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//irishinphilly.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/caitlyn-tv-pic.jpg” alt=”” width=”380″ height=”237″ /> Really, that’s Caitlyn Finley in this screen shot from “Elementary,” the new Sherlock Holmes TV series.
If you watched the premier episode of CBS’s “Elementary,” the modern update of the Sherlock Holmes story set in New York, you caught the briefest flash of a young Irish fiddler in a smoky pub.
Unless you were the fiddler’s mother, who fell asleep. “She missed me!” says Caitlin Finley of Lower Merion, the fiddler in question, of her mother, Denys Everingham.
Lucky for Everingham—and anyone else who missed one of the area’s premier young fiddlers—she can still catch the episode on the CBS website or on Comcast On Demand.
So how did Finley, a 21-year-old physics major at Columbia University in New York, wind up on a show starring Aidan Quinn as the modern day Lestrade, Lucy Liu as Holmes’ physician sidekick Joan Watson, and Angelina’s first ex, Jonny Lee Miller, as the drug-addled poster child for Aspberger’s, Sherlock Holmes?
“I was contacted by an Irish musician I know in New York, the flute-player Deirdre Corrigan, who was childhood friends with a woman working on the show,” says Finley, who has been a fixture on the Irish music scene in Philadelphia since she was a child and now plays in several New York sessions. “They said they wanted a fiddler or this scene in a pub. She put me in contact, they asked me to send a picture, and then I heard, ‘You got the job.’”
And quite a job it was. Even behind the scenes, TV doesn’t have a firm grip on reality. First, Finley had to talk them out of having her play classical music because, well, no one does that in a pub. Then, they told her she didn’t move enough while she was playing.
“One of the people on the set said she goes to this pub, Lily’s, where all the musicians are so impassioned that they’re dancing while they play,” says Finley. “I said, no, I play at Lily’s, and usually we’re just sitting there.”
Caitlyn Finley in real life.
Still, they made her go outside on the street and practice play “like in ‘Celtic Women,’” the made-for-TV group of gorgeous Irish women who do dance while they play. “It was really embarrassing,” confesses Finley. “This is not how people act in a pub at a session. This is TV.”
It wasn’t all bad. “I got my hair and makeup done,” she says. “The director said I didn’t look old enough to even be in a bar. And they had wardrobe for me—just jeans and a sweater.”
Though her part was a nanosecond long and the entire scene just a couple of minutes, it took six hours to film. “A lot of it was just sitting around waiting,” Finley says.
Though she didn’t get to meet Miller and Liu, she did shake hands with Aidan Quinn. “He’s really nice, he’s great. He introduced himself to every single member of the crew and to me. He was a very nice guy.”
So, would she do it again? “Maybe, we’ll see,” she says, laughing. “It was a lot of fun and I got paid, but if I do it again I have to join the actors’ union. They give you one free pass and then you have to pay dues.”
But Finley has bigger fish to fry. She’s now applying for post-graduation jobs—and not as an actor or fiddler. She gave up the idea of fiddling for a living because most fiddlers she knows—including her teacher, Brian Conway—have day jobs. Conway, who is well known in the Irish music world, is also an assistant district attorney in New York.
“Oh, I’ll definitely keep playing music but I don’t know if I’d want it to be a job. It’s not a good way to make a living and it’s something I do now for stress relief,” she says.
Her post graduate options are very different. “I’m studying Italian and taking a course to teach English as a foreign language so I’m looking at possibly spending time in Italy as an English teacher,” she says. At the same time, she wants to put all that physics she’s learned to good use.
“I’m applying now for jobs at NASA,” she says.
She wants to be a rocket scientist? “Oh, I would love to do that!” Finley says with enthusiasm.
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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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.”
Donegal takes ownership of the Sam Maguire Cup on Sunday, September 23, 2012. Photo courtesy of Liam Porter.
“I really want the boys to win for the journey that they’ve been on and to end the journey on a positive. And once they have it, if they get it, nobody could ever take it away from them and that would be something for them. For them, for their kids, for their family. Everybody.” – Donegal Manager Jim McGuinness (pre all-Ireland final press conference)
As Donegal’s celebrations erupted on the final whistle on Sunday, there was only one thing that Martin McHugh wanted – and that was to hug and congratulate his son Mark.
Martin, a winner with Donegal in 1992 was on the sideline working for the BBC at the final whistle when Mark ran to him. The clip of that emotional embrace will become one of the iconic images of the 2012 final and in many respects sums up what all-Ireland day really means.
There is no doubt that to win the Sam Maguire is the pinnacle in the sporting sense for GAA footballers – but for their county it is also something bigger than that, something that transcends sport.
Donegal’s win over Mayo was, to use the words of Jim McGuinness, “a journey.” While he brought his players on a particular journey to achieve the pinnacle in sporting terms, they brought the rest of the county with them, re-affirming pride, passion and a real sense of belonging.
In essence it sums up the very best of the GAA. That sense of community pride, joy, energy and enthusiasm that permeates the organization to the grass roots and is replicated week in and week out in club games across the country.
To those involved in clubs, those who stand on a cold wet January evening watching a McKenna Cup game, it is something natural. It is part of their DNA.
And because of that, they don’t always grasp the phenomenon that sweeps a county into a frenzy – but it happens anyway.
It happens because, whether we like it or not, our lives are more often than not shaped to a large degree by lines drawn on a map.
Where we’re born, where we grew up, where we live, have a huge bearing in our sense of identity.
We can travel – but we always measure travel, where we go and what we do – to home.
It is where we start out, and it is where we know we will always to some degree belong.
That’s what brought people from all over the world – including many from Philadelphia -to Croke Park on Sunday to cheer on the team and it was that sense of home, that sense of family and community that made Sunday’s win such a memorable one.
It was highlighted not only by that wonderful McHugh embrace, or by the players’ children on the field at the end, but also by the hugs and sheer delight of family members and friends from all over Donegal meeting, often for the first time in ages, in such exciting and thrilling circumstances.
Family and friends – were reunited on the most delightful of days and everyone with a drop of Donegal blood beamed and almost burst with pride.
This was more than just a football game. The people of Donegal have a new family member.
Sam Maguire, we’re delighted to have you. We’ll make you more than welcome.
See more photos from the event here.
See some clips from the game.
Manager Jim McGuinness and Donegal singer Daniel O’Donnell duet on “Destination Donegal.”
“Jimmy’s Winning Matches,” with Mark McHugh and the team.
Read a poem by Liam Porter.
Liam Porter is a freelance sports writer in Donegal who has a large family right here in the Philadelphia region. Donegal manager Jim McGuinness played GAA football in Philadelphia in 1999.
Maureen McDade McGrory and her family, including daughters Sheila, right, and Maureen, left, who took over her school after her death.
Maureen McDade McGrory used to tag along when her dad’s band, The All-Ireland Orchestra, played at all the dances and Irish events in the Philadelphia. That was back in the day when the dances were where the newly arrived Irish would meet to start new friendships and where countless marriages were made.
She’d listen to the music but mostly she would dance. She begged her parents for lessons. Both Philadelphia-born but with roots in Donegal and Scotland, they agreed. She learned the proper steps with the late Sean Lavery, a Donegal native and one of the leading Irish dance teachers in the area (for 50 cents a lesson!) in the ‘50s.
When Lavery died, his student decided to start a school of her own, right in her own home. She taught Irish dancing for the next three decades, training champion after champion, until her untimely death in 1993 of cancer at the age of 54. She left behind four children—and a legacy they refused to let die.
Her daughters, Sheila, then 18, and Maureen, then 14, along with one of her mother’s McDade School dancers, Bridget O’Connell, decided to keep the school going. Immediately.
“It was a crazy time,” remembers Sheila McGrory Sweeney, now a 37-year-old mother of three. “Mom passed away, we had the funeral, and Bridget was like, ‘Let’s go,’ and we had class the following Tuesday.”
To keep the school certified so its students could compete, Bridget had to get her certification as an Irish dance instructor. “You have to be 21 to be certified and we weren’t old enough,” says Sheila.
The three women (Maureen is now a Lisowski) have not only kept the school going, they’ve made it thrive. Today, the McDade School of Irish Dance is also the McDade-Cara School of Irish Dance, a merger that provided more times, locations and instructors to handle hundreds of students, from tiny beginners to top champions (there were nine world qualifiers from the combined schools his year).
McDade is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with a reunion dinner of sorts, inviting back all those young men and women who learned their moves from Maureen McDade—and the grandchildren whose recitals they now attend. It’s scheduled for Sunday, September 30, at the Springfield Country Club in Springfield.
“We’re going to have people there from the first generation of my mom’s dancers,” says Sheila. “The minute we posted the event on Facebook we started hearing from people. My dad, John, who is a year in recovery from a stroke, told me that one lady stopped by the house—he still lives in the same house—and brought four of her old dancing costumes and a CD of pictures from 1962 to 1970. And she stayed for an hour and a half, talking about how her parents had come out from Ireland, didn’t know anyone, got involved in dancing and the people they met then are who are their friends today.”
That’s part of what’s kept up in the interest in Irish dance in the Philadelphia area long after the “Riverdance effect” wore off, says Sheila. Dancers become part of a community that persists even after everyone has sold their performance dresses and boxed up their wigs.
When she and her sister were growing up, dancing wasn’t just part of their world, it created their world. “It was a nice, tightknit group of girls who all had something in common. Our mothers were all friends, and we built weekends away around the dancing. But it was more than just about the dancing. All of my friends now are people I danced with.”
It’s been the same for her daughters, Regan, 11, and Darcy, 8. (Son Brendan, 14, “danced until kindergarten and then told us he was officially retired,” she laughs. “But he’s a musician. He plays piano.”)
“We just had a group of families go up to the Catskills, a trip built around a feis (an Irish dance competition). They all camped out and that’s all the kids can talk about,” says Sheila. “The kids love to dance, but they also love the opportunity to travel and love being on stage. My daughter, at 11, has already been to Scotland, England, and Ireland, for dancing. My husband says she has more stamps on her passport than he does! And they like to wear pretty dresses. But, really, it’s the friendships.”
That camaraderie is one of the reasons Sheila Sweeney has been teaching Irish dancing for the past 19 years. The same goes for her sister and their partner, Bridget, as well as their brothers, Jim and John McGrory, who have become accomplished musicians (and feis musicians too).
“I love it. I can’t imagine not having it as a big part of my life,” she says. And, she says, it makes her feel closer to her mother. “Of course, sometimes I shake my head and say, ‘Mom, what did you get me into?’ But it’s amazing to have that connection, to be able to carry on her tradition. If she was looking down, I think she’d think that she’d left it in good hands, between me, Maureen and Bridget. I think she’d be pretty darn proud.”
For a look back at the McDade School, check out the photos here.
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Jameeka Wilson will be the keynote speaker at a St. Malachy's fundraiser next week.
By Kathy McGee Burns
Every year, around this time, I write an article about St. Malachy’s School, the mission school in North Philadelphia, part of the parish founded by the Irish where my family worshipped when they came here many years ago. I do so in hope that you readers will be moved to donate money to continue their legacy of hope.
I thought I did this for two reasons. The first is in honor of my Grandmother, Mary Josephine Callahan who was baptized, educated, married and buried from St. Malachy’s. The second is because I love and respect the goodness of my long-time friend and Pastor Emeritus, John McNamee.
But, this spring I met someone who epitomizes why I am doing this begging again. I was at a fundraising meeting when this lovely, beautifully composed young woman addressed the crowd. Suddenly the light in my brain went on and I knew why I cheerlead for St. Malachy’s!
Jameeka Wilson,who is 20 years old and a graduate of St. Malachy’s, is the proof of its success. She is presently a senior at the University of Scranton where she is also a resident assistant, a police student officer, an advisor in the Panuski College of Professional Studies, and an eighth grade CCD teacher. Her goal is to attend Temple University School of Psychology as a graduate student.
And she’s no fluke. Her sister, Natasha, just graduated from Millersville; her twin, Chareese, is at Bloomsburg and Christopher, a younger brother, is also a sophomore at Scranton. It’s quite a family.
When Jameeka started her speech she said that her grandmother, Anna Frames, had given her this advice: “Always keep in mind the light at the end of the tunne.l” Anna, who had come to St. Malachy’s as an immigrant from Panama, is the driving force behind Jameeka’s family of seven siblings. Life hasn’t been a smooth path for the Wilsons. In fact, it’s been a series of rough, rocky roads. But for them all, there was the light, the “Beacon of Hope” that Anna talked about. It was St. Malachy’s,
During the troubled times, the teachers, counselors, and priests were there. They were there to comfort the children and keep them grounded. When baby Christina, their younger sister, died, “Father Mac said the Mass, paid for the funeral, and went with us to the cemetery,” says Anna Frames, with admiration and gratitude still in her voice.
Jameeka says she lives by two doctrines; one of them is St. Malachy’s School Creed:
I have faith in myself
I have faith in my teachers
I can learn if I study hard
I will learn because I will study hard
I respect others and seek their respect
I have self respect
I have self control
I love myself
And loving myself I will be myself
And know myself
I am the one who is talking.
She also loves the Serenity Prayer:
“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”
Even at 20, Jameeka is a wise woman. These are just a few of the things I heard her say that impressed me so much:
“God places special people where we need them,” she says.
“When someone loves you, you can love yourself.”
“Use your situation as a reason, not as an excuse.”
“You can take St. Malachy’s out of the city but you can’t take St. Malachy’s out of the people.”
When Jameeka finishes her education, she plans to stay in the city and work with children. “I want to give them the knowledge that I’ve accumulated so that they can be all that they can be,” she says.
Father McNamee, in his latest message to the vast community that is St. Malachy’s, writes, “The measure of St. Malachy School is more than making Catholics. The mission is to take the children in from the highways and byways as the Gospel parable of the Wedding Feast envisions. Give them Catholic teaching and view the children and their families with the respect that they will do with this opportunity what they are able. In the end we give them the groundwork. What they do with it is their charge.”
So, in the long run, I beg for the money so that the Light, the Beacon of Hope, can keep illuminating the path these children are taking.
You can support St. Malachy’s by attending the Catholic Philopatrian Literary Institute’s Ball this year at the Doubletree Hotel in Center City on September 29. Proceeds from the event benefit the school. And you can also meet Jameeka Wilson for yourself. She’ll be the keynote speaker.
There are other ways to support St. Malachy’s. On November 4, musician and folklorist Mick Moloney will return for the 24th year with some of his musical friends to perform a fundraising concert in the church. It’s always a standing room only concert, featuring some of the leading lights of Irish traditional music.
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Mmm, butterfly potatoes, a delicious staple of Irish Fall Weekend in N. Wildwood. Get some this weekend.
It’s Irish Fall Weekend in N. Wildwood. You know what that means. Music, food, parades, vendors, and fun by the sea.
On Friday night, catch Belfast Connection, Celtic Connection, the Bogside Rogues, Sean Fleming Band, and Secret Service in the Tent at the Point at Moore’s. On the free live entertainment stage, you’ll hear Brimingham 6, Celtic Pride, Ballina, Moira Maestro McKinney, First Highland Watch, all of whom will be playing the following day as well.
On Saturday, you can hear the Highland Rovers Band, Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfetones, and Celtic Connection at the music tent. That’s after you’ve participated in the 5K run and 1 Mile Walk or taken your free Irish dance lessons at the Anglesea Volunteer Fire House at 2nd and Olde New Jersey Avenues. Don’t forget the Brian Riley Pipe Exhibition at 10 AM with six of the best pipe bands on the east coast. And on the free stage, the Broken Shillelaghs close out the evening.
On Sunday, there’s a parade that starts at 12:30 PM at 24th and Surf Avenues. That follows a Catholic Mass at St. Anne’s Church, 2900 Atlantic Avenue in Wildwood at 10:30 AM.
But that’s not all. This is a big weekend for Irish musicians in New Jersey, as it always is. On Friday night, No Irish Need Apply is performing at Owen’s Pub in North Wildwood, followed by the Birmingham 6. You can hear Clancy’s Pistol at the Anglesea Pub along with the Willie Lynch Band, the Paul Moore Band at Westy’s Pub Deck, Irish Slamm Band at Flip Flopz and the Broken Shillelaghs at Tucker’s in nearby Wildwood.
On Saturday, Slainte (an offshoot of Jamison) is at Keenan’s Irish Pub in North Wildwood, while the Broken Shillelaghs will be at Tucker’s in Wildwood. Don’t miss the Hooligans (with the wild and crazy Luke Jardel) at Westy’s Pub Deck, the Barley Boys at Westy’s Downstairs, the Shantys at the Anglesea Pub tent, the Irish Slamm Band still at Flip Flopz, Seamus Kelleher at Owen’s Pub, the First Highland Watch at the Shamrock Pub, the Malarkey Trio at Westy’s Downstairs, the Paul Moore Band encoring at Westy’s Pub Deck, and Galway Guild at the Anglesea pub tent. We know we’re missing some, but hey, that’s a lot of Irish bands to account for.
On Sunday, the music plays on with some of the same bands. A few changes: the Essex Pipes and Drums will be playing at Owen’s at 3-4 and Barley Juice will be at Flip Flopz from 7 to 11.
Blackthorn will be performing in Sea Isle City this weekend at various times at La Costa, along with West of Galway and Cletus McBride.
And Jamison has six gigs over the weekend, sometimes one right after the other. See them at Casey’s on Third in N. Wildwood on Friday, at Keenans from 4-8 PM, then Casey’s from 9:30 till who knows when on Saturday. They’re back at Caseys on Sunday at noon. They’ve just released a new CD and you’ll get it first if you hook up with them at the shore.
You might think that with all that going on in Jersey, things would be quiet elsewhere, but no! The “Irish Superbowl”—the Sam Maguire Cup match between Donegal and Mayo Gaelic footballers—is on in Croke Park in Dublin. There’s a big pep rally at the Irish Center on Friday night in the ballroom with live music, food, and drink specials (though, alas, we haven’t heard that the Donegal and Mayo societies are sending cheerleaders). Then you can watch the game on TV over a home-cooked Irish breakfast at the center on Sunday at 10 AM for only $20 for the game and $10 for the breakfast.
The Irish Center is also hosting Donegal fiddlers Peter Campbell and Caoimhin Mac Aoidh on Friday night in the Fireside Room. The two will also be appearing on Sunday at the West Chester University Phillips Autograph Library in West Chester.
Oh, but that’s not all. If you can’t go to the shore for the weekend, how about the river? Maggie’s Waterfront Café is holding its own Irish Fall Weekend on Saturday featuring drink specials and The John Byrne Band.
Byrne has started a new regular Sunday session at Maloney’s of Ardmore which will be having two sessions every week. The second, on Tuesday, is the heretofore itinerant session from the Shanachie Restaurant in Ambler, which closed several months ago, led by Fintan Malone. The Shanachie session moved down the street to Finn McCool’s, but when the pub closed after a rear wall collapsed, the session musicians wound up playing in private homes. Now they have a pub to call their own.
How about a blast from the past? The Tannahill Weavers will weave their Scottish musical magic at the Sellersville Theatre on Sunday night. Members get in for half price.
On Tuesday, William Desmond, Irish philosopher and professor at the Higher Institute of Philosophy at the Katholicke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and at Villanova, will be leading a discussion at Villanova’s Driscoll Auditorium on the complexities connected with the philosophical thinking development in the Irish tradition. We Irish love to philosophize.
Then on Wednesday, Irish brothers and musicians Cillian (“Lunasa”) and Niall Vallely will perform at a house concert in Voorhees, NJ. They’re back the following Sunday for a concert at the Coatesville Cultural Center.
Fresh from her triumphant appearance at the Democratic National Convention, one of the “nuns on the bus,” Sister Simone Campbell, will be speaking at Chestnut Hill College on Thursday. Not only is she a religious leader, she’s an attorney and poet who lobbies on issues of peace building, health care, comprehensive immigration reform, and economic justice.
Also on Thursday, the Irish group, BUA, will be performing at a house concert in Ambler. In 2009, they won the Irish Music Awards’ “Top Traditional Group” prize.
Next weekend: Bethlehem’s Celtic Classic, definitely worth a trip north; the Philo Ball at the Doubletree by Hilton, which is raising money for St. Malachy’s School in North Philadelphia; and plenty more. Check our calendar for all the details.
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Emily Safko
Amy and Greg Safko knew early on that their daughter Emily had vision problems. When Emily was 2, doctors told the Medford, N.J., couple that their daughter was highly nearsighted.
“We knew something was off,” says Amy Safko. “She would pull everything right to her face.”
Then, three years ago, Emily’s vision declined dramatically. She was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder call Stickler Syndrome, which damages the eyes, along with the ears, and connective tissue throughout the body.
Emily’s vision problems came to a head late last year when she started noticing spots and flashes in her field of vision—floaters—and she suddenly couldn’t read the blackboard in school. What followed were multiple surgeries and, finally, the finding that Emily, now 10 years old, is legally blind.
All of which makes Emily’s fourth place finish in the under-12 Celtic harp competition at the Fleadh Cheoil last month—the annual “world series” of Irish music—that much more remarkable. Some might say it was miraculous.
“She’s remarkably better than we ever could have expected,” Amy says. “We are just so happy.”
Optimism apparently runs in the family. When she learned of her condition, Emily recalls, “I thought it was cool because not many other kids have it. It wasn’t getting me down.”
Stickler Syndrome also appears to run in the family. Testing showed that Amy Safko herself had Stickler, but had never been symptomatic. She had been born with a cleft palate, which is associated with Stickler Syndrome. Additionally, her joints had always been hyperflexible, which can also be a sign.
The family’s upbeat attitude was sorely tested in the months leading up to the Fleadh Cheoil (flah KEE-ole), held in August in County Cavan.
Following her surgeries, doctors told the Safkos that Emily had a long road ahead of her. “Her right eye has no lens,” says Amy. “The left eye is the better of the two. She still has a cataract they didn’t want to touch.”
Emily’s eyes are both filled with silicone, a temporary step to help promote healing, her mother explains. “The silicone was put in there as part of the retinal detachment repair. It usually comes out in three months, but she still has it in both eyes. If they work on the cataract, the oil can get in other parts of the eye. No one wants to touch that eye.”
Overall, Emily lost a month of practice time leading up to competition season, and when she was finally able to start playing again, nothing about it came easily.
“I had to re-learn harp, sort of,” says Emily. “At first, I lost some parts, but my teacher always talks about ‘muscle memory.’ My fingers remembered.
“It was really tricky with the strings. When I started to play the harp again in January, the strings were all weird. Some of the strings are see-through, and I couldn’t see them at all.”
Those difficulties held Emily back for just a week. “It doesn’t take long for me to remember things. Once I learn a tune, all I have to do is put my fingers in the starting position, and then I just go from there.”
Before her most recent Fleadh, Emily had competed in Ireland twice. This is the first year she finished so high up in the rankings. She almost finished in the top three in slow airs. She tied for third, but finished fourth after a callback.
One reason for Emily’s strong finish is her deeply competitive nature, Amy Safko says. But support from the Irish music community provided another big boost.
“One of the biggest things that was so amazing to us was just how supportive the Irish music community was to us,” says Amy Safko. “We got cards from harpists every day from around the world, people we didn’t even know. Some of them sent gifts, and we didn’t even know them. It was amazing to us.”
As for where she goes from here, Emily Safko has no doubt about it. She wants to go back to Ireland next August to try again.
“It’s a lot of fun going there. I’m looking forward to next year.”
