Browsing Category

People

The Irish Immigration Center Knows How to Have Fun

Siobhan Lyons, dressed for success

A few years after their mother died, Siobhan Lyons and her four siblings decided to honor her every year by celebrating her favorite poem. It’s called “Warning” by Jenny Joseph, and it starts, “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.”

So every year, the siblings don red hats, wear purple, and text photos to one another in their far-flung locales. “It’s a much better way to remember her than to be mopey,” says Lyons, executive director of the Irish Immigration Center of Greater Philadelphia.

Lyons is usually somewhere in the Philadelphia area with a group of seniors having lunch. Her sister is in Australia, two of her brothers are in Singapore, and one brother is in London.

“Now it’s gotten to be a competition,” said Lyons, wearing her red hat and purple dress at her senior’s Red Hat luncheon at Maggie’s on the Waterfront, part of the center’s outreach to Irish seniors in Northeast Philadelphia. The event was sponsored by Philadelphia City Councilman Bobby Henon and attended by 120 seniors, most of whom were dressed in the red-purple theme.

Lyon’s job gives her an edge in the family competition. “The first year we did it–2010–everyone showed up at the regular Wednesday Immigration Center lunch in a red hat and they did a story on it in the Irish Edition. It was hard to beat that!”

You can see photos below from Red Hat Day as well as from the Immigration Center annual picnic on Sunday, held at the Bon Air Fire Company in Havertown, where the firefighters delighted the children who attended by squirting them with the fire hose.

[flickr_set id=”72157652796252429″]

[flickr_set id=”72157652946182466″]

May 22, 2015 by Denise Foley

Music, News, People

These Kids Are More Than Alright

Haley and Dylan Richardson

When Haley Richardson was five, her mother Donna took her to a concert by Irish fiddler Kevin Burke. At the merch table were local New Jersey fiddler/harper Kathy DeAngelo and her husband, multi-instrumentalist Dennis Gormley, who founded the Next Generation musical group that nurtures local youngsters interested in Irish traditional music.

De Angelo would eventually become Haley’s fiddle teacher and Gormley would teach Haley’s older brother, Dylan, the guitar, but they didn’t know one another at the time. And boy, did DeAngelo ever not know Haley. When the five-year-old told her mother she wanted one of Burke’s “How to Play the Celtic Fiddle” DVDs, Donna Richardson recalled DeAngelo saying, ‘”Oh no, honey, those are for the big people.” Richardson laughs. “I said, ‘well, we’ll take them anyway.’”

It was the beginning of something huge. Haley used the DVD to teach herself Irish-style fiddling as her brother switched from regular guitar playing to the DADGAD tuning of Irish traditional music. They eventually became part of DeAngelo and Gormley’s Next Generation group.

Even if the New Jersey-based Richardson siblings, who just released their first album (he’s 17, she’s 12) Heart on a String, hadn’t become Irish music phenoms, they are living proof that those hours listening to Baby Einstein Mozart CDs aren’t wasted.

Haley graduated from listening to Mozart to playing him on classical violin when she was three. By 2013, at the age of 11, she was all-Ireland champion in 2013 in both under 12 solo fiddle and under 12 fiddle slow airs. She has represented the US in the All-Ireland competition (known as the Fleadh Cheoil) for the past six years. A few weeks ago, she qualified to go again this year. And she’s shared the stage with a variety of major players, including Altan, Dervish, the Chieftains, Paddy Keenan, the Tee-Totallers, Pride of New York, and the John Whelan Band.

Dylan is a multi-instrumentalist (guitar, banjo, Irish bouzouki and mandolin, largely self-taught on most of them) who, though he’s not competitive, has qualified for the All-Irelands in guitar accompaniment.

I met with them this week before the start of the Monday session at Sligo Pub in Media where they regularly play alongside fiddler Paraic Keane (and, occasionally, Paraic’s friends from The Chieftains for whom his father, Sean, is the long-time fiddler, and his uncle, James Keane, a renowned box player).

The CD is something the Richardson siblings have wanted to do for a long time. It was something that one of Haley’s mentors, accordion player John Whelan, has been wanting to do for a long time too. Whelan, himself a multi-All-Ireland winner from London, put out his first CD when he was 14.

The only thing stopping the Richardsons was Haley’s size. Or, more specifically, the size of her fiddle. “I’ve always had smaller violin sizes and they don’t sound as good on a recording,” says Haley. “I’m now using a full size fiddle so we thought it was time.”

Haley created a list of sets (“That’s all her,” Dylan concedes), many of them pieces that she learned from her teacher, Brian Conway of New York, one of the leading Irish fiddlers in the US who was taught the ornate “Sligo style” he teaches Haley from some of the legends of traditional fiddling, including Martin Wynne, Andy McGann, and Martin Mulvihill. She filled in with tunes from two of her favorite composers, Philadelphia’s Ed Reavy and Liz Carroll of Chicago. And she and Dylan wrote two pieces, “The Comet,” and “Into the Frying Pan.” Brian Conway and John Whelan can both be heard on several tracks. Whelan did the recording.

The CD has been critically acclaimed. Typical of the reviews: this one from Paul Keating, columnist for The Irish Voice: “If you weren’t aware that Haley Richardson was still a young child of 12, the maturity of her fiddle playing would give nothing away. In fact, her superb grasp of the essence of Irish music and its vast canon of beautiful melodies has already produced great wonderment at her skills and comfort both in performance and competition. I am in total awe of what she has achieved already at the highest levels at the Fleadh and on many festival and concert stages and look forward to watching her develop further into the ranks of the greatest fiddlers in Irish-American history. Her promise knows no bounds.”

The two will be giving a mini CD-release concert this Saturday at the Irish American Association of North West Jersey at 352 Richard Mine Road, Rockaway, starting at 7:30 PM.

How did a couple of kids who aren’t all that Irish get turned on to Irish music? For Dylan, it was “the liveliness” of the tunes that attracted him. For Haley? “Well, I was really young when I first heard it, but I think it was that it’s different from classical music. In Irish music there are things you can add yourself, your own twists and variations to it. You’re really free to do whatever you want.”

She’s chosen to follow the Sligo fiddle tradition with its lively bounces and rolls which, when done well, sounds almost like it’s improvised. But she still takes lessons in classical violin. “It just kind of helps with the technical stuff,” she says. “I don’t think I would have know as much about Irish music if I didn’t have a classical foundation.”

Both Haley and Dylan are home-schooled by Donna, who is a physical therapist for early intervention. Their dad, Stewart, is a retired corrections officer. Donna started homeschooling when her oldest son. Newt, was struggling in school—not because he was having a hard time learning, but was too far ahead of his classmates. “And they wondered why he was acting out,” she says dryly.

When her two youngest got hooked on music, it turned out to be a great move. “Who knew music was going to take over our lives?” she laughs. Some days she’s on the road for a couple of hours, shuttling them from lessons to sessions to concerts. But they’ve had many opportunities other kids haven’t had.

Both Haley and Dylan worked with author Kathryn Ross on an audiobook recording, Mother Chicken’s Eggs. Haley played fiddle and Dylan actually produced the recording. Now a high school junior, Dylan has his sights set on becoming a sound engineer, so he’ll already have a project on his resume when he applies to college.

Haley thinks she may have found her calling at studio2stage, an Irish music and dance show production program at Keane University in Union, NJ, where they accepted her for the band that plays for the world class Irish dancers who attend even though she doesn’t yet make the age 15 cutoff. “It was a lot of work, they had 12-hour days of rehearsals,” says Donna.

“I was not expecting to like it but I did. I think that’s what I’d like to do,” says Haley.

Given her incredible rise in the field of Irish trad music, it might happen sooner rather than later. And this time, no one is likely to tell her it’s only “for the big people.”

May 22, 2015 by Denise Foley

History, News, People

Second Duffy’s Cut Victim Returning Home

The skull of Catherine Burns as it was found in the archeological dig. Photo courtesy of Duffy’s Cut.

Catherine Burns is going home in July. She will be buried under a Celtic cross in the cemetery of St. Patrick’s Parish of Clonoe, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. She is the second of the victims of the Duffy’s Cut tragedy whose remains will be interred in the country they left behind in 1832 to find a better life, but who met death instead.

Hers was the seventh body they found—a handful of bone fragments really—in the pit of clay and shale at the Malvern archeological site called Duffy’s Cut, after the 19th century railroad contractor who recruited dozens of Irishmen to work on laying tracks for the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, now part of Amtrak’s northeast corridor. Fifty-seven of them died there, only six weeks after arriving on American soil on the ship John Stamp, which had sailed out of Derry on its two-month Atlantic voyage.

The body was known as SK007—a designation indicating only the order in which it was discovered. But one day, several years ago, as a team of students, led by Immaculata College history professor William Watson, his twin brother Frank, a Lutheran minister, and several colleagues, worked at the site, they received a phone call that helped them give those bones a name.

“We were finishing digging out the body we were calling ‘the tall man’ when we got a call from Janet Monge, our forensic anthropologist at Penn, who told us that it was a woman,” recalled the Rev. Frank Watson. “First and foremost, we almost fainted. We had found a pelvis and a skull and Janet told us that the palate was small and it was a woman’s pelvis. We knew from the ship’s records that there had been a young woman, Elizabeth Devine, who came with her brother who was a laborer. But Janet told us she was too young. This was another woman aged around 30, so that left a woman who had traveled from Tyrone on the John Stamp with her father-in-law, John Burns, at 70 the eldest of the immigrants. She was a widow and her name was Catherine. She was 29. And we found historically that she had disappeared with John, like the others.”

And, like the others, Catherine Burns’ remains showed signs of violence. “She had been treated just like the men. She died of blunt force trauma, just like the rest of the men except for the tall man under the tree who had a bullet in his skull. She was beaten to death,” said Watson. “There were no defensive wounds, so they were probably tied up before they were killed. It’s just horrible.”

Over the years, the Watson brothers and their colleagues pieced together what is now a well known story of Irish immigrants seeking a better life who were murdered by local vigilantes who feared the spread of a cholera epidemic that had overtaken the small encampment where the laborers lived, near a likely contaminated creek running by. Only a small group of nuns, the Daughters of Charity, were courageous enough to minister to the Irish workers, coming out from Philadelphia to do so.

It’s a story told even in Clonoe, a rural parish on the southwest corner of Lough Neagh, says Father Benny Fee, pastor of St. Patrick’s. “It is surprising to me how many [of my parishioners] are aware of Duffy’s Cut and the terrible things that happened there,” he wrote in an email this week.

A friend and former parishioner, Brian McCaul, now of Upper Darby, suggested that Catherine’s remains might find a home in the Clonoe Parish Cemetery. “We got involved because as far as I know Brian gave my name to some of the people involved in the Duffy’s cut Repatriation Project,” wrote Father Fee. “We feel very honored to do something for this child of God, Catherine Burns, a lady who I suspect was given very little dignity or value in life. The seventh corporal work of mercy is to bury the dead, so it is a privilege and an honor to be asked to be involved.”

On Sunday, July 19, after a Mass performed by Father Fee, Catherine Burns’ remains will be interred at the foot of “what we call the Tall Cross of Clonoe,” wrote Father Fee.

It’s “a modern cross erected in 2008 in honour of the 150th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady at Lourdes.,” he wrote. “It is modeled on the Papal Cross that was raised above the Altar in Dublin’s Phoenix Park for the visit of Pope John Paul to Ireland in 1979. And remember at Shannon Airport he spoke of those countless men and women who left Ireland for the New World just as he was leaving Ireland to travel on to New York to address the United Nations. The Cross is lit up at night, based on the lighting of the Bridge of Peace at Drogheda, County Louth. The Cross for us, of course, as believers in Christ is the great bridge from this world to the world of the Presence of God.”

Catherine’s remains will be accompanied by the Watson brothers and their close colleague Earl Schandlemeier who will also revisit and place a marker on the grave of 19-year-old John Ruddy, a victim from Donegal, whose body was buried a year ago in a plot in Ardara, Donegal, donated by Irish Center President Vincent Gallagher. Gallagher may also attend the ceremony. Five other victims whose remains were discovered but who have never been identified are buried in a donated plot—under a Celtic cross—at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd where, until recently, Catherine Burns’ remains were interred.

Several local organizations, including the Philadelphia Tyrone Society and the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, as well as individuals have contributed to the cost of repatriating the bodies. “Kathy McGee Burns gave us a significant gift he night of her installation as grand marshal of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day parade,” said Watson. McGee Burns, president of the Irish Memorial, also contributed to John Ruddy’s burial in Donegal.

Work will resume at the Duffy’s Cut site on June 8—core samples will be taken to determine if there are any bone fragments in a space under the tracks where screenings found another possible mass grave, possibly the other 50 missing workers, said Watson. “Ideally, if we find what we anticipate we’ll find, the dig will reconvene this year. We have no idea what the Amtrak derailment [on Tuesday night, May 12, in Philadelphia] will mean to this.”

What makes the Watsons and their colleagues press on is something both personal and spiritual. The story started for them one day in 2002 while going through files that belonged to their grandfather, who was executive assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Martin Clement. Clement had kept an extensive file on Duffy’s Cut and it had wound up in their grandfather’s papers.

“We inherited the story from our grandfather and we think it’s for a reason,” said Watson. “This didn’t come to us by accident. This is a story that needs to be told and we need to work for justice and right for these people who never got the chance in their lifetime.”

Photos of other remains below from the Duffy’s Cut team.

[flickr_set id=”72157649056415304″]

May 15, 2015 by Denise Foley

News, People

Local Swimmer Pursues Olympic Dreams in Ireland

Shane Ryan and grandmother Pat Bonner.

Havertown’s Shane Ryan, the 6’6” record-setting Penn State swimmer, headed to Ireland this week with his Irish-born dad, Tom, to begin the next leg of an athletic career that could lead him to the Olympics.

A member of the USA Swimming national team, Ryan, after many discussions and soul-searching with his Penn State and US national team coach Tim Murphy, decided his best shot at a berth on an Olympic team would be in Ireland, where, because of his father, a County Laois native, he’s eligible for citizenship.

Ryan is ranked fourth or fifth in the US and he would have to place in the top two in finals in the US—where there are many topnotch swimmers–to qualify to head to Rio in 2016 as part of the US Olympic team. His pace is certainly up to par. His 100-meter backstroke time is faster than the “A” standard for Olympic qualification and he’s close to it for the 100-meter freestyle. He broke the national record in the 100-meter backstroke.

It was a tough decision, said Ryan, who sat down with me during a going-away party last weekend, attended by family and friends in the spacious backyard of his family home. “I talked it over with my coach and we decided that it was my best chance to get to the Olympics and to get a medal,” explained the 21-year-old, a recreation, park, and tourism management major at Penn State’s main campus. “In the US, they only take the top two and if I come in third, there goes my shot. But I also saw it as an opportunity for me to help put Irish swimming on the map. “

According to an article in the Irish Times, Ryan will be considered “the hottest Olympic swimming prospect in the country.” By international swimming federation (FINA) rules, he has to live for a year in Ireland before he’s eligible for the Irish team, though he will be training with them.

It’s not unusual for athletes with dual citizenships to compete for teams outside their birth countries. In fact, 120 out of the 3,000 competitors at last year’s Sochi Winter Olympics were doing just that, found a Pew Research Center survey.

Yes, they often do it for personal gain. But some, like Ryan, also have an emotional connection to another country. Like many children of immigrants, Ryan grew up with a strong sense of his heritage, and not just because of his father, who himself emigrated to the US to play Gaelic football for the Gaelic Athletic Association. His mother, Mary Beth Bonner Ryan, a singer, aquatics coach and a former Miss Mayo, “also lived for a year in Ireland when she was my age,” he says.

His grandfather was the late Phillip “Knute” Bonner, a Philadelphia police officer, a long-time member of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association. (Ryan’s mother now sits on board of the organization that plans the city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.)

His maternal grandmother, Patricia Noone Bonner, was, like her grandson, the child of immigrants. Her father, Martin Noone, was a dedicated Irish republican from County Mayo who bequeathed to her a strong passion to bring about a united Ireland. Pat Bonner has been involved in that cause through various organizations for more than 40 years.

“And I come from Havertown, which is known as the 33rd county of Ireland, because there are so many Irish here,” says Ryan. “Being Irish has always been a big part of my life.”

He’ll be missing his family—his parents, brother Brendan, college student, and 16-year-old sister Tara, and his grandmother. (See photos below.) But he won’t be wanting for kin. “My Dad is one of 10,” he says. He has dozens of cousins, some his own age, who will be a short trip away in Portlaoise, south west of Dublin where Ryan will be living.

He’ll be working while he’s in Ireland, but is taking a year’s hiatus from college. But he’ll head back to Penn State, where he has a full scholarship, for his degree once his Olympic dreams in Ireland are played out one way or the other. There are no guarantees.

“I need to do my job,” says Ryan. “It’s going to be a lot of hard work. You don’t get there just by being faster and having natural talent. I realize that this is a once-in-a-life time opportunity and I think if you have a chance to do something, you ought to take it.”

[flickr_set id=”72157652440393579″]

May 15, 2015 by Denise Foley

Music, News, People

Local Trad Performers Score Big at the Fleadh

Emily and Livia Safko with some of their fleadh trophies.

The Delaware Valley will be well represented this year at the Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann in Sligo, the annual “Olympics” of Irish traditional music sponsored by Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, the international organization dedicated to the preservation of Irish music and culture. A total of 10 local Irish traditional music performers, most of them under 18, qualified at the annual Fleadh (pronounced “flag:) in Parsippany, NJ, last weekend for what are known as the All-Irelands. Some of them have already competed—and won—there.

One competitor, fiddler and concertina player Livia Safko of Medford Lakes, NJ, made Comhaltas (pronounced coal-tas) history when she placed first in four competitions at the Fleadh, any one of which would qualify her to compete in Sligo, which is hosting its second All-Irelands competition.

Livia took first in the under 15 duets, which she won with her older sister, Emily, on harp. The other firsts: under 12 fiddle, under 12 fiddle slow airs, and concertina.

Emily Safko also took home firsts in under 15 harp and harp slow airs.

Other local musicians also brought home trophies—some almost as big as they are. Catherine Bouvier of Merchantsville, NJ, a student of local harper Kathy DeAngelo, took home first place in under 12 harp and her twin sister, Olivia, won second place.

The Converse Trio—fiddlers Haley Richardson of Elmer, NJ, and Alexander Weir of West Chester along with piper Keegan Loesel of Kennett Square—took home first place in under 18 trios. They earned a third place in trios in last year’s All-Ireland completion, also in Sligo. Richardson and Loesel also won second place in duets in Parsippany last weekend.

Richardson, a second place winner in slow airs in Sligo in 2014, won first in under 15 fiddle and second in fiddle slow airs. Loesel took firsts in under 18 whistle slow air and uillean pipes solos and slow airs. Weir, a third place winner in fiddle slow airs in Sligo, earned a first in under 18 fiddle slow airs in Parsippany.

Fiddler Patrick “Patch” Glennan of Mantua, NJ, won a silver medal in his first competition.

Another Jersey winner: Katherine Highet of Voorhees, a second place in over 18 harp.

Mary Kay Mann of Media also won first places in over 18 harp slow airs and flute.

One interesting thing many of these winners have in common: They are or were members of the Next Generation, a group of young performers who play together at the Irish Center in Philadelphia, led by husband-and-wife team Dennis Gormley and Kathy DeAngelo (Comhaltas Hall of Famers) and Chris Brennan Hagy. “This is how they met each other and started playing together,” says DeAngelo. “[This is a] point of pride for me and Dennis. Six of them are or were my students.”

The photos below were shared with us by Katherine Ball Weir, Amy Safko, and Kathy DeAngelo.

[flickr_set id=”72157650475021874”]

May 14, 2015 by Denise Foley

People

‘Philly Will Not Ever Again Be the Same Without Her Ever Humble and Gracious Presence’

Sister Cecile, St. Patrick’s Day, 2011.

Marybeth Phillips thought twice about what she would wear to the funeral of Sister Cecile Reiley. Most people would say you’re supposed to wear dark clothes. Instead, after some thought, Phillips chose a floaty type of skirt with patterns of light purple, dark purple, and blue. She chose it to honor the memory of her friend, a passionate devotee of the arts.

“No matter what anybody else is thinking,” Phillips thought, “Cecile is going to love it because it looks like Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night.’”

When Phillips arrived at St. Joseph’s Villa, she found the chapel awash in the most fuchsia, pink roses and other bright, colorful flowers—and Sister Cecile, in repose, in the most cheerful of hues, including a lavender linen jacket and a woven purple scarf.

“I thought, wow, she was more colorful than I was,” Phillips says. That wasn’t surprising, she adds. “She knew where she was going, and she was going to go with great spirit and joy.”

Sister Cecile Anne Reiley, SSJ, passed away April 24 at the age of 76. A tireless, lifelong advocate on behalf of the poor and the powerless and an ardent peace activist, she made her mark as parish services director at St. Malachy Church in North Philadelphia, where she seemed to take on any task that came her way, from pastoral counseling to organizing the annual benefit Irish music concert featuring Mick Moloney and friends.

A self described “coal cracker” born in Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Sister Cecile was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis—a chronic, painful and crippling disease, at a very early age. Friends knew she endured great suffering, but she just went on about her life, attacking it with gusto.

“She never complained,” says friend Kathy McGee Burns, who visited Sister Cecile in the hospital in her final days. “Little by little, I saw her body give way. It sure didn’t reduce her spirit, or her ability to get where she wanted to go. She got things done that were amazing that you never would have dreamed she would get done. People loved to do for her. If she called, you couldn’t say no. She never complained … and she still got the job done.”

Father John McNamee, St. Malachy’s pastor emeritus, saw that can-do quality in Sister Cecile right from the beginning of their relationship.

“I met her more than 20 years ago.” Father Mac says. “We were protesting against a nuclear facility near Drexel.”

The two struck up a conversation. What happened after that is lost in the mists of time. Somehow, Sister Cecile wound up working at St. Malachy’s. “I didn’t even remember that I invited her in. I must have. She had a desk, a computer, a phone, and her friends stopping by.”

Once she was there, Father McNamee was happy to let her work her magic. St. Malachy’s needed all the help it could get, and having someone with Sister Cecile’s indomitable energy was a decided plus. Father McNamee reflects, “It was Andy Warhol who said that half of life is showing up.” And that’s what Sister Cecile did.

Sister Cecile also lent her artistic talents to St. Malachy, including directing the decoration of the altar for holy days and for the Mick Moloney concert. Art remained a lifelong love.

“We had a lot of conversations about great artists … Renoir, Van Gogh,” recalls Marybeth Phillips. “She always said Renoir inspired her. Renoir said he was going to keep painting until he could no longer hold the brush. She said, I want to do that, not just with my art, but with everything I do. She was doing that until two weeks before she died.”

We would also like to share with you one very special remembrance from great friend and devoted colleague Mary Heron:

Sister Cecile Reiley brought joy and wisdom wherever she went. And she went many places over her lifetime. Unfortunately, I only knew her for the last 20 years as she served as parish services director for St. Malachy. In the early days of our friendship we enjoyed all kinds of entertainment from movies to Shakespeare to picnics to fireworks. She was always ready to go. As the years went by, it became harder for her to get around but her fold-up wheelchair fit in the trunk of my small car and we continued to go.

Meantime, she was organizing concerts for St. Malachy Church usually benefits for the school. Some of those concerts included the St. Malachy choir from Belfast, the Cappella Cecilia concert also from Ireland, and of course, the annual Mick Moloney & Friends concert which she loved. In recent years, an Irish Mass with Irish musicians was begun as an annual tradition, in early March.

When she could no longer go to shows, she brought the shows to St. Joseph’s Villa. She drafted Tony Braithwaite, professional comedian often performing at Ambler’s Act 2 Playhouse, to help launch a comedy and drafted the nuns as actors. It was a great success and was written up in the Irish Edition and the Chestnut Hill local. Several concerts were presented at the Villa through her direction and persuasion to bring the musicians to perform.

Sister Cecile never let her physical limitations hold her back. Her perseverance, patience and vitality were an inspiration to all who knew her. Herself an accomplished pianist and singer before being overtaken by rheumatoid arthritis, Sister Cecile followed in the footsteps of her namesake, the patroness of music. Her artistic talent stretched to painting and she presented her work in an exhibit at Chestnut Hill College in the 1990’s.

The community of St. Malachy feels a great loss at her passing. And I will miss her attentive listening, insight and guidance along with the joy we shared.

Father Mac also shared this remembrance from Mick Moloney, who was traveling in Asia:

Sister Cecile was one of the loveliest people I have ever met. A living saint, really. The most gentle of souls but with a calm inner strength that was extraordinary.

Every year for nearly three decades we were in contact regarding the big concert we have done at St. Malachy’s Church every fall for the past 28 years. Typically she had to hound me to confirm the date and then the names of the various musicians I would be performing with on the day. As the PR deadlines approached the hounding became more insistent but it was always graceful. And the job always got done even if it came down to the wire. It was always worth it and her big welcome to all of us arriving at the magical church every year was just unforgettable. Even as Cecile grew weaker physically over the past few years she continued to touch every musician who came by with her courage, her humility, her grace and her fortitude. I will miss her deeply. Coming back to Philly will not ever again be the same without her ever humble and gracious presence.

May 8, 2015 by Jeff Meade

News, People

“I Lost My Dance Partner”

Ed and Mary Reavy as most usually saw them.

A group of Irish musicians, led by 87-year-old Tyrone native Kevin McGillian and his sons John and Jimmy, were playing dance music at the front of St. Kevin’s Church in Springfield on Tuesday morning, as hundreds filed in to pay their last respects to Ed Reavy Jr.

Dance music at a funeral? Ed Reavy would have loved it. In fact, he would have been up there in front of the church, kicking up his heels with his wife, Mary. And it wouldn’t have been the first time the Reavys danced in the aisle of church, as Father John McNamee noted in his homily during the Mass of Christian Burial for the 89-year-old Reavy, who was known as a teacher of ceili dance teachers in the Philadelphia area.

The former pastor of St. Malachy’s Church in North Philadelphia, which was built by Irish immigrants, recalled one November Sunday at the annual fundraising concert in the church organized by famed Irish musician and folklorist Mick Moloney. Something—the sound or the lights—wasn’t working.

“So I got up in the pulpit and announced that the show wasn’t going to start on time, but it might make the time pass if Ed and Mary Reavy got up and danced for us,” recalled the priest. “Mary poked Ed in his side and they got up and danced in the aisle till the concert began. That took a lot of courage.”

Ed Reavy Jr. died last week after a long illness. He was confined to wheelchair, living at the Broomall Presbyterian Village; he hadn’t danced for years. But in the minds and memories of those who came to say goodbye to him, he was still dancing and would forever be. To each person who came to touch her hand or wrap their arms around her, Mary Reavy said tearfully, “I lost my dance partner.”

Many recalled the tap shoes he wore. “He wore those clip shoes up the aisle at his son’s wedding,” said longtime friend Jim McNicholas whose wife and Ed’s first wife were cousins. “All you could hear as he walked was clip, clip, clip.”

And they remembered his stories. His father, the late Cavan-born fiddler Ed Reavy, considered one of the greatest composers of Irish traditional music in the 20th century, was known for his prodigious memory for tunes. One melody would remind him of another and it seemed he could go all night, fiddling the songs of his homeland and the ones he wrote that reminded him of home. His son told stories the same way, in a chain, as one reminded him of another and another.

When her daughter, Caitlin Finley, was a young fiddler, said Denys Everingham, “Ed took an interest in her as he did all the young musicians he liked to encourage. He would talk to her about all her musical mentors at the time. He told her stories about how he used to sit on the stairway of their house and listen to them playing downstairs with his father. She gave him a CD of friend who was an All-Ireland fiddler—he really knew a good fiddler when he heard one—and he commented on how good his slow airs were. Then he told her about a pretty famous fiddler he knew. ‘He couldn’t do a slow air to save his life,’ he told her. That really made us laugh. He had several copies of his father’s tunes left and he gave one to Caitlin. He did so much to promote the music and the culture. He really touched a lot of people.”

He’s credited with helping revive ceili dancing, a form of Irish country dancing, in the Delaware Valley in the 1970s, when Irish music regained a foothold in the region’s Irish community. The dances were staple stuff at Reavy house parties and at the many dance halls in Philadelphia where the Irish would gather, like 69th Street and Connelly’s on Broad Street. Many of the people who teach it today learned from Reavy. And dance was brought Ed, then a widower, together with Mary McGoff, who took lessons from him and became his wife.

“I really remember his dancing,” said Lorraine McDade Kelly, whose late sister, Maureen, founded the McDade School of Irish Dance in Delaware County. “He would kick his heels up really high.” She smiled at the memory. “I got to know him because my dad, Jimmy McDade, was a musician who played with his father. And I would see him at the nursing home. On or around St. Patrick’s Day, Irish musicians would show up to play for him and the other residents. Once he gave me a photo of my Dad that he found, and he was such a story teller, he could tell me the whole story of where it was and what was going on when it was taken.”

The Reavys, particularly Ed’s brother Joe, dedicated their lives to keep their father’s music and name alive. Reavy compositions were being passed from musician to musician and in some cases, attributed to other composers or “anonymous.” In the 1960s, Joe Reavy began transcribing and annotating their father’s tunes from the elder Reavy’s homemade 78s and that remarkable memory. Joe produced the first Ed Reavy songbook in 1980.

The last of Ed Jr.’s 17 visits to Ireland came in 2010 when, with Mary, he was the guest of honor at a tribute concert to his father at the Fleadh Choeil in County Cavan where the first annual Ed Reavy Sr. Traditional Music Festival will be held October 15-18 this year in Cootehill and Cavan Town. (See below for some photos from that event, graciously provided to us by the Ed Reavy Festival committee.The other photos are from our archives.)

On May 15, Mick Moloney, who first recorded Ed Reavy Sr. in the 1970s, will be speaking at a special program at the Cavan County Museum on “Ed Reavy: His Music, His Legacy” to kick off the festival.

Bill McKenty—always “Brother Bill” to Reavy—met the man who became his close friend of more than 20 years when McKenty, a ground water scientist by training, was playing in a session at The Bards pub in Philadelphia in the early 1990s. “A gentleman sits next to me and says, ‘that’s good soundin’ flute playing,’’ recalls McKenty. “I said thanks and went up to get a glass of water and someone says, ‘You know who that is, don’t you? That’s Ed Reavy.’ So when I went back I played one of his father’s tunes.”

They started chatting and, as often happened to Ed Reavy, the shared love of music created a friendship. “We started trading music, becoming friends. I did a website for him,” said McKenty. “He’s of that generation where a computer is not appropriate in a home, so he put it in the closet and had a little chair there. We got him a dial-up internet account, and soon he was surfing, burning CDs, having a lot of fun.”

In recent years, Reavy also struck up a friendship with a 15-year-old dancer and fiddler from Tennessee, says McKenty. “His father’s music connected him to this young lady. Somehow she got his number at the nursing home and over the last two to two-and-a-half years they developed a special friendship over the phone. She was so sweet to him, but they never met. But he hooked her up with all kinds of people to help her with her playing, the Brian Conways, Eileen Ivers and Tony DeMarcos of the world. She was devastated when she learned he had died.”

The other memory McKenty cherishes of his friend was the relationship Reavy had with Mary. Reavy’s daughter, Erin Reavy Fredericks, in her eulogy, read by her step-sister’s husband, James Dale, acknowledged the strong bond between her father and her stepmother.

“I know he hung on as long as he did because of your special love,” she wrote in the tribute to her father, who she recalled as a loving father “who showed up to Girl Scout meeting before that was acceptable, tied my shoes, taught me to ride a bike, throw a ball and recognize a good deal at a garage sale.”

“Talk about a marriage,” said McKenty. “That was one where you reach for the stars and they got it. Did you see his poem?”

In the booklet handed out at the funeral Mass was a poem Reavy wrote for Mary called “Rock,” that begins, “I will never forget the first time I saw you, just as I cannot forget when I knew I did not want to go through life without you.”

It ends, presciently, “I have greed of your time and your space within by being in dread of the spectre of life without you so, I entreat that I be taken before your time need I beg the fairness of this could I manage sanity without my Rock.”

“That’s the way he was,” says McKenty. “Vociferously in love with her. It was puppy love, all that and more. I wish I had that. I’ll miss him greatly.”

Along with his wife, Mary, Ed Reavy Jr. is survived by his son, Edward P. Reavy (the late Linda) and his daughter, Erin Fredericks (Michael); his brothers Joseph and George (Pat) and sister, Eileen Carr. He is also survived by his grandchildren Thomas and Cara Fredericks and Colleen Reavy Karpinski (Mark) and Kevin Reavy; his great-grandchildren Emma and Alexander Karpinski; his step-grandchildren Lauren Ashley, Gavin, Brian, Austin and Dalton Coigne and Matthew, Maureen, Patrick and Maeve Dale and his step-great-grandchildren Catherine, Cailin, Patrick and Caroline Ashley.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made in his memory to the Wounded Warrior Project, PO Box 758517, Topeka, KS. 66675

[flickr_set id=”72157652280577022″]

May 1, 2015 by Denise Foley

News, People

Philly Parade Winners Get Their Just Rewards

Sister Mary McNulty accepts the St. Frances de Sales prize with gusto. Behind her is Parade Director Michael Bradley.

One wall of the Second Street Irish Society’s third floor pub is given over to parade awards, and on Thursday night, they had the nail in place for the latest. The South Philly Irish-American organization won the James P. “Jim” Kilgallen Award for the organization that best exemplifies Irish unity by charitable works both in the US and abroad.

They also get the award for throwing a great party. Parade winners enjoyed some authentic Irish fare in the hall, with its glazed brick walls and dark wood floors, and danced to the sounds of the Bogside Rogues.

Sixteen individuals and organizations listed below took home plaques for their parade entries. See bottom of the page for photos of the event.

Hon. James H.J. Tate Award
(Founded 1980, this was named the Enright Award Prior to 1986)
Sponsored by: Mike Driscoll & Michael Bradley
Group that Best Exemplified the Spirit of the Parade
Christina Ryan Kilcoyne School of Irish Dance

Msgr. Thomas J. Rilley Award (Founded 1980)
Outstanding Fraternal Organization
Sponsored by: AOH Division 39 Msgr. Thomas J. Rilley
Irish of Havertown

George Costello Award (Founded 1980)
Organization with the Outstanding Float in the Parade
Sponsored by: The Irish Society
Cavan Society

Hon. Vincent A. Carroll Award (Founded 1980)
Outstanding Musical Unit Excluding Grade School Bands:
Sponsored by: John Dougherty
Marching Phoenix Band (Hartford Conn.)

Anthony J. Ryan Award (Founded 1990)
Outstanding Grade School Band
Sponsored by: The Ryan Family
St. Francis DeSales Catholic School

Walter Garvin Award (Founded 1993)
Outstanding Children’s Irish Dance Group
Sponsored by: Walter Garvin Jr.
Coyle School of Irish Dance

Marie C. Burns Award (Founded 2003)
Outstanding Adult Dance Group
Sponsored by: Philadelphia Emerald Society
Temple University Irish Dance Team

Joseph E. Montgomery Award (Founded 2006)
Outstanding AOH and/or LAOH Divisions
Sponsored by: AOH Div. 65 Joseph E. Montgomery
AOH / LAOH Division 61

Joseph J. “Banjo” McCoy Award (Founded 2006)
Outstanding Fraternal Organization
Sponsored by: Schuylkill Irish Society
Cairdeas Irish Brigade

James F. Cawley Parade Director’s Award (Founded 2006)
Outstanding Irish Performance or Display Chosen by the Parade Director
Sponsored by: AOH Division 87 Port Richmond
McDade / Cara School of Irish Dance

Father Kevin C. Trautner Award (Founded 2008)
Outstanding School or Religious Organization that displays their Irish Heritage while promoting Christian Values
Sponsored by: Kathy McGee Burns
St. Patrick’s Parish (Malvern, PA)

Maureen McDade McGrory Award (Founded 2008)
Outstanding Children’s Irish Dance Group Exemplifying the Spirit of Irish Culture through Traditional Dance.
Sponsored by: McDade School of Irish Dance
Broesler School of Irish dance

James P. “Jim” Kilgallen Award (Founded 2011)
Outstanding organization that best exemplifies the preservation of Irish-American unity through charitable endeavors to assist those less fortunate at home and abroad.
Sponsored by: Michael Bradley
Second Street Irish Society

Mary Theresa Dougherty Award (Founded 2012)
Outstanding organization dedicated to serving the needs of God’s people in the community.
Sponsored by: St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association Board
Malvern Retreat House

Paul J. Phillips Jr. Award (Founded 2012)
Outstanding parade marshal.
Sponsored by: Robert M. Gessler
Patrick Conneen
John Bradley

Phillip ‘Knute’ Bonner Award (Founded 2013)
Award given to the outstanding organization dedicated to preserve our freedom and protect us through sacrifice and compassion for others.
Sponsored by: Mary Beth Bonner Ryan
Pro Life Union

[flickr_set id=”72157652128102441″]

April 24, 2015 by Denise Foley

Older Posts

Newer Posts