cancer. It wasn’t even a lump. It was a thickening of the skin. All I keep thinking is that if I didn’t get a mammogram, if I’d waited three years, I wouldn’t be here.”
Bradley went through both chemotherapy and radiation after a lumpectomy. While she was in treatment, she and the two of her seven sisters who live in the US began talking about the Komen 3-Day. “We talked each other into it,” laughs Bradley, who is completing her degree in special education at West Chester State University.
Initially, she and her sisters—Una McDaid and Fionnuala McBrearty—thought they’d do it themselves. “Then a few friends said they’d liked to and it just grew—to 20,” Bradley says.
The experience was fun, exhausting, but also healing. “I had just finished up treatment three or four months before, but I got so much energy from the group,” she says. “We would just stick together and carry each other along.”
She’s not normally very emotional, Bradley admits, but it got to her. “The survivors wear different colored t-shirts and when I saw the number that were there, I got emotional.”
In fact, everyone in Carmel’s Crew had a weepy day, says her sister, Fionnuala. “In Manayunk we were trudging along and the sister of one of our walkers came out with a sign for us and gave us candy. When we went through Havertown, our kids were lining Darby Road, and they had Irish dancers there, and they were clapping. It really lifts you so much. On the final day, there’s a ceremony for the survivors and we all took our shoes off and raised them to honor Carmel.”
Bradley says that’s the reason she can’t do the walk without dark glasses. “I’m laughing and crying the whole way!”
What also kept her going, she says, was her husband, Louie, who is president of the Philadelphia Gaelic Athletic Association, and their children, Fiona, 17, and twins Shane and Conor, 15. “I don’t know what I would have done without their support and help,” she says. “I knew I needed to keep going because of them.”
Friends and parents at the children’s schools helped out. “We had more dinners than we could eat,” Bradley recalls, laughing. “I was just overwhelmed by the goodness of everybody. When I came from Ireland [25 years ago] I didn’t have any family and friends here at the time. These people have become our family.”
See our photos from the Carmel’s Crew tea party.
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Kathy McGee Burns and Ken Casey of The Claddagh Fund. Photo by Brian Mengini.
By Kathy McGee Burns
The Dropkick Murphys are an Irish American punk rock band formed in Quincy, Massachusetts in1996. Their front man, bassist/vocalist Ken Casey has been with them from the beginning.
Have you ever heard their music? Well, let me describe it: feisty, loud, yelling, screaming, rough, in your face and boisterous. Are you getting the message? On the other hand, Ken Casey is boyish, kind, sentimental, sincere, and generous to a fault–generous with his time, talent and money! This is quite a dichotomy.
Ken was born in Milton, MA, the town with the most people of Irish descent in America. His mom, Eileen Kelly and dad, Ken Casey, only had the one child but Ken felt adopted by every family in town. Ken Casey, Sr. died when Ken was very young but his hero, his Grandda, John Kelly took him under his wing and helped him to form the principles Ken lives by every day.
John Kelly was a Teamster who taught his grandson the plight of the Irish working class, the experiences of Irish immigration in Boston and what it is like to be the low man on the totem pole. He emphasized that you need to stand up for yourself and give back what treasures you get. John Kelly told his grandson, “Gratitude is an action.”
At first, Ken says, he was doing a million things for many charities. Then friends began suggesting that he start his own. They said, “Your fans will get involved and feel a part of it,” he told me when we talked recently.
Now, Ken Casey is doing just that. He has formed The Claddagh Fund which is a charity foundation based on the attributes linked to the Claddagh: “Friendship, Love and Loyalty.” It was started in Boston with the help of the great hockey star, Bobby Orr. The band was able to incorporate a lot of fundraising activities with their events and to date, the Dropkick Murphy’s have raised about $1 million.
I was introduced to Ken’s music when I joined the Claddagh Fund’s board of directors and I have to admit I’m still adjusting to it. It is quite different from local Irish music legend Vince Gallagher singing “Emigrant Eyes.” The Irish music that the Dropkick Murphys do is familiar—“Finnegan’s Wake,” “Black Velvet Band,” “Wild Rover”– but “reformulated and modernized for the younger ear,” Ken told me.
He told me that Pete St. John, who wrote the Irish favorite, “Fields of Athenry,” came to see the Dropkick Murphys perform the song and loved it.
Many of the songs they choose mirror the social conscience of the band. The song “Broken Hymns” reflects a young man’s perspective of the Civil War:
“Now the battle hymns are playing
Report of shots not far away
No prayer, no promise, no hand of God
Could save the souls of the blue and grey
Tell their wives that they fought bravely
As they lay them in their graves”
Then there is the song called “The Hardest Mile,” about Duffy’s Cut, the site in Malvern where in 1832, 57 Irish railroad workers were killed—some by cholera, others at the hands of area vigilantes who were afraid they were going to spread the disease.
“Now ghosts dance a jig on an unmarked grave
A slug full of lead was the price they were paid
Vigilante justice, prejudice and pride
No one in this valley will be seen again alive.”
The best, to me, though, is their song “Boys on the Docks”, which is a tribute to the memory of John Kelly:
“And the boys on the docks needed John for sure
When they came to this country he opened the door
He said “Man. I’ll tell ya, they don’t like our kind
Though it starts with a fist it might end with your mind.”
Ken Casey tells a charming story about Bruce Springsteen. He first met “the Boss” when Springstein showed up to a Dropkick Murphy’s gig in New York City, with his son. Ken was still on the bus when he got an urgent call, “Someone wants to see you. “ He rushed to his dressing room and there HE was. Well, here’s the tearjerker, on St Patrick’s Day 2011, to a sold out crowd, in Fenwick Park, they both sang “Peg of My Heart, to Ken’s Grandmother, Peg Kelly. You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2R2cG2Ah4Y
The Claddagh Fund now has a Chapter here. Ken says that Philadelphia reminds him of Boston with its tight-knit communities and a network of friends.
They’re counting on we generous Philadelphia Irish to help make the Claddagh Fund a success here. And by success, I mean raising money for the five underfunded charities it’s supporting in the city, including:
Build Jake’s Place, whose mission is to build playgrounds for children of all abilities;
StandUp for Kids, which helps homeless and runaway kids on the streets;
Peter’s Place, an organization that helps grieving children and families;
Philadelphia Veterans Multi-Service and Education Center, which helps veterans with employment, training and related educational services and offers assistance to veterans who are having tough times;
Limen House, which provides a temporary home for recovering substance abusers.
The latest fundraiser will be the First Annual Celebrity Golf Tournament to he held on Monday, September 17, at Woodcrest Country Club, 300 Evesham Road in Cherry Hill, NJ. There are plenty of sponsorships available, ranging from $250 to $10,000 and a foursome costs $1,250. For more information, contact Claddagh Fund Philadelphia Director Kate McCloud and 267-644-8095, or email her at kathleenmccloud@claddaghfund.org.
It should be a great day for golf and celebrity watching. Here’s what I’m hoping: That Bruce Springsteen shows up with his clubs and he and Ken serenade Kate and I with “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.”
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Kevin Ward, center, with Upper Darby Police Chief Michael Chitwood, right, and James A. Harrity, left, of the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police.
BY SEÁN P. FEENY
Of the Donegal News
(Reprinted with permission)
A Donegal native has been inducted into the Upper Darby Police Youth Athletic Gym Hall of Fame in Philadelphia becoming the second member of his family to do so.
Kevin Ward, originally from Creeslough but living in Philadelphia for the past twenty years, received the prestigious accolade at a presentation night. Currently visiting his native Creeslough with his uncle, John Boyle from Cashel, we caught up with Kevin.
The son of Danny and the late Bridget Ward, Drumnacarry, was surrounded by friends and family as he became the second member of the Ward family to receive the award.
Kevin’s brother Brendan is also a Hall of Famer and was named Man of the Year by the Upper Darby Police Athletic League in 2011.
“There’s no tougher man than my brother Brendan, I had tougher sparring sessions with him than most of my fights, he taught me a lot.
“Brendan got into the Hall of Fame a few years ago, then last year he was named Man Of The Year as he is still very much involved with the kids.
“When they announced that I was to be inducted, it came as a big surprise as I never thought I was worthy, It was very special, especially as my uncle John Boyle, who has always been very close to us, was over from Manchester for it,” said Kevin.
Kevin joined the Upper Darby Police Youth Athletic Gym when he first moved over to the States in 1992, having grown up boxing with Dunfanaghy ABC.
“I started boxing with Dunfanaghy at the age of 14 under Eddie Harkin and Mickey Dunnion. When I was 18 I moved to London where I boxed with Highgate Boxing Gym for a few years before moving to Philadelphia,” he said.
Kevin joined his older Brendan, who had moved to Philadelphia in the early 80s, at the Upper Darby gym and started boxing on the amateur circuit.
During his career he won the Golden Gloves in 1993, the Mid Atlantic Championship, the Diamond Championship and the Tri State Championship over five years.
Although he is not a full-time coach, the Upper Darby gym is still like a second home to the Creeslough man and he enjoys visiting hand having a ‘mess around’ with the kids.
Kevin comes from a family of boxers. His oldest brother Donal was a boxer, Brendan was a professional boxer and their uncle John Boyle, a native of Cashel but residing in Manchester, was a prize fighter competing around the North England city.
