How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Leo and Anto will be at the Tin Angel with the John Byrne Band this weekend.

Leo and Anto will be at the Tin Angel with the John Byrne Band this weekend.

Saw Doctors fans, you probably already know that Leo and Anto (Leo Moran of the Saw Doctors and Anthony Thistlethwaite from the Waterboys) will be at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia all weekend, with the John Byrne Band opening for them. I say that because Saw Doctors fans always know when their boys are in town. Now the rest of you do too.

Also on Saturday, the Monaghan brothers, Bill and Jim, of Celtic Pride, will be remembering their late brother, Michael, who died in 1998 while serving in the US Navy, at a fundraiser to raise money for the Michael S. Monaghan Memorial Scholarship. The event will be held at Archbishop Wood High School Sophia A. Friedman Auditorium, starting at 7 PM. The scholarship is given to an incoming ninth grader at Wood from Nativity of Our Lord or St. Vincent de Paul parishes.

On Sunday, there’s a ceili at the Irish Center in Wilmington, and you can get your dancing fix at J.D. McGillcuddy’s in Upper Darby where the Theresa Flanagan Band is playing.

Also on Sunday, musicians from Cape Breton and Newfoundland will be showing off the Canadian side of Celtic music at Calvary Center in Philadelphia, another Crossroads concert bringing the best of international music to Philadelphia.

On Wednesday, relive the best moments of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade at the Second Street Irish Society Hall on Third Street in Philadelphia. The Bogside Rogues and the Second Street Irish Society Step Dancers will perform as winners of the various prizes awarded to groups in the parade get their just due.

The play, Penelope, by Enda Walsh, and produced by the Inis Nua Theatre Company, continues this week at the Prince Theater in Philadelphia. Also on stage this coming Friday, The Muse and Mr. Yeats, a “play for voices,” which introduces each of the women with whom the famed Irish poet William Butler Yeats was involved. You can see the play by Eamon Grennon at the Vasey Black Box Theater at Villanova University.

On Saturday, the new Shamrocks Youth Camogie Team – camogie is the female version of hurling—will hold a beef-and-beer fundraiser at Daly’s Pub on Comly Street in Philadelphia.

As always, check the calendar for more information.

April 17, 2015 by
News

Dedication of “A Waltz in the Woods”

stickvideohomeSculptor Patrick Dougherty’s newest installation, a cluster of stickwork cottages in a little meadow at Morris Arboretum, inspired awe among all those who came to its dedication last Saturday.

We captured the whole thing, soup to nuts in video, including an interview with a volunteer who helped Dougherty bring his little village to fruition.

 

April 10, 2015 by
News

Houses Made of Sticks

The perfect place for hide and seek

The perfect place for hide and seek

It looks like a village made for hobbits—a small cluster of cottages in a sunlit meadow at Morris Arboretum. If you didn’t know any better, you might expect a visit from Frodo Baggins at any minute.

In reality, these dwellings are entirely temporary. They’ll succumb to the ravages of time and weather, but for now they are the newest sculpture by Patrick Dougherty—his people came from Donegal—and it was crafted entire of bent and twisted willow, and other woodsy odds ends harvested by the sculptor and arboretum volunteers over the course of just a few short weeks. Rain and late March snow couldn’t stop the construction of the installation known as “A Waltz in the Woods.”

Over that time, more than a few arboretum visitors, puzzled, wander over to the building site to ask: what is it? What it is, is a technique called stickwork–and Dougherty, who has built similar, and not so similar, installations all around the world is known as the “Stickman.”

On the day the arboretum sculpture was dedicated, accompanied by songs by the Irish Center’s Vince Gallagher and Philadelphia Emerald Society pipers, adults marveled at the construction. As for the kids, they knew exactly what to do–play hide and seek. And no better place to do it.

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April 10, 2015 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How to Be Irish In Philly This Week

Ceremonies remembering the 1916 Easter Rising are this weekend in Yeadon.

Ceremonies remembering the 1916 Easter Rising are this weekend in Yeadon.

It’s definitely a crazy busy week if you’re trying to set a record for being Irish. Here’s what’s going on:

On Sunday, the annual Easter Rising Ceremony, takes place at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, commemorating the war for Irish independence that started with the proclamation of 1916—the equivalent of the US Declaration of Independence some 140 years before. There will be ceremonies at the graves of Clan na Gael heroes “Dynamite” Luke Dillon and Joseph McGarrity, the latter of which was one of the financiers of the rebellion. See photos below of last year’s ceremony.

On Saturday, get in touch with your Irish ancestors with a little help from genealogists at the Irish Genealogy Seminar at the Irish Immigration Center in Upper Darby. It starts at 10 AM.

At 6 PM on Saturday evening, Scythian will be performing at a fundraiser for the Little Sisters of the Poor at Villanova University.

At 8 PM, Blackthorn will be doing the same for the charities of the Black Jack Kehoe Division of the AOH at the Regal Banquet Hall in Prospect Park.

The AOH Dennis Kelly Division of Havertown is hosting a Back to the 80s Dance Party on Saturday night with live music from the tribute band, Weird Science, at the St Denis (Cardinal Foley) Gym on Eagle Road in Havertown. Proceeds from the event, which costs $40 and includes gourmet food from McShea’s of Narberth, beer and wine, goes to the AOH Charity Fund which supports programs such as Wounded Warriors, Make-a-Wish, and the home heating oil program. To get tickets or for more information, go to www.aohdenniskelly.com or email division president Tim Kelly at tim_kelly17@comcast.net.

If you’re in Wilmington, catch Burning Bridget Cleary at the World Café Live at the Queen.

Lafferty’s Wake, the interactive play set in a pub, continues its run at Soceity Hilly Playhouse.

This week also marked the opening of “Penelope,” a play by contemporary Irish playwright Enda Walsh, produced by the Inis Nua Theatre Company on stage at the Prince Theater.

On Sunday, the Sunday Irish Radio Shows on WTMR 800 AM are holding their Spring fundraiser and taking pledges on-air starting at 11 AM. You can call in at 856-962-8000 and listen in on the web at www.wtmrradio.com.

There’s a painting fundraiser for the Divine Providence Village Rainbow Irish Dancers on Sunday at Dish and Dabble in Havertown. I hear through the grapevine that this almost sold-out event has had a few more spots open up. Give a call and reserve a space.

On Sunday evening, two great Irish singers, Len Graham and Brian O’ hAirt, will be performing together in concert at the Irish Center in Philadelphia. This is a Philadelphia Ceili Group event.

On Tuesday, folks up north can pick up a few Irish phrases at the Irish Gaelic for Beginners class at Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The Irish conversation group—not for beginners—continues at Villanova University this Thursday.

Also on Thursday, feel like a little Irish bingo? I do. I’m going to try to make the Irish Network-Philly’s Irish bingo night at Maggie O’Neill’s in Drexel Hill. I don’t know what makes it Irish—perhaps the folks playing—but IN-Philly is also a great way to mix and mingle with a lot of class people. The bingo is just the icing on that cake.

We’ve been hearing great things about the two new sessions at the Sligo Pubs—Monday night in Media and Thursday night in Glen Mills. We’re going to be checking them out.

Let us know if we forgot anything. All the details for these events and more are on our calendar. If your event isn’t on our calendar. . .well, what are you waiting for? Put it there! Just click on “events calendar” at the top of the home page, click on “submit your event,” and just do what we tell you to do. It won’t appear right away. The calendar sends us an email letting us know you submitted your event and we have to give it the okay to tell everyone else. It’s always been that way.

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April 10, 2015 by
Arts

“Shadow of a Gunman” Comes to Philly

Josephine Patane and Dexter Anderson

Josephine Patane and Dexter Anderson

That’s the Irish People all over—they treat a serious thing as a joke and a joke as a serious thing.
—Seumas Shields

People make assumptions about poet Donal Davoren. When he takes up lodging in the flat of friend Seumas Shields in the Dublin slums, the other tenants make a rash assumption. They assume he is a gunman for the Irish Republican Army, and at a particularly turbulent time—1920, during the War of Independence. It’s a charade Davoren is happy to play out, especially since it helps him woo and win another tenant, the winsome Minnie Powell.

Plays about mistaken identity are often played for laughs. Sometimes this one is. But Irish playwright Sean O’Casey doesn’t let the audience off that easily.

“Shadow of a Gunman” is the first play in O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy. It makes its debut courtesy of Philadelphia’s Irish Heritage Theatre Dexter April 10-26 at the Skybox at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street in Center City. Dexter Anderson plays the title character. Peggy Mechum and John Gallagher direct.

All of the action takes place in Shields’s tenement flat. On a practical level, this makes the play easier to present, says producer Armen Pandola.

“It’s easier for the set designer,” he explains. “There’s not a lot of set changing going on.”

On another level, concentrating the action to one room was part of O’Casey’s modus operandi. “O’Casey was a big believer in time and place. It all takes place in one time and in one place.”

That one place, a room in a tenement, happens to be situated amid a sea of violence and discord. It was a time of revolution, a time when nationalists struggled to regain their own country by force of arms—and a time when almost anyone who was Irish, regardless of their loyalties, could be stopped, humiliated, brutalized, put away and possibly killed by paramilitaries acting on behalf of the British government.

“Shadow of a Gunman” focuses on those caught in the crossfire. “O’Casey had a very different view of the revolution,” Pandola says. “It was the people who suffered for it.” In this sense, everything that transpires in that one room encapsulates all of the suffering into one place and one time.

As with any play featuring Irish characters, American-born actors face a difficult challenge—how to actually sound Irish without crossing the line into territory. PR Director Kirsten Quinn has a lot of useful tips as she coaches the actors, but one in particular is particularly interesting: “If you imagine putting a cork in your mouth and talking around the cork … that’s Irish. “You don’t want to sound like a leprechaun. This is a standard Dublin dialect.”

Listening to the actors rehearse one night last week in a long, mirrored room cluttered with chairs, it’s clear that they’re “getting it.”

You’ll hear more Irish accents as the months go on. The next two plays of the trilogy are yet to come: “Juno and the Paycock” in the fall, and “The Plough and the Stars” next spring, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.

“Shadow of a Gunman” wasn’t exactly “The Sound of Music” when it debuted at the Abbey Theatre in 1923. “It was a huge risk for him (O’Casey) to put up this material,” notes Pandola. And ”The Plough and the Stars” touched off something of a riot.

This is gritty stuff, and it does a pretty fair job of playing with your emotions. For all of its gentle humor, “Shadow of a Gunman” grabs you by the throat toward the end. Don’t miss it.

April 3, 2015 by
News, People

Adventures in Paradise, Part 2

Cullen and a Caribbean leprechaun

Cullen and a Caribbean leprechaun

On St. Patrick’ Day, Cullen Kirkpatrick leads one of the smallest, shortest and most unlikely St. Patrick’s Day parades anywhere. It’s on a sun-drenched beach in Cabarete, in the Dominican Republic.

It’s a time of year when St. Patrick’s Day parades in the Philadelphia area might make their way past the reviewing stand in cold, windy weather—and from time to time in freezing rain or wet snow—climate conditions so horrendous that a band can march and play for blocks without seeing a soul along the parade route. As pipe major of Irish Thunder Pipes and Drums in Swedesburg, Montgomery County, Kirkpatrick knows all about that. He’s been pipe major since 2002, and he marched in the band for years before that.

So he’s thankful in the extreme for the opportunity to perform in a big tent at Jose O’Shay’s, a pub at seaside owned by Frank Brittingham—former owner of Brittingham’s in Lafayette Hill. He’s been playing pipes in the Caribbean over the St. Patrick’s Day holidays for eight years.

“Being in a pipe band, there’s a lot going on around home. As pipe major, it’s hard to say I’m going to miss two or three parades, but I’m going to do this for as long as I can,” Kirkpatrick says. “It’s really enjoyable, and a really nice break from the winter—especially the last two that we’ve had.”

Kirkpatrick plays throughout St. Patrick’s Day, alternating with longtime Philly favorite and the local duo Two Quid (John McGillian and Dave Cohen). “Maybe the night before, we play for a set or so as people as people walk by on the beach,” he says.

Cabarete is not exactly a five-star resort, but it’s great fun.

“There’s not a lot of Irish down there, but people come out in the hundreds,” Kirkpatrick says. “Thre are a lot of Canadians and French Canadians. Americans are in the minority down there.”

For Kirkpatrick, the highlight is the St. Patrick’s Day parade along the beach. “Frank passes out a lot of plastic Paddy apparel. Everybody in the tent goes marching up the beach. He gets a local Dominican band. Sometimes he brings in these young girls who dance, and they usually have some batons and some crazy outfits going on. I’ll lead it. We’ll walk up the beach a couple hundred yards, and then we’ll turn around.”

Not exactly Conshohocken.

Kirkpatrick gives a lot of credit to Frank Brittingham for that eclectic spectacle on the beach, and, indeed, for the whole day of merry-making. Brittingham, he says, has always been a pioneer, dating back to his ownership of Brittingham’s. His great love of Irish music was well known—Irish music was a constant presence in his sprawling pub on Germantown Pike.

“When he picks up at the airport, he’s listening to Irish music in the car,” Kirkpatrick laughs. “He’s got a bigger selection of Irish music than anywhere in the United States.”

While he’s there, Kirkpatrick carries on the tradition, playing a wide selection of pipe tunes, from marches to reels and jigs and strathspeys.

The pipes—they can be cranky beasts, susceptible to changes in weather—apparently take to the Caribbean climes as well as Kirkpatrick does.

What pipes are not crazy about are sudden changes in climate, which Kirkpatrick has to deal with as soon as he got back, leading the Allentown St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“My pipes were so used to the nice, warm, humid weather, they went into shock,” he recalls. “In Allentown, it was in the high 30s, and windy. I had to do a little bit of maintenance before I could play in Allentown.”

See last week’s interview with John McGillian.

Look for Cullen in this video at about 1:08.

April 3, 2015 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish In Philly This Week (And Beyond)

Spend an evening with Gerry Timlin.

Spend an evening with Gerry Timlin.

I’ve spent an evening or two with Gerry Timlin, and let me tell you, he’s a hoot. A great singer, wonderful musician, but it’s the hoot part that’s going to win you over if you’ve never heard him before. The former Shanachie Pub owner is appearing at Act II Playhouse in Ambler on Saturday night in a show billed as “An Evening with Gerry Timlin.” I highly recommend this evening of music and comedy from the Coalisland, Tyrone-born Timlin who, with his musical partner of 40 years, Tom Kane, performed at the White House last year.

Lafferty’s Wake, the interactive play set in a pub, continues its run at Society Hill Playhouse due to popular demand.

If you’re planning on buying Easter plants this weekend, consider a trip to Terrain in Glen Mills. The new perennial Irish primroses, all the way from Fitzgerald Nursery in County Kilkenny, have arrived there, according to our friend, nursery owner Pat Fitzgerald. Read about these completely Irish plants.

If you’re in the Bronx, catch Philly fave Raymond Coleman (also from Tyrone) at Behan’s Pub on Sunday.

Seamus Heaney is the feature poet on the live Comcast 66/966 and Verizon 29/30 poetry talk show hosted by poet Warren Longmire on Tuesday night from 6:30 to 7:30 PM.

On Wednesday, two remarkable talents, Grainne Hambly and William Jackson, two of the foremost harpers in the Celtic world, will be at the Markeim Arts Center in Haddonfield, NJ. They’ll be doing a house concert in West Chester near the university on Friday—seating is limited so call the number on our calendar to reserve your spot.

Also on Wednesday, uilleann piper David Power will be performing at the Coatesville Cultural Society. I’m a uilleann pipe fan and have heard Power play live. He’s amazing.

On Thursday, you can still talk Irish at Villanova—the conversation group continues.

On Friday, there’s a special evening Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Havertown to celebrate Irish heritage and remember the deceased. There will be refreshments served after the service.

We’re going to give you a peek at what’s coming up beyond this week since it’s never too early to plan ahead.

On Saturday, April 11, the Irish American Genealogical Society of Delaware Countywill be holding a special Irish genealogy seminar at the Irish Immigration Center in Upper Darby. It runs from 10 AM to 2 PM. Now’s the time to learn how to find Great-Uncle Fergus.

There are also a couple of fundraisers on April 11 you should know about:

Blackthorn will perform at the Black Jack Kehoe AOH Div. 4 fundraiser for AOH charities at the Regal Banquet Hall in Prospect Park.

Scythian, the DC-based Celtic-Balkan group, are reprising their annual fundraiser for the Little Sisters of the Poor at Villanova.

Burning Bridget Cleary will be playing at the World Café Live’s venue at the Queen in Wilmington.

On Sunday, the annual Easter Rising Ceremony takes place at the graves of Clan na Gael heroes Joseph McGarrity and Luke Dillon at Holy Cross Cemetery. It’s a very moving event, particularly poignant during this 99th anniversary year of the 1916 uprising for Irish freedom, that features guest speakers, pipers, and the 69th Irish Brigade re-enactors.

Also on Sunday, two fabulous singers, Len Graham and Brian O’ hairt combine their prodigious talents and blend their voices on stage at the Irish Center.

Sunday is also the date of a painting fundraiser for the Divine Providence Village dancers at Dish & Dabble in Havertown and the annual Joseph E. Montgomery AOH Div. 65 Fleadh an Erraigh, honoring AOH members and others. The group Fair Trade will perform at Di Fabio’s Spring Valley Banquet Facility in Springfield.

Check our calendar for all the details and come back during the week to see who posted their events on Irish time.

April 3, 2015 by
News

The 2015 Mount Holly Parade in Pictures

After eight years selling cotton candy, this vendor has perfected his sense of balance.

After eight years selling cotton candy, this vendor has perfected his sense of balance.

The second time was the charm.

The Burlington County St. Patrick’s Day Parade–always the Delaware Valley’s first parade of the season–was postponed because of terrible weather.

Last Sunday, it was chilly but bright, and the usual crowd turned out for the march down High Street. Pipers, mummers, dancers, singers, drummers … there was something for everybody.

Here are some photos to remember it all by.

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April 2, 2015 by