How to Be Irish in Philly

There were three major Irish fetes in September. And there’s another coming up this weekend in Trenton, NJ. If you still have a little jig in you, head over to the little burg on the Delaware for the AOH Monsignor Crean Division #1 Irish Music Festival.

On tap: a pipe band championship on Saturday night, followed by music by McQ and Na’Bodach. And there’s more on Sunday, including Oliver McElhone, Celtic Cross, Jamie and the Quietmen, AOH Division #1 Pipe Band, and the DeNogla School of Irish Dance.

If you’re south of Philly, check out the 14th annual New Castle County Irish Society Festival which starts at noon on Sunday, with the McAleer Dancers and Dublin-born entertainer Willie Lynch.

See our calendar for more information.

Come Thursday, Albannach will be in town. This drum-centric Scottish band will be performing at McCoole’s at the Red Lion Inn in Quakertown.

And Martin McDonagh’s blackest of black comedies, “The Lonesome West” has been held over through next week. We’ve seen it and it’s an absolute hoot (see Marianne MacDonald’s review on the home page). We highly recommend it. We’d highly recommend any play in which an actor named Luigi Sottile plays such a convincing Irish priest.

This Lantern Theater production, directed by David O’Connor, is playing at St. Stephen’s Theater at 10th and Ludlow, part of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. There’s a parking garage directly across the street (and parking is only $1 on Wednesday nights!).

It’s never too late to be spontaneous, right?

So, even if you didn’t book a room in advance, why don’t you consider heading down to North Wildwood and Wildwood this weekend for a double dose of Irish: the Cape May County Ancient Order of Hibernians 16th Annual Irish Fall Festival and Blackthorn’s 16th Annual Wildwood Weekend. Hey, it’s a day trip, and you can pick up the last of the Jersey tomatoes at a farm stand along the way.

The AOH event rockets into high gear with three days of music and dancing, including a ceili Friday night at the North Wildwood Recreation Community Center starting at 10 PM, the Brian Riley Pipe Exhibition on Saturday morning at 8th and Central Avenues, and a great concert Saturday night by the Dublin City Ramblers (and they’re really from Dublin). They’ll be accompanied by the Gibson School of Irish Dance.

Among the acts you’ll see (and we’re talking music here–behavior is something else entirely) are Paul Moore and Paddy’s Well, Scythian, Bogside Rogues, Killen Thyme, the Sean Fleming Band, Searson (cute Celtic Canadians), and 2U (a great U2 tribute band that packs them in at the Sellersville Theater), among others, appearing at the Irish Music Tent at the Pointe on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (see the entire lineup for times at www.paddyswell.com). There’s free live entertainment along Olde New Jersey Avenue (including the amazing and adorable little singer, Timmy Kelly, who is grand marshal of Sunday’s parade). And all the pubs and taverns have scheduled performers so there’s absolutely no escape.

If you’re at all capable of moving, there’s also a 5K run on Saturday morning (early–8 AM).

In the next town over, Blackthorn will be playing tirelessly all weekend at The Bolero Resort, 3320 Atlantic Avenue, with an incredible array of guest performers, including Timlin and Kane, Black 47, the Eileen Ivers Band (not to be missed), Random Blond, the Danny Boys, and, fresh from being smooched at a Phillies game by the Phanatic, singer and band leader Vince Gallagher.

(If you do miss Eileen Ivers, we’re offering a pair of tickets for her November 9 performance at the Sellersville Theater as part of our first contest to increase subscriptions to our free e-newsletter, mickmail, which is your best source for all the Irish goings-on in the Philadelphia area. To enter, you need to subscribe–just put your email address in the little “Get our E-mail Newsletter” box in the upper right hand corner of the site or, if you’re already a subscriber, just forward your mickmail to someone you think might be interested. New subscribers will get an email invite to put their name on the list–you have to respond to that email get mickmail, which comes out two or three times a month when things are hopping. Or jigging, as the case may be.)

The crazy Irish weekend at the shore is also famous for its bottomless mug of beer, so we at irishphiladelphia.com urge you to be careful out there. We’re going to be.

Staying home? Then check out the play, the Lonesome West, at St. Stephen’s Theater at 10th and Ludlow in Philadelphia. All of playwright Martin McDonagh’s work is edgy and hilarious. You won’t be sorry. Keep it Irish by heading over to Fergie’s at 1214 Sansom Street for Saturday’s session. Fergie’s is a former Bavarian bar that has made a graceful conversion to Celtic. The session is great, and so is the food.

The best way to be Irish this week is to start making those last-minute plans to head down to Wildwood on September 21 for the North Wildwood Fall Irish Festival sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the 16th Annual Irish Weekend with Blackthorn in Wildwood (the next town over).

It might be impossible to find a place to stay at this late date, but it’s worth calling around (or planning a day trip). Just about every local Irish band, from Paddy’s Well, the Bogside Rogues and, of course Blackthorn, to your favorite pipe and drum unit will be there for the weekend, shamrocking the shore like nobody’s business. Check out our calendar for contact information about tickets to both events and accommodations packages for Blackthorn.

Otherwise, consider taking in an Irish play or two. “Trad,” by Mark Doherty is playing at the Mumm Puppettheatre on Arch Street and “The Lonesome West,” by Martin McDonagh is at St. Stephen’s Theater at 10th and Ludlow.

If golf is your thing, the AOH Division 1 is holding its annual golf outing on Saturday, September 15, at the Skippack Golf Course at Stump Hall and Cedars Roads in Skippack. All proceeds from the event–which is open to all–goes to AOH charities.

Also open to the public is the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick’s Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day party at the Llanarch Country Club, 950 W. Chester Pike in Havertown, on Saturday. The cost is $50 per person and includes cocktails, dinner, and dancing to the wonderful Theresa Flanagan Band (it’s worth the price just to hear her lovely voice, trust us).

Will there also be a Three-Quarters of the Way to St. Patrick’s Day party? Only time will tell.

The best place to be Irish in Philly is at a German club on Friday night, August 31. That’s when the Philadelphia Police and Fire Pipes and Drums will be holding its Second Annual Halfway to St. Patty’s Day Party at Canstatters, 9130 Academy Road, in northeast Philadelphia.

This is your chance to hear Philly’s finest and bravest play “Do You Think I’m Sexy?” on the highland pipes (only they would have the cojones to do that) and help them raise money to keep the band in clean kilts. It’s also your chance to hear Blackthorn, one of the hottest Celtic bands in the area, do their thing (it involves lots of great music, dancing, and laughing.) Last year, we actually saw some firefighters doing the lambada, which was worth the price of admission–a donation of $35 per person. That includes food, drink, and an opportunity to buy a raffle ticket for a trip to Ireland (or cash). Also on the bill: The Immortals.

The festivities get underway at 5 PM.

As for the rest of the week, read “See You In September” Part 1, below, for all the great goings-on planned for the annual Philadelphia Ceili Group Festival–lots of music, dancing, and frivolity. For all you word lovers, there’ll also be an evening of readings by local Irish poets and authors. We’ll see you there!

This is an easy one. There’s plenty of music to remind you that you couldn’t afford to go back to Ireland this year (there’s always next year).

Stoke that homesickness starting on Thursday, July 26, when the Irish group, Anuna (think choirs of heavenly angels, think Riverdance, think, wow, how do they hit those notes and where did they find that many good-looking people who can do that?), appears at two area Borders to perform (for free) and sign copies of their new CD, “Sensations.” They’ll be accompanied by reps from WHYY which will air an Anuna special in September. At 12:30 PM, you can catch a glimpse, take a listen, buy a CD, and get it signed at Borders at 1 Broad Street, Avenue of the Arts, in Philadelphia. At 7:30 PM, they’ll be at the Borders in the Springfield Square Shopping Center, 1001 Baltimore Pike, Springfield, PA, in Delaware County.

On Saturday, July 28, you can catch the equally lovely and talented Kane Sisters (Liz and Yvonne), fiddlers extraordinaire from Galway (originally from Letterfrack, Connemara) who will be performing at 8 PM at The Irish Center, Commodore Barry Club, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, PA 19119. The Kanes recently released their second album, “Under the Diamond,” on the heels of their first, The Well-Tempered Bow,” chosen one of the top traditional albums of 2003 by the Irish Echo newspaper. For more information, go to www.philadelphiaceiligroup.org.

If you haven’t sated your appetite for a slip jig or chantey, on Sunday you can hear the sibling group, the Barra MacNeils, at the Sellersville Theater, Main and Temple Streets, Sellersville, PA 18960, starting at 7:30 PM. Called “Canada’s Celtic ambassadors,” the Barra MacNeils grew up in Sydney Mines on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia (a hotbed of Celtic music) and have been featured on NPR and PBS. For tickets, call 215-257-5808 or go to www.st94.com

She’s cute as a set of pearl buttons on a twinset, and Angelina Carberry can play the heck out of a tenor banjo. She joins her accordionist husband, Martin Quinn, on center stage on Saturday, July 7, at  the Coatesville Cultural Society, 143 E. Lincoln Highway in Coatesville. Like many traditional Irish musicians, Carberry and Quinn come by it naturally: Angelina’s father, Peter, and grandfather, Kevin, were both musicians; Quinn comes from a long line of Irish musicians and storytellers. (If you’ve been to a trad concert, you know that most musicians, whatever their instrument, almost always have a way with words too. Be prepared to grin. And expect a good toe-tapping time.)

The concert begins at 8 PM and is part of Frank Dalton’s superlative Irish music series.

Perhaps memories of Meryl Streep’s Irish accent will dance through your head –she played stern Mundy sister, Kate, in the 1998 film version of “Dancing at Lughnasa.” But Brian Friel’s play was meant to be seen live, and it’s playing for only 5 more performances at The Barn Playhouse, Christopher Lane and Rittenhouse Boulevard in Jeffersonville, not far from King of Prussia. This 1991 Olivier Award-winning play tells the story of the five Mundy sisters, seen largely through the eyes of Michael, the illegitimate son of Chris, the youngest Mundy. Set in 1936, the action revolves around the Mundy’s first wireless radio, whose broadcasts release previously unarticulated emotions in the five women, who spontaneously break into song and dance–itself a fine Irish tradition.

You can see the various ways in which sisterhood is powerful on Friday, July 6 and 13, starting at 8 PM; Saturday, July 7 and 14, also at 8 PM. There’s also a matinee on Sunday, July 8, at 2 PM.

Got restless feet syndrome? On Friday,  July 6,  head over to the Knights of Columbus Hall in Palmyra, NJ (321 E. Broad Street)  for the monthly hooley–that’s every kind of Irish music you can think of, plus dancing–with Pancho, Kevin and Jimmy. The craic starts at 8 PM.

See the calendar for more information.

And hey, you sports fans: Why not add Gaelic football and hurling to your Sunday afternoons? This Sunday,  July, 8, starting at 12:30 PM (or thereabouts), you can see an entire afternoon of some of the fiercest, rough-and-tumble action ever to be called a sport on the playing fields of Cardinal Dougherty High School, 6301 N. Second Street, Philadelphia. It’s “footies” first, with  the Kevin Barrys squaring off against Tyrone at 12:30 PM. At 2 PM, it’s Eire Og vs. the St. Patricks. At 3:30 PM, the Young Irelands take on the Kevin Barrys. And rounding out the afternoon, it’s the Brian Borus vs the Shamrocks in a rousing game of hurling, described by a local wag as part hockey, part lacrosse, and part assault with a deadly weapon.

Just be aware that the games, though scheduled, don’t always come off as planned. If the Irish aren’t there, the Asian soccer teams might be, so it won’t be a total loss.