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Haunted by the Memories of Molly-O-Ween … All Very Good Ones

Katie, our winged hostess.

Katie, our winged hostess.

Off in the back, the kids were carving and scooping out jack-o-lanterns.

On stage, kilted performer Seamus Kennedy was singing songs, telling stories (funny ones, not ghostly ones), and occasionally flashing a jack-o-lantern grin.

Oh, yes, and Elvis was in the house … about an 8-year-old version of the king who came and went before we could get his (her?) picture.

This was the very first Molly-O-Ween celebration at Molly Maguire’s pub in Lansdale, but it probably won’t be the last.

Luckily, the day dawned bright and clear and, by the time the festival began, the temperatures had warmed up. A little too warm for some of the costumes, maybe, but, hey, they’re kids, and kids put comfort aside in the name of Halloween.

Shoppers kept the Irish vendors busy, and musicians (Kennedy, Celtic Spirit and Doc Freeman) kept many of the festival-goers up and on their feet. Food and beer, too, of course, and inside the tavern, business was brisk.

We have photos from the day.

October 19, 2010 by
News

A Much-Needed Boost for the Parade

A timely donation worth cheering for.

A timely donation worth cheering for.

The Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade got a nice little shot in the arm this week.
 
U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, cable tycoon “Gerry” Lenfest and Joey Vento (he of Geno’s steaks) have come up with a large wad of cash that will help the city’s ethnic parades and festivals—including the St. Pat’s parade—offset some of its setup and cleanup costs.

The Greater Philadelphia Traditions Fund is what it’s called. According to the Inquirer, the fund has coughed up $200,000 for 2011 costs, with the $100,000 set pledged (so far) for 2012. What’s more, the story noted, the funds “will include reimbursement for expenses in 2009 and 2010.”

All of which came as welcome news to Michael F. Callahan, president of the board of the St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association.

“The way I understand it, this is for the City of Philadelphia’s costs, which include police and sanitation, the healthiest amount of costs,” said Callahan. “It also includes the EMT (emergency medical crews) costs as well.” Callahan estimates that the Traditions Fund donation could pare $30,000 to $35,000 off the costs of the parade.

That doesn’t mean the parade has anything like a free ride. Quite the contrary. “It costs about $110,000 to put the (St. Patrick’s Day) parade out,” Callahan said. “The costs just add up. So if they’re paying for $30,000 to $35,000, we still have to come up with the balance. We’re very grateful for their efforts. They’re allies of the ethnic traditions in the city. But we still need to get out there and beat the streets in tough economic times.”

Callahan credited Brady in particular for shepherding the deal through: “He’s a guy who gets things done, no doubt about it. He stepped up and said we needed a powerful voice, someone who has the ear of the money people and the people in City Hall. He was a godsend.”

October 15, 2010 by
News

Wildwood Irish Weekend In Photos

Fun, frivolity and street smooching: It's Irish Weekend 2010.

Fun, frivolity and street smooching: It's Irish Weekend 2010. (Photo by Lisa Marie Hunt)

Another Wildwood Irish Weekend fades into memory—well, for some people, anyway, the ones who can actually remember—but thanks to photographer Lisa Marie Hunt, we have photos that could be placed in evidence should that become necessary.

Lest we forget—this is a fundraiser by the AOH Cape May Div. 1 and they use the money for a variety of charities including the Hibernian Hunger Project, a national campaign to provide food for the needy. So anyway you look at it, it’s a good thing.

Check out Lisa’s photos.

October 1, 2010 by
News

Irish Immigration Center Receives Irish Government Grant

Ireland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin presents a check to Immigration Center Executive Director Siobhan Lyons.

Ireland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin presents a check to Immigration Center Executive Director Siobhan Lyons.

During a visit to the Irish Immigration Center in Philadelphia last week, Ireland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin presented Center Director Siobhan Lyons with a check for $117,000. The Irish Center is one of the recipients of the Irish Abroad grant, funded by The Department of Foreign Affairs.

Joining Martin on his visit were Noel Kilkenny, recently appointed Irish Consul; Michael Collins, Ambassador of Ireland to the U.S.; David Cooney, who heads Ireland’s United Nations Mission in New York; and Vice Consul Alan Farrelly.

They were welcomed warmly by a strong turnout from the Irish-American community.

The donation will go a long way towards funding some of The Center’s planned initiatives, most directly the expansion of the senior community activities.

“We’re deeply grateful for the money,” Lyons said. “The Irish government is one of the most generous donators to The Immigration Center.”

“One of our goals for 2011 is to staff a full-time social worker, someone who will be able to reach out to the elderly, our most vulnerable population. There is a growing number of aging immigrants, many of whom are shut-ins who can’t make it out here to The Center. By employing a social worker, someone who’s from the Irish Community, or Ireland, we’ll be able to reach those people who are most in need of our assistance. Having someone culturally sensitive to the needs of the immigrant community means that they’ll be able to establish a rapport quickly and get to the issues straight away.”

September 30, 2010 by
News

Tee Up for the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade Golf Tourney

Here’s your chance to aid the wearin’ of the green with a day on the greens.

The Jack McNamee Masters of the Green Golf Tournament tees off Monday (October 4) at Paxon Hollow Golf Club in Media. Play in it, and you’ll help pay for the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

The contribution is $110, but that includes golf cart, prizes (Eagles tickets, sports memorabilia and such) and gifts (there’s a spiffy new jacket) and dinner.

Sign-in is at 12 noon, with a 12:30 p.m. shotgun start, scramble format.

All you have to do is take half a day off–surely they can spare you for an afternoon–and spend your day on the links. How hard is that?

The tournament has been going great guns for about 15 years. Last year, it was named after the late 2008 parade grand marshal and parade committee board member Jack McNamee, but this year it’s also dedicated to the memory of Jim Kilgallen, 2004 grand marshal of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade and owner of Kilgallen’s Tavern, who died in March.

“Jimmy Kilgallen really helped out on this golf outing, right from the beginning,” says Mike Callahan, president of the St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association board of directors, who’s coordinating the tournament.

The day of golf is all fun, but it has a serious purpose. “We need to keep raising money,” says Callahan. “Even though we’re working with the city (on lowering costs), we still need to pay for insurances, port-a-jons, electricians, set-up people…”

The tournament typically attracts about a hundred golfers, so–do the math–a successful tourney can a big shot in the arm.

You can do your bit. Head over to the Paxon Hollow Golf Club, 850 Paxon Hollow Road, Monday at lunch time, and support the parade.

For more information, contact Mike Callahan at (215) 983-7224.

September 28, 2010 by
News, People

Tee Off for Ciara

Ciara Kelly Higgins: Indomitable and irresistible.

Ciara Kelly Higgins: Indomitable and irresistible.

She’s a tiny thing, with a mass of blonde hair swept up on top of her head and cornflower blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. You’d never know to look at Ciara Kelly Higgins that she was just a few weeks out from an operation where a drug pump the size of a hockey puck was inserted in her abdomen and her hamstring and calf muscles cut.

With her right leg in a cast (covered in pink with, she points out, precious Jonas Brothers autographs she got during a backstage visit), she can motor using just a walker.

But she’s had lots of practice. The fourth child and only daughter of Tom and Dee Higgins of Lafayette Hill, Ciara was born at only 26 weeks, seven years ago. But she was 2.2 pounds of fighter.

“She spent four months in the Jefferson Hospital NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit] on a ventilator,” says her dad, a Galway-born realtor who is active in the Philadelphia Gaelic Athletic Association. “It wasn’t until she was almost two that she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. We just chose to fight it. Ciara has an indomitable spirit that wants to fight—just ask her brothers.”

That would be Tom, 16; Conor, 14, and Ronan, 11.

To help her along, her parents launched a golf fundraiser five years ago to help pay for some of her therapy and to support places like Jefferson and Shriners Hospital that specialize in children with disabilities. They also donate to Sebastian Riding Associates in Collegeville where Ciara gets an unusual form of therapy—hippotherapy, from the Greek word, hippos, meaning horse.

Hippotherapy usually takes place in a controlled environment where therapists use the movements of the horse to help children improve their balance, posture, mobility and function.

“It’s really worked for Ciara,” says Higgins. “It’s keeping her core muscles strong and helping her stay upright. She hunches over on the walker and the crutches and this helps her stand upright. It’s also made her more confident.”

At first, Higgins said, he thought having four people surrounding Ciara while her horse walked around the ring “was overkill.”

“Then one day she got thrown, and by thrown I mean 10 feet in the air, and one of the women caught her,” he says. “I never thought of it as overkill again. They put her on another horse and she never said anything about it. When they say you should get back up on the horse—she did.”

This summer’s operation should nudge Ciara further along towards her goal—to walk unaided or virtually unaided.  The pump in her stomach will send a constant dose of Baclofen, a drug used to treat spasticity, to her affected leg to keep the muscles and ligaments loose.

“She’s very tight and she couldn’t get her heel on the ground to walk properly,” says Higgins. The operation appears to be successful: Ciara’s heel does touch the ground. “She just won’t put it down,” he says. “She hasn’t been able to put it down so it must feel funny to her. But now it can also be manipulated in therapy.”

The other half of the operation—cutting her hamstring and calf muscles—sounds like torture, but it too will relieve the tightness.

Her prognosis, says Higgins, is anyone’s guess, and the experts aren’t making any guesses. “They say that no two cases are alike and they’ve never seen her exact condition before. Technically what she has isn’t cerebral palsy, because that usually affects two legs and only one of hers is affected.”

But if anyone is going to walk, Ciara is. “She’s very stubborn. Even in the hospital when they were measuring her for a wheelchair she was saying, ‘No, don’t do that. I’m not going into a chair.’ They finally convinced her that she would be able to go more places and she went for it,” says Higgins, laughing.

But when you’re facing a tough battle, as Ciara is, stubborn is just another word for determined. And that’s a good thing.

The Fifth Annual Ciara Kelly Higgins for CP Fundraiser is scheduled for Monday, September 20,  at the Plymouth Country Club at Belvoir and Plymouth Roads, Norristown. Breakfast starts at 7:45 AM and tee times follow throughout the morning. Dinner is at 6 with music provided by Paddy’s Well and some comedy from Joe Concklin. There will be both live and silent auctions.

If you can’t make the event, you can send a donation to Ciara’s parents, Tom and Dee Higgins, 4027 N. Warner Road, Lafayette Hill, PA 19444.

September 15, 2010 by
Music, News

Singing for the Swells

John Byrne at a recent World Cafe Live performance with his band.

John Byrne at a recent World Cafe Live performance with his band.

By John Byrne

I had just landed in Dublin in late July. My wife, Dorothy, turned on her phone and saw that there was a message from Laura, the booking manager from World Café Live, inquiring as to whether or not we might be free for a gig on Monday, September 13th. Now, I run the Trad and Ballad Session at Slainte every Monday—and I don’t like to mess around with regular gigs at a place where we have a great relationship with the owners and staff. So I told Dorothy to tell Laura that I do have a booking that day but if it’s a big deal we can definitely look at working something out. Laura replied, “Oh, it’s a big deal.”

Zoom forward about 6-weeks and we were at the Constitution Center on 6th and Arch setting up the sound for our performance at the Presidential Reception for the Liberty Medal Presentation. The Liberty Medal folks had contacted the World Café folks and asked them to recommend a band for the show; they had recommended us. The room was pretty bare and some workers were milling about moving tables and chairs out of the room. We finished setting up the sound and ran through a few songs to make sure everything was quality. We were set to play from 5pm until just before 7pm when all the VIPs would move outside for the presentation itself.

All of our background checks came out clean (ha!) and all that was left for myself, Maura Dwyer, Andy Keenan and Chris Buchanan was to show up respectably dressed and do what we do. There were rumors of Bono showing up although the official word was that he would show up only on the giant video screen to the right of the stage – this turned out to be the case.

On the day we arrived about 3:30 PM, escorted through the waiting crowds by big blokes in black suits, and couldn’t believe the transformation that the room had made. An area that functions as the cafeteria had been completely transformed into an indoor English country garden complete with park benches, fountains, patio furniture, excellent English-themed food, and an enormous arrangement of flowers and trees. At 5 PM we were given the signal to begin and as the VIPs were led into the room we began with the tradition tune “Merrily Kissed the Quaker” following it with one of my own compositions “A Song With no Words.”

There were politicians and faces from local and national news, photographers from Philadelphia Style Magazine, and all-in-all a very polite and appreciative crowd. About 6:45 PM, President Bill Clinton, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mayor Michael Nutter and others were ushered past the room to the stage. The guests followed to their section as we played “I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Everyday”….and that was it. 

We got to stand to the left of the stage and watch the speeches, the moving video tributes from Bertie Ahern and Bono and the beautiful performance given by the Irish Tenors. A little after 8 pm we were asked to move our sound equipment as the VIP Room was to be transferred into the Press Room after the presentation. Once again, the big blokes in the black suits appeared to escort us, and by 9pm we were playing “Merrily Kissed the Quaker” again, this time at Slainte, preparing for our show the following night at World Café Live with The Young Dubliners. One of the TVs in the corner was showing highlights of the presentation—by then it all seemed just a little surreal.

September 15, 2010 by
News, People

Honoring Franny Rafferty

Mike Callaghan with Franny Rafferty.

Mike Callaghan with Franny Rafferty.

Anyone who knows Philly politics knows former Democratic councilman-at-large Francis W. Rafferty. Suffice to say, he was no shrinking violet in the exercise of his official duties.

People who serve on the St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association know Franny Rafferty in an entirely different light. Rafferty has served on the association board, which oversees the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, for over 30 years. For two years, he was president. (Those are recalled by current president Mike Callaghan, somewhat ruefully, as the two years in which the parade enjoyed some of its best weather—sunny, with highs in the low 70s.)

So let others dwell on the colorful history. His colleagues on the board know him as one of their hardest-working, most forward-thinking members. Recently, they honored Rafferty for his long years of service.

Callaghan says the accolades are well-deserved. “Franny’s a sweetheart,” says Callaghan. “He’s very focused and very zealous about what he believes in. He was a tremendous board member.”

Rafferty himself is grateful for the kind words, but he’s characteristically reluctant to toot his own horn. Instead, he redirects the very public attention to those who have served before him. “the guys that created the Observance Association, they deserve all the credit,” he says. “They’re the ones who brought us recognition. They’re good guys, good people. I was just proud to serve with them.”

He singles out the late board member Marie Burns for particular praise. “Marie Burns was my mentor,” he says. “She just took me under her wing. When i came on the board, I would just lay back. I was a councilman and younger then. I just wanted to be part of what they were doing. Marie took me under her wing. She said, ‘Someday, we’re gonna make you president.’ She was just a nice person to be with. I really miss her.”

Rafferty’s appreciation of his Irish heritage didn’t come naturally. In some families, Irish cultural awareness is front and center. In others, it’s rarely discussed. Rafferty’s family fell into the latter category.

Still, his family history is every bit as colorful as the man himself. His grandfather Pete Rafferty came from County Tyrone and established a horse manure business and, with hard work, came to own many properties along Washington Avenue. “He was supposed to have had the first bottom-drop wagons,” Rafferty says. “He worked a lot of construction jobs with it. He was just a hard-working little guy. He would haul stuff, and people would ride his horses on Sunday.”

Rafferty’s own Irish awakening came with the onset of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. As a member of Philadelphia’s City Council, he felt it was time for him to become involved, and he pursued his interest in the cause of Irish unity with characteristic vigor–even visiting Irish political prisoners in the infamous Maze Prison in County Down. He also stayed in private homes with Northern Irish families. “I really started to learn what these people were going through,” he says.

To Rafferty, service to the St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association is all a logical outgrowth of that deep and abiding passion for history and tradition. He recalls his time in the center of things with great fondness. “”It was just a beautiful time,” he says. “Now it’s time for the younger guys to take over.”

September 14, 2010 by