We catch Karen Boyce McCollum dancing with her dad, Barney Boyce, a Donegal native. Those faces tell the story: Ball-goers were having. . .a ball.
A 27-year-old speech-language pathologist from Philadelphia was crowned the new Mary from Dungloe at Sunday night’s Donegal Ball at the Philadelphia Irish Center.
Stephanie Lennon, who works with autistic and developmentally disabled children and is also the religious education teacher and softball coach at St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church, will travel to Ireland next summer to compete in the international Mary from Dungloe Festival in Dungloe, County Donegal. She succeeds Kiera McDonagh, an honors graduate of LaSalle who majored in integrated science, business and technology. McDonagh recently became engaged to attorney Justin Gdula.
Judges this year were apparently selected on a Law and Order theme: They were Montgomery County Court Judge Kelly C. Wall; John McNesby, a 22-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department and president of FOP Lodge #5; and Laurence P. Banville, Esq., a Wexford native, an insurance defense attorney in Philadelphia, and founding chairperson of Irish Network-Philadelphia.
Lennon’s crowning capped off a magical evening of music and dancing at the 122nd annual ball, which featured the Celtic rock group Blackthorn and Vince Gallagher and his band. This year’s ball chairman was Nora Campbell, vice president of the Donegal Association of Philadelphia. Jim Crosson was Ball co-chair and the Mary from Dungloe Pageant was organized by a former Mary, Michelle Mack, and Coleen McCrea Katz. Several former winners, including Emily Weideman (’09) and Brittany Lough Basis (’06) and Theresa Flanagan Murtagh (’91) were in attendance. Murtagh was emcee for the evening.
The 2010 Rose of Tralee, Mairead Conley, along with three former Roses—Jocelyn McGillian, Colleen Tully, and Sinead Cunningham (of Southern California)—were at the ball. McGillian was a Mary contestant this year and came in second runner-up. First runner up was 19-year-old Villanova student Kristin Ward, a native of Pearl River, NY.
Grand Marshal for this year’s ball was longtime Donegal Association member John McCaul.
The Philadelphia Donegal Association was founded in 1888 to take care of the needs of the vast influx of immigrants from Ireland’s northern most county. One of the first official acts of the new organization was to hold a concert and ball to raise money for the suffering people of Gweedore, County Donegal. Even today, the organization, through fundraisers like the ball, donates money to a variety of charities and sponsors a summer trip to the US for children from Northern Ireland.
The Mary from Dungloe Festival is one of Ireland’s biggest, founded in 1967 and named for a young woman, Mary Gallagher, whose sad love story is told in a traditional song.
Check out our photos of the event–and see the new Mary’s unusual footwear! We loved it.
