News, People

Local Heroes

Irish Echo "40 Under 40" honoree Orla Treacy and her fiance, Ryan Bailey.

Three up-and-coming Philadelphia area professionals were named to the Irish Echo’s annual “40 Under 40” list, which recognizes the achievements and potential of Irish and Irish-Americans under 40.

Honored at ceremonies last week were a lawyer and Irish community leader from Wexford, an immigration activist and a champion ladies Gaelic footballer who is working to reduce gun violence in Pennsylvania.

Here are our local heroes:

Laurence Banville, an attorney who was born in Wexford, Ireland, is general counsel and partner in the firm Alliance Equals LLC in Philadelphia, president of Irish Network-Philadelphia, and sits on the board of Irish Network USA. He has also been named to the Irish Legal 100, an annual publication that recognized Irish and Irish-American lawyers.

Mairead Conley is the reigning Philadelphia and Mid-Atlantic Rose of Tralee. She is also deputy director of community programming at the Irish Immigration Center of Philadelphia, treasurer for Irish Network-Philadelphia, and active in the Reform Immigration for America campaign. She is a member of the selection committee of the Inspirational Irish Women awards, a joint program of the Irish Center and the Irish Immigration Center. Conley also received the Young Irish American Leader of the Year Award.

Orla Treacy is operations director of CeaseFirePA, Pennsylvania’s leading gun violence prevention organization dedicating to reducing and preventing gun violence through education and advocacy at the community level. A graduate of Mount Saint Joseph Academy in Flourtown and the University of Pennsylvania, she is also a found member of the Mairead Farrell Ladies Gaelic football team in Philadelphia, which recently won the Ladies Senior Division in the North American Championship in Chicago.

Treacy’s escort for the award ceremony, held at Rosie O’Grady’s in Bayonne, NJ, was her boyfriend, Ryan Bailey. The next day, Orla tells us, Bailey popped the question and became her fiancé. Double congratulations!

Other Philadelphians honored in past years included Sarah Conaghan, director of the Philadelphia Rose of Tralee Centre; Siobhan Lyons, executive director of the Irish Immigration Center of Philadelphia; Karen Boyce McCollum, a singer and associate director for corporate communications at Cephalon, a pharmaceutical company; and Theresa Flanagan Murtagh, a musician, attorney, and former president of the Donegal Association of Philadelphia.

View  some photos from the event.

March 3, 2011 by
News

Mount Holly Flashback

Little parade-goer

Here's one very happy little Mount Holly parade-goer.

We’ve covered many a Mount Holly St. Patrick’s Day Parade … enough to know that they usually have the luck of the Irish when it comes to weather. Will they have that luck this weekend? Maybe not. But a little rain has never been known to dampen the spirits of parade-goers in Burlington County.

This year’s parade is scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m. in downtown Mount Holly. In the meatime, here’s a look back at several years’ worth of Mount Holly parade pictures. Strap on your shamrock deely-bobbers and march along.

March 3, 2011 by
Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Where’s CBS3’s Bob Kelly when you need him? The city’s on-air traffic controller needs to keep an eye out this week for the various buses shuttling revelers from pub to pub on a motorized version of a pub crawl. There are two of them going on in Philly on Saturday—the Center City-bound Erin Express (which has a second run the following weekend) and the Shamrock Shuttle, which will give you a tour of Northeast Philly’s bars. Fortunately, they’re not taking the same routes so we don’t expect any unfortunate pub crawl accident. At least, not involving the vehicles.

The third pub shuttle is the Running of the Micks (oh yeah, and we’ve taken grief because we call our e-newsletter Mick Mail) which starts out with a footrace before the drinking begins at Finnigan’s Wake at Third and Spring Garden. That’s next Saturday.

There’s so much else going on in this run up to the parades and St. Paddy’s Day we’re just giving you a list:

Saturday

As usual, the Mt. Holly, NJ, parade is the first to step off the curb on Saturday, March 5. Pearse Kerr, a former Northern Irish political prisoner and president of AOH Div. 25 in Philadelphia, is grand marshal.

Queen of Peace Parish in Ardsley is having its annual Irish Night with Jamison providing the music, the Timoney Dancers doing what they do best, and DJ John Purshock. This is a major fundraiser for the parish.

Pick up your kilt from the drycleaners. It’s Celtic Kilt Night at Temperance House in Newtown, sponsored by AOH Bucks Division 2, to benefit the Hibernian Hunger Project.

Team Ratty Shoes, a group of Blackthorn fans who walk every year to raise money for multiple sclerosis research, is having its big fundraiser at North Penn VFW Post 676 in Glenside with music, fun, door prizes, and an auction. When they’re not walking, this group is a party to be around, so you’ll have a good time.

The Shanachie’s genial host, Gerry Timlin, will be performing solo at the Yardley Community Center.

The play, “Brendan,” by Ronan Noone, continues its run at McCoole’s Arts and Events Place in Quakertown. Likewise, “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” is still at Plays and Players Theatre in Philadelphia.

This is also Gael Scoil weekend—an Irish language and culture immersion for kids 7 to 17, now in its fourth year at Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, NJ.

Sunday

A busy day for Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade Director Michael Bradley: In the morning, he’s picking up a “Spirit of O’Hara” award at Cardinal O’Hara High School in Springfield. In the afternoon, he’s presiding over the last and biggest of the parade fundraisers at Springfield Country Club, featuring Blackthorn. Expect to spend the day in Springfield. Lucky for us, O’Hara and the country club are on the same street.

In the afternoon, Father John McNamee, the poet-priest, will be reading from his latest book of poetry, “From Derrybeg and Back.” At the MacSwiney Club in Jenkintown.

Tuesday

The Dropkick Murphy’s will be playing the first of two shows at The Electric Factory. Count on them performing their St. Patrick’s Day singalong, “Kiss Me, I’m —-faced.” The second show is Wednesday.

Wednesday

Duo Gabriel Donohue (he’s from Galway) and Marian Makins (she’s from DC) return to the Shanachie in Ambler after their popular debut performance last month. Donohue is a remarkable musician and Makins has the voice of an angel. We really like them around here.

Thursday

The day starts with the annual wreath-laying at the plaque honoring the Irish who served in the American Revolution on the west side of Philadelphia’s city hall, followed by Mayor Nutter’s proclamation of March as Irish Month in the city. At noon, the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade Association holds its annual luncheon to introduce the parade Grand Marshal—this year, Sister James Anne Feerick, IHM—and the Ring of Honor. Association president Kathy McGee Burns this year has selected a group of eight women to form the Ring, including her daughter Kelly Wall, a judge in Montgomery County.

AOH Notre Dame Division 1 in Swedesburg is hosting its annual Irish Coffee Contest, featuring concoctions from restaurants and pubs in the Conshy area. This is a lead-up to the Conshy parade next weekend.

Dublin-based singer Paudy Timoney is on tap to do some foot-stomping ballads at The Plough and Stars on Second Street in Philadelphia. If you’ve never been the The Plough, whatever is wrong with you? On cold nights there’s a wood and peat fire in the fireplace and, despite the ceiling that reaches to the sky, it’s one of the coziest pubs around. Both real and plastic Paddys love it.

Irish Tenor Michael Londra, whose “Danny Boy” rendition is breaking all YouTube records for views, will be performing at Sellersville Theatre.

Catch Jerry and Shaun of the Broken Shillelaghs at The Blue Monkey Tavern in Merchantville, NJ.

Friday

The John Byrne Band will be performing at The Shanachie in Ambler. If you haven’t caught this group yet, here’s a chance to hear some wonderful Irish and folk music from some top-notch musicians. It’s debut album, “After the Wake,” has gotten lots of air time and critical acclaim. We’re expecting an Amos Lee-like breakout any minute now. (And not just because Byrne Band member Andy Keenan also plays with Lee.)

The Sellersville Theatre is presenting the first—as far as we know—performance in the area of a Canadian group called The Town Pants which mixes Irish trad with acoustic pop, American, and a little Australian and Mexican sounds tossed in. Sounds like stone soup to us. This group sells out quick.

Next weekend

All parades, all the time, including Philadelphia, Bucks County, Springfield (Delco), and Conshohocken. But we’ll cross that particular bridge next week. It’s all on the calendar however, so you can scoop us by taking a look.

March 3, 2011 by
News, People

An Irish Primrose Debuts at The Flower Show

The Kennedy Irish Primrose known as "Inisfree."

Shakespeare’s Ophelia warned her brother about treading down the “primrose path,” a phrase the Bard used more than once in his plays to refer to the pleasant path to self-destruction. But to the Irish, a primrose path meant something quite different. It became traditional to plant primroses around the entrance to one’s cottage to protect against evil fairies.

“And it must work,” says Kilkenny nurseryman Pat FitzGerald. “Have you met any?”

You’re certainly not going to encounter any evil fairies at FitzGerald’s nursery in Oldtown, Stoneyford, in southeastern Ireland, built on the farm where FitzGerald grew up. And you will find primroses. As a child, FitzGerald recalls picking wild primroses by the fistful in the Rath, or Neolithic ring fort, on the property. He and his siblings used to “play hideaway” in the fort, which was covered in primroses, violets, and bluebells and which he rescued from its bramble prison when he founded the nursery in 1990.

“But I’d never grown a primrose till three or four years ago,” FitzGerald told me a few weeks ago on the phone from Ireland. “They were so familiar I guess I treated them with a little bit of contempt.”

Then he met an amateur primrose breeder and retired dentist named Joe Kennedy, a Carlow man living in County Antrim, who has been collecting old Irish varieties of primula—the flower’s Latin name—some dating back to the late 19th century. Out of hardy Irish stock of a perennial primrose known as Garryard, Kennedy had bred some unusual plants with very dark foliage that makes them look almost sensual. They’re a reminder that the primrose’s only magic—its only use—is to look pretty. And they do.

FitzGerald is bringing some of these dark wonders with him to debut at the Philadelphia International Flower Show, which opens this Sunday, March 6, at the Philadelphia Convention Center. Though the theme this year is “Springtime in Paris,” Tourism Ireland is a show sponsor so, among the outdoor Paris cafes and the replicas of Versailles, there will be a tribute to the iconic Irish oak, now an endangered species. FitzGerald will introduce and talk about the Kennedy Irish Primroses on Tuesday, March 8, at 4 PM in the Subaru Gardener’s Studio. (And yes, he’s brought some to sell.)

Appropriately, each of the new primroses carries a name linked to Irish poet William Butler Yeats. The first, Inisfree, comes from Yeats’ poem “The Lake Isle of Inisfree,” and is a mat-forming variety with deep red and yellow blooms with very dark purple foliage. The second, Drumcliffe, named for the village graveyard where the poet is buried, is a rosette forming variety with a creamy white flower that opens with a slight touch of mauve.

And the timing is appropriate too, says FitzGerald. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, whose family comes from County Wexford. “But this collaboration between a Fitzgerald and a Kennedy to bring old Irish primroses to America is a typically Irish coincidence,” jokes FitzGerald.

Kennedy and FitzGerald are working on 36 more primrose selections, the next of which may be unveiled next year in a variety of colors, including yellow, white, peach, and pink with intensely dark purple foliage.

Patrick FitzGerald

When he started his company more than 20 years ago, FitzGerald had no idea that his was going to be anything more than a local business. In fact, he didn’t even start out to be a nurseryman per se. After college, he set up his first nursery as a workshop for people with special needs, affiliated with the Brothers of Charity. “Our work was to train people with disabilities, brain injuries, and various forms of mental disability to work in the commercial nursery.”

Then, January 2009, he discovered the social network. Facebook. Twitter. Blogging. He got himself Facebook and Twitter accounts and writes a blog called “My Plant” at Blogspot. Suddenly, his plants were showing up in the US, particularly a shrub called ceanothus, a small tree or shrub in the buckthorn family. His variety is called Tuxedo because it has black leaves—actually, a dark chocolate color with striking red stems and lavender blue flowers. And his carex—a kind of grass—called Everillo is making the rounds on other plant sites and blogs.

“The amount of people I’ve made connections with because of it is amazing,” says FitzGerald. “The first place to find out about plants these days is Facebook. People who are in the business are now scouting it. I’ve been using it pretty actively for 18 months now and spreading the word about our plants, and I don’t think it would have happened any other way. We don’t have the budget to take ads in major magazines. In my experience, getting plants into nurseries has never happened this fast. Going to a trade show would cost me something like 1500 euros and I sometimes would come back scratching my head and wondering, ‘Did anything really come of that?’ Social network sites are like a permanent trade show—your door is permanently open and the good and the bad come in.”

Others have noticed. FitzGerald’s company was short-listed for the Irish Times 2011 Innovation Awards in recognition not only of its unique plant cultivars but for the “unique and cost effective route” it took to access world markets.

But posting on Facebook isn’t his main focus, says FitzGerald, “You still have to do the day job. It doesn’t watch the dishes.” And that means getting his primroses ready for the American market. They’re being produced at his lab which is about 20 miles from the old Kennedy homestead in Wexford. Just another one of those typical “Irish coincidences,” he laughs.

March 2, 2011 by
Arts, Music, People

From Máirtín de Cógáin With Love

Máirtín de Cógáin is launching his new CD "From Cork With Love"

Those of us in the know are already well aware that the best tea comes from Cork, and goes by the name “Barry’s,” but Máirtín de Cógáin has discovered during his travels around the U.S. that it’s not always easy to get a proper cuppa. So, he has determinedly set his sights on remedying that by “educating as much of America” as he can with a little story he calls “How to make proper tea!” and wisely including it on his new CD, The Máirtín de Cógáin Project’s “From Cork with Love.”

If anyone can pull off a feat of such cross-cultural magnitude, it’s this two time All Ireland Storytelling Champion.

A true Renaissance man of the arts, Máirtín de Cógáin takes the concept of the triple threat a few threats further:  in addition to dancing, acting and singing, he is also a playwright, a songwriter, a bodhrán player and a master seanachie.  And with just the slightest of omissions (he‘s saving the dancing for the next CD), those talents are exuberantly displayed on “From Cork with Love.”

The album, recorded live at The Celtic Junction in St. Paul, Minnesota, last April, is a listen with an extremely high addiction factor.  There’s no use in even pretending otherwise; from the songs, to the tunes, to the stories—which were all chosen to reflect an aspect of the heart & soul to be found in County Cork—the CD should come with its own repeat button.

The Cork native, who relocated to Minnesota several years ago with his American wife, explained that the album is both a love letter to Cork, and an expression of the love that is to be found there. “It’s the way it is with immigrants, you lose a lot when you leave home. This is my tribute to songs that have been lost, as well as to songs that haven’t been lost.”

“There is a lot of coyness and romance about Cork. I met my wife Mitra there. She’s from Los Angeles, and had come to do a wee year abroad in a foreign land…and you couldn’t be more foreign from Los Angeles than when you’re in Cork.

“I won her heart with a brush dance. After that, she was putty in my hands. And, most importantly, she had all the ingredients for a proper cup of tea, including the Barry’s tea bags.”

Some signs are not meant to be ignored.

“I grew up in a house where there was always a pot of tea brewing.  There would be 4, 5, 6 or 10 people drinking from it. Lots of tea leaves. I don’t branch out much from Barry’s, but Lyons isn’t too bad. And then you have PG Tips and Red Lion, as well.”

But it’s not always about tea. After graduation from university, de Cógáin traveled around the world. “I was totally defunct of ideas about my future…like most of my fellow graduates.  I always stuck in everything in college.”

It was while in New Zealand that de Cógáin did his first paying gig, and from there it was on to Australia.  Upon his return to Ireland, de Cógáin found work for his multifarious talents in acting (the film “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” for which he also sang the theme song), playwriting (“De Bogman” in which he also stars, performing 20 characters in under an hour) and performing (he was a founding, and existing, member of The Fuschsia Band and also formed Captain Mackey’s Goatskin & String Band with Jimmy Crowley).

And de Cógáin the storyteller was also honing his skills as a seanachie, a talent that comes from his father, “a great storyteller himself. I really love telling stories when you hit the mark.  I do try to have a story or two wherever we go that’s suitable. I was never amazing at school, but my short term memory is amazing. If I hear a story, and retell it the next day, I’ll remember it. I’m kind of like a mockingbird that way.  It also helps in acting.”

Now there is the launch of The Máirtín de Cógáin Project and its CD, where he is joined by fellow Minnesotans Brian Miller and Norah Rendell, as well as special guest, fiddle player Nathan Gourley.

“I first met Brian when I was in college, and he came over to study in Ireland.  We played together over there, and then on my very first day in Minnesota, I went into Kieran’s Pub in Minneapolis, and Brian was playing there.

“I’ve been chasing Brian for years to perform with him, and I finally caught him. And along with Brian came Norah. They have such a fierce love of Irish music, and they understand the intricacies of how things work.  Both of them are very dedicated, and great to work with.”

And, no surprise here: it was in Cork that the now-married Brian and Norah met and fell in love.

The song that set “From Cork With Love” in motion, “Away Down the Marina,” was one that de Cógáin got from his musical partner and fellow Corkman, Jimmy Crowley. A love song with “verve and excitement,” it tells the story of a couple who courted along a walkway called The Marina on the River Lee.  It’s a trysting spot not much used today, but perhaps with the release of the album,  it will be rediscovered by a new generation of lovers.  And, as a tribute to his wife, de Cógáin very sweetly changed a line in the first verse from “My pretty Irish queen” to “My pretty Persian queen.”

It’s these little stories behind the songs that add to the winning appeal of “From Cork With Love.” The oldest song on the CD is “The Star of Sunday’s Well,” which was composed by Cork writer (and lawyer) William B. Guiney and dates to the 1870’s.  Introduced to the recording of Donal Maguire’s version by Brian Miller, de Cógáin also counts Jimmy Crowley’s influence in his learning of it. “It’s great to get the old songs,” he enthused.

Among the newer compositions is one that I count among my own personal favorites: “Bridie and the Pole.” A song that de Cógáin heard sung at a wedding in 2009, “it’s very topical at the moment. It’s a social documentary of what’s going on now” in the aftermath of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger.  And a rollicking good song, with a Polish polka worked into the instrumental interlude.

With songs from Jimmy Crowley, one from John Spillane, the song “Timahoe” that he got from his father (who got it in 1960 from Peter Thompson who got it in 1957 at the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival), it’s no wonder that de Cógáin expresses his “great joy in putting together the album and getting it out there.”

“I’m looking forward to touring the album shortly…it’s a moveable feast,” de Cógáin said. “Full reflections, songs, stories, tunes, love songs.”

A moveable feast, and a satisfying banquet.

For more information on Máirtín de Cógáin, or “From Cork With Love,” check out his website:  http://www.mairtinmusic.com/

February 25, 2011 by
News, People

Monsignor Joseph McLoone Takes on a Difficult Task

Monsignor Joseph McLoone

Monsignor Joseph McLoone

The circumstances under which Monsignor Joseph McLoone assumes temporary stewardship of St. Joseph Parish in Downingtown are difficult, to say the least. But

McLoone—one of the best known and respected members of the Philadelphia’s extended Irish family—believes he is up to the task.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia this week appointed McLoone parochial administrator pro-tem of St. Joseph’s, following the release of a grand jury report alleging that the parish’s pastor, Monsignor William Lynn, 60, hid sexual abuse by other priests. The archdiocese placed Lynn on leave.

McLoone remains pastor of St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Chester, even though he will be spending most of his time ministering to the laity of St. Joseph’s. He is a 2010 inductee into the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame, and he has served as chaplain to that organization for a decade. He also is chaplain of the Donegal Association. McLoone is a 1984 graduate of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.

An Olney boy, McLoone has spent most of his adult life ministering in city parishes. The ethnically diverse St. Katherine’s is a good example of that 13-year trend. “This will be the first time in my life that I will have ‘sub’ in front of ‘urban’,” he said in an interview Thursday. “It’s going to be a challenge for me. I like living in a city.”

St. Joseph’s is more culturally more homogeneous—and it is quite large, with 4,200 families. It is one of the top 10 parishes in the archdiocese, said McLoone.

Although McLoone recognizes that the parish is very different from what he’s used to, he welcomes the opportunity to minister to the people of St. Joseph’s. He has no special plans for dealing with the parish’s troubles. “I hope to just be there,” he said. “That’s the first step. They just need someone to be there with them. Sometimes you don’t need to do much more than that. You just walk with them. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”

He isn’t sure why he was chosen to take on this new task, but he suspects it is partly because St. Katharine’s is so stable. “And maybe it’s my personality,” he added. “I’m a happy, upbeat person, and I can keep the parish going forward.”

Without commenting directly on the situation at St. Joseph’s, McLoone said he finds the allegations of pedophilia by brother priests to be profoundly troubling. “It’s disheartening. It’s saddening,” he said. “”It’s evil, an abomination. But at the same time, I know Christ has called me to be a priest. Life has to go on.”

As of Thursday, McLoone has moved into a guest room in St. Joseph’s rectory. His temporary successor Rev. Stephen Thorne moved into a guest room at St. Katharine’s the same day. Even though he has his hands full in his new assignment, St. Katharine’s remains a vital part of his life. “I won’t be able to come back for everything,” he said, “but I’m still pastor here. I have my own bed here. There’s nothing like your own bed.”

February 25, 2011 by
History, People

Ghostly Doings at Philly’s Oldest Irish Pub

McGillin's owner Chris Mullins, Sr, left, and son Chris, McGillin's manager, don't let a little haunting faze them.

By SE Burns

Philly’s McGillin’s Olde Ale House on Drury St. in Center City was recently named “one of the coolest bars” in the U.S by Gourmet Magazine. But if you feel an actual chill there, it might be old Ma McGillin. She’s not “appearing nightly,” but her ghostly presence has been felt—and now captured in a photo—taken by paranormal investigators.

Like anyone else, Ma continues to be welcome at the 150-year-old pub. Manager Chris Mullins and I sat down not long ago to talk about the paranormal activity that has haunted, so to speak, McGillin’s over the years.

The  particular ghost in question is presumed to be  that of “Ma” McGillin. She owned the restaurant with her husband William McGillin, starting in 1860. On August 31, 1901 “Pa” McGillin died and “Ma” McGillin took over running the restaurant until her death in 1937 at the age of 90. Here’s what Chris has to say about McGillin’s spectral hostess:

Q. Do you like the idea of your restaurant being haunted?

A. The concept is both scary and intriguing!  We realize that we are just the current hosts of McGillin’s, there were great characters before us and it is great to know that they are keeping us company. Hopefully we make them proud.  I am not sure we are as wild as they were generations ago, but we try!  At the same time we are proud to be in their midst.

Q. Can you give us some examples of some paranormal activity that goes on in the restaurant?

A. Back in the 70’s and 80’s our longtime manager Anita would insist that Ma McGillin would follow her through the first floor, she said she saw Ma on several occasions.  The irony of this is that when the South Jersey Paranormal group did their overnight analysis of our building, they shot a photo of a “Lady in White” in a reflection of our mirror over the fireplace, pointing to the front door.  This image seemed to be Ma!

Q. Are you afraid to be in the restaurant alone?

A. It can be a little scary when we are alone in certain areas of the building. Our late night cooks feel a bit creepy when they sense a ghost, or see a shadow. When a full pot unexpectedly falls off a counter it gets your goat!

Q.  Why do you believe that this ghost is actually “Ma” McGillin?

A.   Ma spent the longest time on this property of any past owner – she raised her children on the second and third floor, her husband, the famous William McGillin, died in the basement; after his death in 1901 she  ran the tavern until her death in 1933. Who else would it be?  McGillin’s storied past surrounds Ma so much that it seems obvious that even in death she would reside here.

Could that be Ma in the looking glass? See insert for a close-up.

Q. Was “Ma” McGillin well-liked in Philadelphia?

A.  Ma was beyond well-liked here in Philadelphia – she was beloved!  She ran a very clean, very respectable tavern, and was one of the few female proprietors of her time.  For most of her ownership, women were not even allowed in the major part of the bar, so to have her own the place is pretty extraordinary.  Hundreds descended on Drury Street on the night of January 17, 1920 to watch Ma symbolically lock the front doors of McGillin’s and mourn the end of legal consumption of alcohol.  Each November 12, thousands came to McGillin’s to receive a white carnation from Ma herself, on her 89th birthday, her last, 4000 carnations were distributed!  When Ma died, she was the oldest living parishioner of St. John’s the Evangelist, and was one of the first women to have Broad Street closed for her funeral procession.

Q. What was “Ma” McGillin’s favorite dish to eat in her restaurant?

A.  Quite honestly during most of her time at McGillin’s there were few options, mainly a roasted potato from the hearth, beer was the liquid food of choice.  During Prohibition however, Ma hired the Executive Chef from the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, then the finest hotel in the Philadelphia, to create the first real menu.   Even then the menu was fairly simple: Broiled steaks, lamb chops, ham and egg platters, and oysters, along with surprisingly similar sandwich options that we offer today.

[Chris told me that his great uncle was found dead in the alley behind the pub.]

Q. Is anyone ever nervous about going to the back alley where your great uncle was found dead?

A. No, in fact this is the way most of our “in the know” guests enter and leave daily.  My great uncle left on a very high note, I am not sure he had any regrets!

Q. Has anything unusual happened in the alley since the death of your great uncle?

A. No not so much, though on an anniversary of his death, when my grandfather and a few staff were enjoying a few cocktails after a long night of work, they were sharing stories of their deceased relative and friend, Steve, my grandfather made a crude comment about his ghost telling him to just leave the bar and its patrons alone. Then he threw a wet rag at the window above where my great uncle had passed the last year, and the entire window fell right out of the pane – from what I understand, the entire group fell as white as a ghost, so to speak!

Q. Do you feel your great uncle’s death, or the window breaking, had anything to do with the ghost of “Ma” McGillin?

A. I think that each of these characters miss the fun and are slightly jealous of the living enjoying all that they worked so hard for.  I think it is all in good fun, and they find there is something irresistible and need to come back!  Let’s hope our living customers feel the same way!

SE Burns writes frequently for www.irishphiladelphia.com about the Celtic paranormal.

February 25, 2011 by
Dance, Music, News

The 2011 Mid-Winter Scottish & Irish Festival in Pictures

The lads of Albannach dropped by.

The lads of Albannach dropped by.

Yea, a mighty wind whipped through the land. In a flash and in the twinkling of an eye, darkness descended over the floor of the Valley Forge Convention Center.

Not the least bit put off by the gloom, the Celtic tribal band Albannach took to the stage and banged their drums. And it was good. Really loud, but still really good.

The good news about the annual Mid-Winter Scottish & Irish Festival: There was no snow or ice. The bad news: The massive windstorm that swept through Montgomery County on Saturday blew out all the power to the convention center. But even here, there was a silver lining. Celtic people kept on pouring through the gates. Bands continued to perform onstage. And with battery-powered lights marking the way, bargain hunters cruised the vendor floor in search of claddagh rings, thistle brooches, kilts and swords. They lined up for meat pies, Welsh cookies and Highland Creamery ice cream.

When the lights did finally come on, a roar went up from the crowd. And that’s the point: Even with a power-out, there was still a crowd, and it grew as the day went on. It was pretty sizeable on Sunday, too.

We captured memories of both days. To see what we saw, play the interactive photo essay up top. To see photos with captions, click here.

February 25, 2011 by