It’s been a few years since we covered the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I missed it. Aside from an opportunity to snag a lot of really fun photos, it’s also old home week, where I ran into old friends I might not have seen for a while. Missed them, too.
Without further ado … here are all the pictures I took. Hope you see yourself somewhere in the mix. Click on the arrows above.
On a recent Saturday morning, a brightly lighted, cavernous truck bay in the back of Cavan Construction in Aston is a hive of activity. About a half dozen men are clustered around an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, sawing, drilling and hammering, carefully crafting the Cavan Society float for the 2019 Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade. In this, they are able assisted by a curious boxer named Diesel. That is, if “help” means leaving paw prints all over freshly green-painted wooden planks.
We can tell you the theme. It’s the same as this year’s parade theme: “St. Patrick, Unite Us.” Beyond that, until Sunday, the day of the parade, it’s a big secret. Some of the wooden shapes hinted at the beginnings of a bridge, and there was a small house-shaped structure at the tail end. But that’s all you’re getting from us.
And it’s all you’re likely to get from Sean Smith, company project manager and superintendent, as well as the chief overseer of the float construction project.
The annual Easter Rising ceremony at Holy Cross Cemetery on April 3 took on special poignancy this year, which marks the 100th anniversary of the Dublin battle between Irish revolutionaries and British soldiers that played a pivotal role in the birth of the Irish Republic in 1922.
Members of the families of three prominent Irish freedom fighters who are buried in the Yeadon cemetery took part in the ceremonies, which included rifle salutes by the Pennslvania 69th Irish Volunteers re-enactors, speeches by Sinn Fein’s Sean Conlon, the Monaghan town councillor who spent part of his childhood in Delaware County; Judyann Gillespie McCarthy of the local 1916 Easter Rising Commemoration Committee, and Tyrone native and historian, Patsy Kelly.
Instructor Collin Hennessey guides a fledgling painter.
Turns out you don’t need artistic talent to enjoy a wine glass painting fundraiser. In fact, it helps if you don’t have any. The laughs are bigger.
The Philadelphia Irish Center held its first-ever painting party as part of this year’s fundraising campaign. The event was organized by Lisa Maloney who also included a kids-only craft party as part of the festivities. The kids didn’t paint wine glasses, but went home with canvas shoulder bags they decorated.
Entertainment was provided by the Cummins School of Irish Dance, which sent a dancer and instructor who taught the mother-daughter teams who attended the fundraiser how to do the Gay Gordon.
You can see all the fun in the photos below. Too bad you can’t hear the laughing.
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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.
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Lots of happy faces, kilts, and dancing.
It was bitter cold outside and so windy the doors of the Valley Forge Casino and Resort sometimes opened by themselves, but inside the music–equal parts Scottish and Irish–kept everyone warm and snug and happy. Every years, Bill and Karen Reid’s Midwinter Scottish and Irish Festival provides a welcome respite for those who love Celtic culture and hate Arctic weather.
There were lines for beer and lines for haggis, the fish and chips ran out by early afternoon, and more than a few people were getting measured for kilts (at more than $400 a pop!). We could tell you more, but we took about 70 photos and a did a compilation video where you might see yourself if you were there.If you weren’t there, you might kick yourself. Well, there’s always next year.
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Eileen Lavin playing one of Santa’s elves at the Irish Center Senior Christmas lunch.
This was the week to get your Christmas spirit on, and we did. There were nine
Irish Christmas events on our calendar and we managed to get to four of them. Lori Lander Murphy spent Sunday with Maria Walsh, the Rose of Tralee, and Seamus Claus at the Saturday Club in Wayne. You can read her story here. And you can see my photos from the other three events below.
For the second year in a row, I took the family to “An American Celtic Christmas,” the magical show—with dancers and singers and Santa and snow (yes, I know I’m rhyming)—at Bensalem High School on Saturday. The annual production comes from those wonderful folks who also bring us the Philadelphia Fleadh in the spring, Frank Daly and CJ Mills of Jamison Celtic Rock and Slainte. Singers Raymond Coleman, John Byrne, Kim Killen and Bob Hurst of the Bogside Rogues joined a stellar band on stage with dancers from Ridgewood Irish Dance Academy from Ridgewood, NJ, Celtic Flame, as well as the Bucks County Dance Center. The Bucks dancers are currently without a home—their studio burned down a couple of months ago—so the show’s producers donated proceeds from a 50-50 drawing to help them out, as did the winner. It was beautiful to see the Christmas spirit in action.
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It was out in full force on Sunday too at the holiday recital of the Divine Providence Village Rainbow Irish Dancers, a group of developmentally disabled women who have been part of the Irish dance scene for about three years. Since they were founded by Irish dancer Kathleen Madigan, former dietitian at the Catholic institution in Springfield, Delaware County, the “ladies” as she calls them have marched in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade (where they won an award their first year out) and appeared on the field at Irish Heritage Night at the Phillies. They’ll be dancing at Irish Heritage Night in Camden this spring.
They were joined on stage by the Irish Stars, Parker School of Irish Dance, from Hellertown, where Madigan is a student, and the Villanova University Irish Dance Team, which invited the women to participate at the intercollegiate Irish dance event for the last two years.
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On Monday, the ballroom at the Irish Center was filled to capacity—and a sea of red sweaters–for the annual Seniors Christmas luncheon co-sponsored by the Irish Center and the Irish Immigration Center of Greater Philadelphia. The Vincent Gallagher Band performed and the lunch was donated and prepared by The Plough and the Stars Restaurant, 123 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Co-owners Jerome Donovan and Marian Ryder were on hand to both prep and serve, along with a bevy of volunteers.
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We started out thinking … how about choosing the top 25 photos of the year—our absolute favorites?
So much for that plan. We found too many favorites.
Also, we didn’t think you’d mind.
We covered parades until our camera batteries ran out of energy. Us, too.
We spent hours at our fair share of Irish and Celtic festivals, even at the beginning of the summer, when the Penn’s Landing Irish Festival drew hordes of pale-skinned Hibernians, desperately seeking music, dance, beer, shade and sun block.
Benefits like “Dancing With the Stars” and Irish boxing night are always great attractions. No one with a camera can resist.
We witnessed the crowning of several young women chosen to represent the absolute best of Philadelphia’s Irish culture—including Maria Walsh, the city’s first International Rose of Tralee.
One weekend last July pretty much sums up why this beat never gets boring. On Saturday down at the Irish Memorial on Front Street, we covered an Indian dance troupe doing their take on Irish dance. On Sunday, in the same place, we covered a protest by local Irish and Palestinians against the Israeli incursion into Gaza. This beat never gets boring.
Music and dance is always big for us. The Philadelphia Ceili Group Festival in particular is a photographic feast. It was a big year for several of our local under-18 musicians, who went on to kick butt at the Fleadh Cheoil in Ireland last summer, and they had their share of photo ops.
Wherever there’s somebody beatin’ a bodhran, we’ll be there.
The Philadelphia Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) marked a huge milestone, unveiling their new field in Limerick.
We have a lot of friends, and we’re always making new ones, and you’ll see a lot of them here.
Anyway, forget 25. It just doesn’t do you justice.
Here’s the direct link. And if you want, you can scan the slide show, below.
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