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Our Rose Returns

Even her fellow passengers fell in love with Maria Walsh.

Even her fellow passengers fell in love with Maria Walsh.

Before Maria Walsh, the new International Rose of Tralee, showed up at the arrivals gate at Philadelphia Airport on Tuesday, her fellow passengers, seeing the crowd and the banners there to welcome her, stopped to give their own review of Philly’s Rose.

“She is truly a rose,” said one woman, who didn’t give her name. “I met her on the plane. She’s a sweetie!”

Another woman, who, with her husband and children, had just returned from an Irish holiday, had encountered the new Rose before. “We went into one town and when they found out we were from Philly they said, ‘Oh, that’s where the Rose of Tralee is from. She’s here,’” she said. “Everyone was very excited.”

But not as excited as the 30-some people who were waiting for Walsh, the first-ever International Rose of Tralee from the Philly Rose Center in its 12 years. When they spotted her—looking chic in her gray patterned dress and pearls and remarkably awake for someone with no sleep—they burst into cheers.

Walsh quickly pulled her crown out of her bag and maneuvered it onto her head, grinning from ear to ear. She thanked the crowd for coming, said she was “glad to finally be home,” and posed for photos with anyone who asked, including one woman she met on the plane.

Philly’s Rose, who was tied for first in all the betting parlors in Ireland from the moment she arrived there, was a first in other ways too. For one, she’s the only Philly Rose who’s had an Irish accent. Born in Boston, she moved to Ireland with her parents and siblings when she was seven, settling in Shrule, County Mayo. The immigration pattern comes naturally—her mother was also born in the US and moved back to Ireland with her parents; Walsh’s father is Irish-born. She moved to Philadelphia about three years ago.

She is also proud of the fact that she is a Pioneer—an Irish-based program for teetotalers. Walsh doesn’t drink. And she is apparently the first Rose with visible tattoos—three ladybugs on her neck that serve as a memorial to a cousin who died in a car crash and the phrase: “The trouble is, you think you have time” on her arm which she says, “reminds me to always carpe diem because you never know.”

And, as she announced to a reporter in Ireland, she is gay which, though the Irish press was all over it, is clearly a non-issue for her Philly-based fans who will be gathering on Saturday at St. Declan’s Well Pub and Restaurant, 3131 Walnut Street, in Philadelphia, a pub co-owned by the father of the 2012 Rose, Elizabeth Spellman, who accompanied Walsh to the Rose event in Tralee this year. The festivities start at noon and are open to the public.

As for Walsh, her plans for the day were simple. She was going to work. She’s studio manager for the fashion and lifestyle brand, Anthropologie, based at Philadelphia’s old Navy Yard. “I was supposed to be back on Monday so I think I’d better go to work and check in,” she said laughing.

View our photos of Maria’s arrival back in Philadelphia.

Arts, News, People

Get Ready to Laugh: Here Comes Mick Thomas

Comic Mick Thomas

Comic Mick Thomas

Mick Thomas is from a small town in County Wexford. “That’s in the southeast of Ireland. It’s the Florida of Ireland, except without the nice weather,” Mick told me as we chatted this week on the phone. I am already laughing, then he makes it worse. “It’s 20 degrees out and people flock to the beach. [Insert high-pitched heavily accented voice here] ‘Oh God, it’s lovely out.’”

Thomas, who now lives on Long Island, is a staple on the New York comedy scene, opening for comedy greats like Colin Quinn, Dom Irrera, Louis Anderson, and the late Greg Giraldo; performing with Jerry Stiller and Christopher Lloyd; and headlining clubs like McGuire’s Comedy Club (where he recorded his first CD, Live at McGuire’s), the Comic Strip, and the Governor’s Comedy Club, among others. He also provides the comic relief on the Celtic Thunder cruises.

He’ll be appearing next Friday night, September 5, at The Irish Center, with fellow Long Island comic Dennis Rooney opening for him. It’s a fundraiser for the Center, which has fallen on hard financial times. Thomas says he likes helping causes, especially if he knows ahead of time what they are. He got burned once.

“I never say no to worthy causes,” he says. “But I once did a gig in the Hamptons before I found out what the cause was. They were raising money to hire people to scrape barnacles off their yachts. I was genuinely angry. I made fun of them for an hour and all they did was laugh. ‘Do you not understand that people are dying of cancer and I’m raising money for you to hire Mexicans to scrape barnacles off your yachts?’”

Thomas, who moved to America 10 years ago “to marry one of your women,” says that he wasn’t the funniest guy in Wexford by far. He gives that accolade to his two brothers, neither of whom does it for a living. “The two funniest people in the world are my two brothers.” They—and the rest of his family and friends back in Wexford—are also his toughest audience.

“I went back to Ireland for a tour and did a theater in my hometown and I bombed horribly,” he recalls ruefully. “Family, friends, the local people—they won’t give it up to ya. They’re out there, ‘We paid for this? We know all these stories.’ Eventually, people are shouting out the ending. ‘And you spent the rest of your life in jail. We get it. Yer wasting valuable drinking time.’”

But Thomas says he’s pretty much hardened to the effects bombing on stage. Before he became a stand-up, he was a four-time Ireland professional kickboxing champion and the European kickboxing champion. “I’ve never had any phobia about bombing on stage. I once got knocked out in front of 7,000 people. That was embarrassing. If somebody doesn’t like a joke, who gives a crap?”

He was more than knocked out. Over the nearly 10 years he spent in the kickboxing ring (starting at 16 and while also working as a banker) he was seriously injured. “If you look carefully at me, my left eye closes more than the right. My smile is crooked from a broken jaw. And I only have one kidney now too.”

That, I observed, isn’t visible. “Oh, I don’t know,” he retorts. “’Ye’ve got a weird walk on ye—ye must be a one-kidney guy.’”

When he followed his then girlfriend, now wife, Kelly, to New York 10 years ago, he decided to follow his other passion for making people laugh. “I went to a comedy class where I learned all about the business. You can’t learn to be funny. You either are or you aren’t. But it was helpful businesswise.”

He also caught the eye of Jon Starr, the actor-writer known for his role in “The Adventures of Tintin” and “Date Night.” “He took me under his wing and I started with a seven-minute set and slowly built it up, adding material, till I had an hour.”

Thomas started doing open mikes, then began getting booked for money, opening for the headliners. Lately, he’s been the headliner. He’s also done TV, including Live at the Gotham. He recently auditioned for another show that could provide a huge break—but we can’t go there yet. “I don’t want to jinx it, but they liked me,” he says.

But it was that audition where he learned something he sort of knew—that he can “get away with a lot more than the average person,” in part because of his accent and in part because, “even though I’m very honest, my comedy isn’t malicious, it doesn’t come from a hurtful place. And I’m the always the victim of my story, even when it’s about my kids.”

For example, he does a bit on going to see his daughter’s first dance recital. “She was up there for six minutes and she was by herself doing a solo—that’s what solo means–and she was dancing, and I welled up and got teary-eyed and I’m not afraid admit I realized. . .that I had wasted so much money on these dance lessons. She was absolutely shite. She was terrible, really bad at dancin’. And I’ve seen some bad dancin’. I’ve been to strip clubs in Chernobyl. Just awful dancin’.”

You can watch the bit here.

He laughs when I bring up the bit, which I loved. “It happened again,” he tells me. “I picked her up from karate this week and watched for a while and thought, jeeze, she’s terrible. But of course I said, ‘good, honey, keep at it you’re doing great.’ She has no coordination, good God. She gets that from her mother. But really, how many parents are on the sidelines thinking that?”

Show of hands?

Many comics today measure their success by whether they get their own sitcom. While he wouldn’t turn it down, Thomas says his passion was, is, and always will be standing in front of a live audience, making them laugh. “It goes back to when I was a kid, when I was five. I remember allmy family members saying, ‘oh, he’s funny’ and I thought this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, make people laugh for a living. Of course, I didn’t know what ‘for a living’ meant. I thought it as like an episode of ‘Bob the Builder’ and the doctor made the same money as the baker and my role would be to be the funny one. I didn’t understand ‘pay scale.’”

You can see Mick Thomas and also help raise money to scrape the barnacles off the Irish Center on Friday, September 5, starting at 7 PM. Tickets are $25 and are available at the door.

News, People

Philly’s Rose Becomes the 2014 International Rose of Tralee

Maria Walsh, the 2014 International Rose

Maria Walsh, the 2014 International Rose

The crowd at Maggie O’Neill’s Restaurant in Drexel Hill on Tuesday were sitting on the edge of their seats as they heard Daithi O’Se, host of the International Rose of Tralee Show on Rte1, intone, “Ladies and gentleman, the 2014 International Rose of Tralee. . . “ which was followed by the world’s longest drum roll. It seemed to go on for minutes.

But when he finally finished his sentence with the word, “Philadelphia,” the crowd erupted in screams and applause. You almost couldn’t hear him say her name: Maria Walsh. (See video below.)

The 27-year-old Philadelphia transplant whose short hair, neck tattoos, and confident demeanor (and probably her Irish accent) were a delight to the Irish press, appeared as surprised as she did when she was chosen to represent Philadelphia in April at a gala event at the Radnor Hotel. She’s been blowing up Twitter and on the front page of every newspaper in Ireland for days, particularly in Mayo, where the Boston native grew up from the age of seven.

“I am so happy that there’s a video of that moment at Maggie O’Neill’s because it’s such a blur,” said Karen Conaghan Race who, with her sister, Sarah Conaghan, founded the Philadelphia Rose Center 12 years ago. “We had a really full house and it was a Tuesday afternoon. I like that everyone was there and not at work!”

That fact reflects “the strong base of support in this community that a lot of other centers don’t have,” said Race. “The Irish community in Philadelphia is unbelievable. This wouldn’t be possible without it.”

Race said she’d been monitoring the Internet and “I’ve never seen such an overwhelmingly positive to an international Rose, ever. Usually you’ll see comments like, ‘it should have been this person,’ but when they announced her win in the International Rose of Tralee site it got 13,000 likes and hundreds and hundreds of comments that are positive, which on the Internet is a rare thing.”

She attributes that to Walsh herself. “Who she is on stage is who she is. She’s a comfortable, natural person, so effortless. She doesn’t have to put any of it on. She has a special way about her—people take to her instantly.”

For example, Walsh told the crowd at The Dome in Tralee that after returning to the US several years ago after graduating with a degree in journalism and visual media from Griffith College in Dublin, she lived in New York, then traveled south to Philadelphia for the job at Anthropologie. “She said she was glad she moved to Philadelphia, where she’s lived for three years,” said Race. “New York is intense and didn’t provide her with the life-work balance she wanted. She said Philadelphia is a great city for young people who want a career and a life.”

Check out a video interview she did with The Independent.

She also told the story behind the three ladybug tattoos she has behind her ear—they were a favorite of her cousin, Teresa Malloy, who died in a car crash at the age of 19 in November 2009. “It’s moments like this, like being in the Rose of Tralee, that make you really seize the day and appreciate life and take everything as it comes,” Walsh said. “She has given me a lot of good luck to date, so I know she’s looking down on me and my family.”

She also talked about being a Pioneer—part of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart, a program for Catholic teetotalers—and how difficult it is for Americans to comprehend that some Irish just don’t drink.

In April, CBS3’s Jim Donovan, host of the Philadelphia Rose event, asked her what superpower she would choose if she could, Walsh drew cheers and applause from the large Mayo contingent in the room when she said she would choose the power to guarantee that Mayo would bring home the Sam Maguire cup, the prize for the winner of the Gaelic football finals in Ireland.

So, no surprise, Walsh decided to stay on in Ireland to watch Mayo take on Kerry on Sunday in this year’s All-Ireland football quarter finals. She herself played Gaelic football in Philadelphia with the local women’s senior football club, the Notre Dames.

When she returns, she faces a year of “adventures,” starting with media inerviews as well as touring all the Rose Centers in the US and working for a charity which is selected by the International Rose of Tralee committee.

“I think she’s going to heighten the profile of this festival so much, not just in Ireland but everywhere,” said Race of the first Rose ever grown in Philadelphia. “Right now, we can’t wipe the smiles off our faces. Talking to you right now, I’m grinning like a fool.”

Take a look at our photos from Maria’s two experiences at the Philadelphia Rose of Tralee event–and a few of her on the Gaelic football field with the Notre Dames.

News, People

Happy Birthday, Vince!

Vera and Vince Gallagher

Vera and Vince Gallagher

Vincent Gallagher, president of the Commodore Barry Club, recently celebrated his 70th birthday at a party at The Irish Center–along with a belated birthday for his wife, Vera.

Karen Boyce McCollum performed with Gallagher’s band–and even got guest, singer Gerry Timlin, up to sing a song or two.

We were there and got these photos of family and friends enjoying an evening at the Irish Center.

The Irish Center is facing a financial crisis as the result of a citywide real estate reappraisal which upped the center’s taxes by about 300 percent. Maintenance and repair costs have also contributed to the perfect storm of woes. You can  help the center out of its temporary problems by sending a donation to the Irish Center, Commodore Barry Club, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, PA 19119, or online.  The Center is almost halfway to its goal of $50,000 for the year.

In addition to bringing gifts for his birthday, Gallagher said, many friends brought checks for the Center. “It really made me feel good,” he said.

 

News, People

Four New Irish Hall of Fame Inductees Selected

The owner of a famed Irish tap room where many local Irish musicians got their start, a Donegal native who headed the Philadelphia Ceili Group, the Donegal Association and is on the board of the newest Gaelic sports club, and twin brothers who took up the cause of 57 Irish immigrants who died 178 years ago while working on the Pennsylvania Railroad in Montgomery County, have been named to the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame board chose the four winners—Emmett Ruane, Jim McGill, and William and Frank Watson—on Tuesday night and established a new award named for Commodore John Barry, USN, the Wexford-born father of the American Navy. Barry and the other four will be honored at a dinner on November 9 at the Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia.

Emmett Ruane

Emmett Ruane

Emmett Ruane is the former owner of Emmett’s Place, a tiny taproom in Northeast Philadelphia that, on the weekends, was “packed to the gills” with lovers of Irish music. It was like “the Northeast’s answer to cheers, where everybody knows your name,” said radio host Marianne MacDonald, who was one of the many dancers who frequented Emmett’s before it closed in 2008.

There were often so many dancers at the tiny pub, “we would dance out on the sidewalk,” wrote Ed Quigley in his nomination letter.

Every musician of a certain age played at Emmett’s Place at one time or another—as did many of the younger ones. “Emmett would always take a chance on a young Irish band– he booked everyone young and old,” said Bill Donohue, Jr. of The Shantys in his nomination letter. “Every Irish musician in Philadelphia cut their musical teeth at his taproom.”

“For those of us from Ireland, he gave us a home away from home,” said musician Patsy Ward, who also wrote a nominating letter for Ruane.

Cathy Moffit, whose father, Tommy, was a regular at Emmett’s, said that Ruane also had a behind-the-scenes life. “Emmett has been very generous to those in time of need and humble about his many hidden acts of kindness,” she wrote.

Jim McGill with daughter Rosaleen and wife, Mickey.

Jim McGill with daughter Rosaleen and wife, Mickey.

Jim McGill was born in Ardara, County Donegal, and emigrated to the US in 1958 at the age of 17. He served as president—sometimes more than once—of the Donegal Association and the Philadelphia Ceili Group (where he has been a member for 50 years and was the youngest president ever). According to his youngest daughter, Rosaleen, he “has made the Irish Center his home away from home.” He is a shareholder in the club.

“People from all aspects of Irish heritage and culture know him as a friendly, humorous and friendly smile that will answer any Irish related question or can direct you to the person who can,” she wrote in her nominating letter. “My dad has influenced me greatly. . .He has shown me how unique and diverse Irish culture is, and instilled the drive to share its beauty with the world,” wrote Rosaleen, who, like her father, is a singer and sits on the board of the Philadelphia Ceili Group.

McGill, who played Gaelic football himself (and was one of the players in the movie, “The Molly Maguires,” starring Sean Connery which was filmed in Pennsylvania) is vice chairman of the Glenside Gaelic Club, the newest youth league in the Philadelphia area.

Bill and Frank Watson

Bill and Frank Watson

William Watson, a history professor at Immaculata University, and his twin brother, the Rev. Frank Watson, are being honored for their dogged pursuit of the truth in the death of 57 Irish immigrant railroad workers in 1832 whose mass grave the Watsons and their volunteer archeologists—mainly Immaculata students– discovered in 2002. While sorting through their grandfather’s papers, Frank Watson discovered documents from the Pennsylvania Railroad detailing the deaths and burial of the 56 men and one woman during a cholera epidemic.

The subsequent dig uncovered artifacts such as a Derry pipe stem and bowl engraved with a harp flag and, in 2009, the first body was recovered, believed to be that of 19-year-old John Ruddy of Inishowen, County Donegal. The Watsons raised money to bury Ruddy’s remains in Donegal, in a plot donated by Irish Center President Vincent Gallagher. Six other bodies recovered from the grave—some exhibiting evidence of violence—were buried in a plot donated by West Laurel Hill Cemetery.

The Watsons are now working toward recovering the other 50 bodies which are buried near the tracks at the Duffy’s Cut area of Malvern. Money raised at a recent fundraiser will go toward the exhumation and the completion of DNA testing.

Music, News, People

RUNA Debuts Its New CD–and a Surprise

Karen and Jim: She said yes!

Karen and Jim: She said yes!

RUNA, winner of the top Irish group in the Irish Music Awards last year, debuted its brand new CD, “Current Affairs,” on Friday, June 20, at the Sellersville Theatre. Gene Shay, the grand old man of Philly folk, introduced the group along with opening act, singer-songwriter Michael Braunfeld.

And one audience member used the occasion—with the collusion of the group—to propose. Karen said yes to Jim!

We were there and caught it all on camera!

 

Music, News, People

Duffy’s Cut Fundraiser a Huge Success

The Duffy’s Cut Fundraiser on Sunday in Lansdowne not only hit its goal of $15,000 to pay for fees related to retrieving the last 50 bodies of Irish immigrants who died while working on the railroad in 1832, it exceeded it—by at least double that.

“We’ll be able to do the work and finish up the DNA testing,” said the Rev. Frank Watson who, with his brother, Bill, a history professor at Immaculata University in Malvern first brought to light the hidden graves of the 57 immigrants who died during a cholera epidemic.

Frank and Bill Watson

Frank and Bill Watson

Their work revealed that at least some of those 57 had likely been murdered, probably by a vigilante group worried that they would spread the disease through the wider community. Seven bodies have already been recovered; six were interred at West Laurel Hill Cemetery and the seventh, tentatively identified (via a dental anomaly) as John Ruddy, was buried in a donated plot in Ardara, County Donegal, last year. Ruddy came as a teenager from Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal to work on the railroad.

For more information about this phase of the Duffy’s Cut Project, click here.

A diverse group of individuals and organizations planned and sponsored the event at the Twentieth Century Club on Sunday afternoon. One sponsor was Kris Higgins, a former nun and a public school teacher, who donated $10,000 in the memory of her partner, Mary Pat Bradley, who died last year of ovarian cancer. When asked why, she responded simply, “Because I can. I’m no Lewis Katz [the late philanthropist] but I can do something.”

Other donors included The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, Bringhurst Funeral Home and West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Wilbraham, Lawler & Buba, The Irish Memorial, Kathy McGee Burns, Peter Burns on behalf of his children, the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame, Infrastructure Solutions Services, Chris Flanagan and Brian McGarrity of Mid-Ulster Construction, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 542, the Irish American Business Chamber and Network, the Philadelphia Ceili Group, the Ladies Ancient Order of Hiberians, Trinity Div. 4, Vince Gallagher of Loughros Point Landscaping and the Vince Gallagher Radio Hour, Marianne MacDonald’s “Come West Along the Road” radio show, Ann Baiada, AOH Notre Dame Div.1, Simple Clean, Curragh LLC Newbridge Silverware, Brian Mengini Photography, The Plough and the Stars, Maggie O’Neill’s Irish Pub and Restaurant, Con Murphy’s Irish Pub, Twentieth Century Club, Conrad Obrien, and Tir na Nog Bar & Grill.

Check out the photos below.

[flickr_set id=”72157645237654863″]

People

“He Only Knew How to Be a Friend”

Alan Nicholl won’t forget the day his friend Tony McCourt passed away.

It was Wednesday, July 25, 2012. McCourt, 37 years old and born in County Derry, Northern Ireland, had been dealing with a liver disease for about a decade. He had been admitted into Abington Memorial Hospital to have fluid drained from his lungs.

Nicholl and McCourt were close friends, in part because they were both from Ireland—Nicholl was born in County Monaghan, and grew up in Dublin. But they forged their closest ties through soccer. Both played for the Phoenix Sport Club in Feasterville, which boasts one of the hottest soccer programs in the country.

Theirs weren’t the only Irish accents out on the field, Nicholl recalls, but in part because of their similar backgrounds they quickly became the closest of friends. When Tony married his sweetheart Liz, friend Alan was his best man. The reception was at the Phoenix Club.

Because of his disease, McCourt had experienced “some close calls,” Nicholl says, but still he wasn’t overly concerned. “We didn’t think it was life-threatening.”

Nicholl’s wife was eight months pregnant with twins, and they had scheduled a doctor visit at Abington for the morning of July 25. “After that, we thought we’d just slide over and visit Tony.”

That visit never happened. At about 7 o’clock on the morning of the 25th, Nicholls’ phone rang. It was Liz calling. Tony McCourt was gone.

“It was the worst phone call I had ever received,” Nicholls says. “It was my worst day. I got off the phone with Liz and I called my parents. They were like Tony’s parents here in the States. I could barely get the words out. It was unbelievable.”

It was all the more unbelievable because, to everyone who knew Tony McCourt, no one on this earth was more full of life.

Teammate Brian McKinney remembers when he first met McCourt. “I had just come out of college when I started playing at the Phoenix Club. Tony was like the mayor of the place. Everybody knew Tony as a friendly guy with a great laugh.”

McCourt’s fondest dream had been to play professionally, McKinney remembers. McCourt’s cousin Paddy played for Celtic Football Club, one of the most storied clubs in the British Isles, with a history dating back to 1887. Tony McCourt was a good player, but not good enough to play on the pro level.

All the same, what McCourt lacked in talent, he more than made up for with the enthusiasm—and the unstoppable force of his personality.

“He was never the most valuable player,” Nicholls concedes, “but he was the best teammate, that’s for sure. Socially, nobody came close to Tony. He was magnetic. Tony didn’t know how to be an acquaintance. He only knew how to be a friend.”

Word of McCourt’s death spread rapidly throughout the soccer community, and the news left his friends reeling. “It was shattering to some people,” Nicholls says.

For many of Tony McCourt’s friends, the pain of his parting was eased, somewhat ironically, by his wake.

“My mom and his wife were instrumental in having his body brought back to the house, and not the funeral home,” Nicholls says. “We stayed up with him all night. He was laid out in the house like he would have been back home. That was definitely up Tony’s avenue. We sang a few songs, we had a few laughs, we had a few cries. It was quite beautiful, actually.”

Nicholls’ twin boys were born two weeks after the funeral.

“My one son,” he says, “is named after Tony.”


Tony McCourt’s friends will continue to honor his memory on June 22 with “Tony’s Tourney,” a day of soccer matches, live music—and lots of other fun—at the Phoenix Sport Club. It’s a benefit to help fund a college scholarship for a worthy player on the Council Rock High School South soccer team, which Nicholls coaches. And “worthy,” in this case, does not carry the usual definition.

“It’s going to be awarded in a way that would be consistent with Tony,” says Nicholls with a smile in his voice. “It won’t go to the best player, but to the best teammate.”

The event runs from 12 noon to 6 p.m. The entrance fee is $20 for adults, and $10 for kids. The Phoenix Sport Club is at 301 West Bristol Road in Feasterville, Bucks County.