Browsing Tag

In Memoriam

Music

Liam Clancy: The Life and Times of a “Sociable Loner”

Liam Clancy

The late Liam Clancy

As Liam Clancy was dying last fall, the documentary of his life, “The Yellow Bittern,” was about to come out on DVD. The film’s producer, Anna Rodgers, who’d spent five years plumbing the life of the youngest and last surviving member of the iconic group, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, recalls one of her last conversations with him. “He said ‘I’m going to boost sales for you.’ He was a terrible man for making those dark jokes. We’d say, ‘Liam, stop it,’ but he thought it was hilarious. I have to say, I did laugh to myself afterwards.”

“The Yellow Bittern, The Life and Times of Liam Clancy,” called an “small scale epic” by one critic, will have its only Philadelphia showing on Friday, May 7, at the Philadelphia Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, an event sponsored by The Philadelphia Ceili Group.

I spoke to Anna Rodgers by phone this week from her office at Crossing the Line Films in County Wicklow where she was putting the finishing touches on the RTE series, “Growing Up Gay.” A film she directed, “Today Is Better Than Two Tomorrows”–the story of two Laotian 11-year-olds, one in school, the other in Buddhist monastery—was recently screened at The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC, and she’s also filming a documentary on the Faddenmore Psalter, an eighth century manuscript found in a bog.

You spent the last five years of Liam Clancy’s life with him. What was he like?

Really it’s very hard to say. He was a hard man to get to know in lots of ways. Even though he would be very gregarious, very friendly to people when he met them and he was a great conversationalist, it took time for him to let you in. He was a very deep thinker, very philosophical. You never had an ordinary conversation with Liam. As he was approaching the end of his life, he had an awareness of that, and he had philosophical ideas about what it’s all about, about his own life. He was a great storyteller, and he would tell the same stories over and over but I loved to hear them again and again because I loved the sound of his voice. That’s one of the things I miss the most. It was great fun to go out with him and have a meal. He would have a chat with everone. He was a sociable loner. Alan [Gilsenan, the film’s director] talks about “the capless interviews,” the ones we did in his home when he took his cap off and wasn’t the performer anymore. Then you got more of an insight.

Will we learn anything new and surprising in the documentary?

It’s not that kind of film. There are no big revelations in it. It’s not going to tell you something, if you’re a fan, that you didn’t know about before. It’s the way he tells a story, about his life and the period of time in cultural and political history in which the band existed [the ‘60s in the US]. One of the things in the film that is unique is the unseen archives, including home movies of Liam’s he found in his attic. And these were movies he’d never seen—including film of his own wedding! We also found some footage of his [1964] performance at the Newport Folk Festival filmed by his friend, [film director] Murray Lerner, but it took a couple of years to find that because the images had become separated from the sound.

How did Liam feel about having a film made about his life?

He once came across a grave of someone who had his name 100 years ago and he wondered what his life had been like. He wanted to put down his life story for posterity, to leave something behind for his children and grandchildren. He was very much into that, that a man should tell his story.

Was he able to see the film?

The film came out on Liam’s birthday and he came to opening night in Dublin, actually in a wheelchair. He was very weak. But he still partied all night. He went into the hospital and never came home, but we talked on the phone. We filmed to the very end. We even filmed his funeral. We knew he would have wanted us to. It was beautiful. Not a big show business funeral. Though there were a lot of people there, it felt like a very personal funeral. It was an absolutely beautiful day. It had been raining and there was a rainbow.

Why did you decide to call the film, The Yellow Bittern? Was it for the bird, which is shy and solitary, or the poem/song which is a mournful elegy by a drunken narrator of a marsh bird that has died of thirst?

It was Alan’s idea. We were trying to come up with a title for the film that would separate it from so many of the records, tribute albums and the other documentaries that had been done, including the previous documentary we ourselves had made [“The Legend of Liam Clancy”]. Liam loved that poem. It seemed poetic and lyrical and enigmatic, which hinted at the enigmatic performer who hides behind the mask. Liam recited it for us a number of times and had sung it. In fact, the last thing you hear on the film is actually Liam reading “The Yellow Bittern.” He was on oxygen and his voice was going and he had aged a lot, but you could tell how much he identified with some of the lyrics.

Here you can read a translation of the poem, from the Irish, by Seamus Heaney.

April 30, 2010 by
Music, News, People

RIP Liam Clancy: “We Won’t See the Likes of Him Again”

Liam Clancy at the Milwaukee Irish Fest. Photo courtesy of Sean Laffey, Irish Music Magazine

Liam Clancy at the Milwaukee Irish Fest. Photo courtesy of Sean Laffey, Irish Music Magazine

Liam Clancy, the last surviving member of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem—possibly the best known of all the Irish folk groups—died on December 4 at the age of 74 in Cork, Ireland, of pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease.

A celebrated balladeer—friend Bob Dylan called him the best he’d ever heard—Liam and older brothers, Paddy and Tom, a friend Tommy Makem appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in March 1961, wearing their matching Aran sweaters (reportedly sent to them by the Clancys’ mother, Johanna), a performance that catapulted them to fame. By the following year, they had played Carnegie Hall and for President John F. Kennedy at the White House. The Clancys and Makem are widely credited with making traditional Irish music popular during the ‘60s folk revival both in the United States and in Ireland, and with influencing more than a generation of Irish musicians.

Liam Clancy was born on September 2, 1935, the youngest of 11 children in a musical family, in Carrick-on-Suir in County Tipperary. Along with music, the Clancy brothers loved acting. They immigated to the United States where they staged plays at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York, raising money by holding midnight folk concerts after their productions. Liam even shared the stage with Walter Matthau and the young Robert Redford. Even though music called, Clancy always enjoyed reciting poetry as much as singing ballads.

We asked a number of Irish musicians and music lovers—some of whom knew Liam Clancy—to share their memories and their tributes with us. Here’s what they had to say:

Gerry Timlin, musician, Tyrone native, and co-owner of The Shanachie Irish Pub & Restaurant in Ambler

Liam Clancy, like his brothers and Tommy Makem, were my musical heroes, and like many a young folk music lover of the late 50’s and the early 60’s it was so refreshing to hear these new voices and songs coming from the wireless and records. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem Live at Carnegie Hall is my favorite Irish album of all time. Liam Clancy’s versions of “The Patriot Game” and “The Parting Glass” will live on for ever, for me at least, as the best renditions of these two songs I’ve ever heard. Liam had a quality to his voice that was second to none and what struck me most was his diction and his unbelievable phrasing. The clarity of his voice was such that whether on not you’d heard the song before you could understand every word; his interpretation of songs and poems was impeccable. I know of no other singer, and I’ve worked with many, who could put a song across as well as Liam.

I had the pleasure of working with Liam on many occasions and I never knew him to be anything but the real deal when he stood under the lights. He was the consummate performer, the poet, the storyteller, the actor and the singer. He brought it all to the stage like no other performer I’d ever seen before in any genre. He knew his craft better than anyone and he loved his audience with a passion. He had that look in his eye and sincerity when singing a ballad that held you captivated and on the edge of your seat while he bought you to that place as only he could.

We have lost the last of a long line of great singers and entertainers. Tom, Paddy, Bobby, Tommy Makem and now Liam. The trailblazers who made the stage for all the rest of us. Now all gone. Who will carry the torch now? I’m not sure, but one thing is for sure—we’ll never see the likes of them again.

Onward and upward, Liam.

Paul Keating, director of the Catskills Irish Arts Week and a columnist for the Irish Voice newspaper

Liam Clancy described himself the last man standing among the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, so amidst all the tributes to him are the declarations that it is the end of an era with them all gone now. I don’t share that view because what they did was release the great power of Irish music to the world and that can never be restrained now. They literally opened the doors for thousands of Irish musical artists including the Chieftains and inspired many careers and gave the Irish a confidence boost that predated the Celtic Tiger by thirty years. Liam Clancy continued to do that and encourage groups like Cherish the Ladies and Danu in the traditional realm for which he had great respect and appreciation for their talent.

A half century ago the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were in the vanguard of the Greenwich Village Folk Music Boom that vied for attention with rock and roll and held their own. Even as he turned 70 some years ago, I was reminded when watching him at the Milwaukee Irish Fest that Liam Clancy still had magnetism and stage command. Celtic rock is the rage at most festivals these days and ironically its stage adjoined that of the Roots Stage where Liam’s solo act was slotted. With humor, poetry, prose and one of the greatest voices ever, Liam Clancy once again held his own that day, with a multigenerational crowd totally mesmerized by his charm and talent. His performance and many like it will never be forgotten by those who were fortunate to see him over the years and I am quite certain that I couldn’t say that about the other stage guests.

Sean Laffey, musician and editor of Irish Music Magazine

Liam was just the business, nobody ever like him, now then or in future, he just had it.

There is great sadness in the Laffey house today, but joy too that we got to know him personally and we had some time over our Saturday breakfast recalling the great times we had back in ’96 when we worked on his “Wild and Wasteful Ocean” album with him.

We had such fun in Helvic, singing into the rainy morning under an umbrella in front of Mooney’s pub, the table littered with pint bottles of stout and Liam egging me on to sing another verse and another verse of “Essequibo River,” which he really loved. Such generosity of spirit, the mark of a true gentleman.

Then there was a night in Dublin, at the Tall ships, when he and [nephew] Robbie O’Connell brought a dockside pub to life, the afternoon gig we had all done was by any standards mediocre, but that night’s music was beyond doubt special, and no one got it on tape or poked a camera phone in his face. It was singing for pleasure and right now it’s the best way I can think of
remembering him.

There will be much more written about Liam in the coming weeks, but for now we send our deepest condolences to his wife Kim and all his children. And thank God for the blessing that was Liam Clancy.

Judy Walsh, active on the Irish music scene in DC, now living in Milltown Malbay, County Clare

Years ago in Washington, DC, I was asked by a friend to chauffeur Liam and Tommy Makem to a concert he was putting on. I took them to The Dubliner Pub for an early supper. While we were eating, a man walked by, stopped suddenly and said to Liam, “I know who you are! Christy Moore! Can I have your autograph?” He grabbed a paper napkin from a nearby table and Liam signed it “Christy Moore”. Years later when I met Christy’s sister Anne here in Miltown Malbay she got a big kick out of the story, as did her brother when she told him.

Gabriel Donohue, Irish singer, musician, producer from Anthenry, County Galway, now of New Jersey

The first time I met Liam was in New York at Tramps Club in the village. I was playing with Eileen Ivers and Joanie Madden.We opened for him and when he walked in there was a very small crowd. He didn’t go on stage at all that night but got the small crowd to encircle him as he reigned over a world class session. Danny Quinn was there and Pat Kilbride (Battlefield band) also Martin Murray (Chieftains sound man and fiddler).

Liam was a very open individual who didn’t mind sharing his philosophy and his poetry to whomever would listen. He taught me more about Yeats, Shakespeare, Baudelaire and Tennyson than I ever learned in school. I went out and bought the poetry afterwards to get a little deeper, but he was the catalyst for me getting into those poets.

I was spellbound by his reading of Mary Hynes and suggested it to Joanie Madden for the CD I was then producing for her. I played piano on that track and he teased me about using a diminished chord on that which he thought was jarring and of course he was right. Those chords are rarely heard in traditional music or folk. Still he chose it for his collection Liam Clancy favorites. Needless to say I was delighted.

He and Paddy would often come to visit in New York city when I played at the South Street Seaport or Rosie O’Grady’s. Liam would sing a few songs and bring an otherwise indifferent audience to their senses. Afterwards we’d retreat to the Glocca Morrah on 23rd Street and more stories of Leadbelly or their tenure at the Playboy Club in Chicago would ensue.

They never took for granted the richness of their lives and the characters they met along their journey as evidenced by the stories they told over and over. I remember most of them. About passing a guitar around a circle in New York and singing songs but passing over this one young man all night. Finally Liam says “Do you sing at all? ” The young man says “a little” and sings a song he just wrote, “Mister Bojangles.” Jerry Jeff Walker was willing to sit silent and soak all the magic up in silent awe at the culture these Clancys carried with them.

Just this January I spent a week in Mexico with Liam and the Makem Brothers and a fine entourage of musicians. Liam was no longer willing to sit and recite poetry or sing songs until the dawn. Nevertheless, one night he called me over to a quiet corner in one of the lounges and began philosophizing on a few different topics. Words were the most precious thing to him. He said he loved them even more than music. He spoke of the closing scene of the movie, “The Night of the Iguana,” about a man at the end of his rope. I was saddened to hear him talk this way as he was as powerful performer as ever. Still I knew he was tired.
Thousands of performances had taken their toll as had the hardship of a less than ideal childhood in Carrick on Suir in Tipperary. His lungs were not able to power that godlike voice of his, though his shows were still brilliant. He was ready for a good long rest it seemed.

He was my hero, probably the greatest hero I ever had. A nice man too, who welcomed people into his circle with that great big Clancy heart that they all had. Their voices thundered out of our small record player we had back in Athenry with few discs except theirs to play on it. We learned of heroes like Roddy McCorley and the street songs like “Tell Me Ma” and “Finnegans Wake.”
Can we imagine a childhood without the sweater men? Inconceivable as a playground without the laughter of children.

Slán Liam and thanks for all you did for the music and us the purveyors of the ancient art of balladry.

Fil Campbell, Irish folk singer, of Rostrevor, County Down

I had the pleasure of meeting him on a couple of occasions at parties here in Rostrevor but sadly only as a passing acquaintance.

Liam had a huge influence on Irish music and on me personally—one of the first concerts I ever went to see was Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem as a duo in the Astoria Ballroom in Bundoran. I had been more into pop and rock music up until that time but they changed my focus—they sang so may songs that I knew and loved, songs that have stayed in my repertoire over the years. Ironically the guitarist who played with them that night was Brendan Emmett who now plays with Tom [McFarland, her husband and partner] and myself.

The Clancy brothers and Liam in particular had the flamboyance of superstars and an energy that made Irish music a force to be reckoned with on the world stage. They were fiercely proud of their heritage and the legacy of their recordings will be with us for a very long time to come. You’ll be sadly missed Liam—RIP.

Matt Keane, Irish singer, County Galway

I didnt know Liam, but without knowing it, he was the cause of me trying to learn to play guitar and sing. Sometime in the ‘60s, himself and Tommy came to play in my local town, Tuam, Co. Galway. He played and sang, “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” to a spellbound audience in the Odeon Cinema. My sister Dolores [Keane] and brother Sean would have met Liam at various venues all over the place. I played Galway last night and sang ” Matilda” and “Will You Go Lassie Go.” All the audience joined in, which is an indication of the appreciation and respect in which he was held.

Carmel Gunning, composer and musician from County Sligo

I didn’t know Liam personally but I had great respect for his talent as a ballad singer and the way he put a song across to his audiences. He had a lovely sweet velvet voice, so easy on the ear and very tuneful. It’s the end of an era really. The group sang and jelled very well together simply because they knew each other so well and they were all equally as good as each other, be it on their instrument or voice. Rest in Peace.

December 10, 2009 by
News, People

Remembering Sean Cullen

Sean Cullen was a union steamfitter by trade, but to his many friends in the Far Northeast, he was a man of many talents and wide-ranging interests.

Cullen, a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians Division 88, died May 22 in an accident on his beloved Harley motorcycle on Knights Road, in front of Frankford Torresdale Hospital. He was 36. He leaves behind a wife, Alicia—he met her at Archbishop Ryan—and a 7-year-old son, Ryan.

According to 88’s Paddy O’Brien, who knew Sean for close to eight years, his death leaves a big hole in the community.

“I knew Sean as a member of Division 88,” he says. “A lot of the other guys knew him longer; they knew him from the neighborhood. Sean ended up being our go-to guy. If somebody needed something they’d say, ‘Call Sean.’ He was our handy man. He’d load up that little red truck of his with tools, he’d come to your house. We built people’s rec rooms…we did all kinds of stuff. Sean was the leader of all that.”

Sean Cullen was a guy who could have done many things with hs life, O’Brien added. For example, he could just as easily have been a Philadelphia police officer. His parents, Bert and Mary Cullen, were retired police officers, and his brother Jimmy is a narcotics officer. Sean took the department test, but, as O’Brien recalls, the steamfitters union called first.

Friends recall Cullen as a man who wouldn’t say no. No one was surprised when he became athletic director for Calvary A.A., and recently its lacrosse coach,even though there wasn’t much in the way of participatory sports in his background.

“We used to say that he was the most unathletic athletic director in the history of sports,” O’Brien laughs. “He never played anything himself. He ended up as one of those people who learned the games and learned to coach. He’d ever picked up a lacrosse ball in his life. He’d just find out what it took. he spent his own money to go to classes to learn about lacrosse, just to teach the kids.”

Sean Cullen clearly left his mark on the community. Over 1,000 mourners came to his funeral at Our Lady of Calvary Church.

Friends and family are honoring Sean’s memory by establishing a trust fund to assist in Ryan Cullen’s education.

On Saturday August 29, Quaker City Yacht Club, 7101 N. Delaware Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa 19135 will host a fund-raising event from 12-5 p.m. The cost of the event is $30 and includes domestic draft, wine, soda and food. Entertainment will be provided by popular local band The Cram and DJ Tommy Kuhn.

Three Monkeys co-owner Gavin Wolfe has partnered with the generosity of Muller Beverage and the Philadelphia Credit Union to sponsor the event. All proceeds will go directly to the family.

The second event, on Sunday October 4 from 12-4 p.m. will be hosted by Joe Santucci at his Woodhaven Road location. There will be an outdoor tent available in case of inclement weather. The $25 event donation includes domestic draft, wine, soda and food samplings of Joe’s original Best of Philly menu items. Again, all proceeds will directly benefit the family. There will also be live entertainment and a DJ.

August 20, 2009 by
Music, People

A Memorial to Frank Malley

Frank's daughter, Courtney, with her husband, Sam Cohen.

Frank's daughter, Courtney, with her husband, Sam Cohen.

Her father, longtime Philadelphia Ceili Group member Frank Malley, knew he was dying, so Courtney Malley broached the difficult subject: his memorial service.

“He said that we could do something at The Mermaid,” said Courtney, referring to the tiny bar off Mermaid Lane in Chestnut Hill where Frank—and Courtney herself—frequently performed. “’I said The Mermaid? It’s too small.’ He didn’t expect that many people would show up.”

He was wrong. Courtney chose to hold the memorial service to her father at the Philadelphia Irish Center on Saturday, August 1, which bulged with more than 600 who came to say goodbye to the man they knew as father, friend, lover, grandfather, brother, neighbor, singer, story teller, and skilled artisan.

All around the Fireside Room, Malley’s family and friends posted family photos, scattered his architectural drawings, trademark hats, and tacked up a quilt, sewn by Malley’s longtime companion, Connie Koppe, made from his t-shirts, including those from the Philadelphia Ceili Group Irish Festival he so often directed.

Musicians played and sang, and friend and family offered stories and poems to honor a man whom a friend said “didn’t always consider himself adequate.”

“He would have been stunned at the outpouring of emotion,” said Connie Koppe. And, she added, “he would be trying to figure out how to get that many people to come to the Irish Festival and pay full fare.”

August 7, 2009 by
News, People

Frank Malley: A Tribute

“The person of a man may leave, or be taken away, but the best part of a good man stays. It stays forever.”
— William Saroyan, The Human Comedy

Frank Malley didn’t just have a zest for life, he had a hammerlock on it. The doctors who diagnosed his cancer gave him 18 months to live. He turned it into five years of “not doing anything I don’t want to do,” as he told me about a year ago, standing at the bar at the Irish Center, nursing his Guinness.

He was a singer, story teller, world traveler, and as organized as the blueprints he worked on as an architectural steel detailer, which stood him in good stead when he joined the Philadelphia Ceili Group in the 1970s. He chaired its annual festival of Irish traditional music and dance for the last decade, even while enduring grueling rounds of chemo. When it came to labors of love, he couldn’t stop, not even for cancer.

“A few years ago, when he had just finished up a round of chemo and was still recovering and very weak, he came to do my radio show and talked for a solid hour about the upcoming festival,” recalls Marianne MacDonald, host of the WTMR radio show, “Come West Along the Road.” “I told him that he shouldn’t do it if he wasn’t up to it, and he really wasn’t, but he did it. He was such a fighter, so totally dedicated.”

Malley was at his draftboard—where he worked on high profile architectural projects such as the Philadelphia Art Museum expansion and the Academy of Music restoration—until a few weeks ago. “Most people didn’t even know he was sick,” says his daughter, Courtney, a singer who inherited her love of music and Irish culture from her father, the son of immigrants.

Frank Malley, 67, died this week at home, surrounded by his family. “He was my best friend,” says Courtney who, like her father, serves on the board of the Ceili Group. “I keep telling my family, yes, this is a huge loss, and that’s the double- edged sword. With my father, there were no boundaries between generations. We were friends as well as family, and that makes it even harder to lose him.”

Many of those who knew him for a long time considered him family as well as friend. Robin Hiteshew, a contractor and photographer who co-chaired the Ceili Group Festival with Malley in the 1980s, traveled with him to Ireland, and commiserated with him about living with cancer.  “That was another thing we had in common,” says Hiteshew, a cancer survivor who records and archives performances at the Irish Center.

He admitted that the two occasionally butted heads. “Frank was a bull,” he says, fondly. “But he was straight up. You always knew where you stood. He blew steam out his ears like most Irishmen, and you didn’t want to be on the wrong side of his temper, but his motivation was always the best. He wanted the best for the festival. What can I say? That was Frank. He was my friend. And in the end, our friendship held us together.”

With Frank Dalton, a Ceili Group member and founder of the Coatesville Traditional Music Series, Malley shared a love of Irish and old-time music. And they didn’t always agree either. “But Frank was really open-minded,” says Dalton.  “He knew he didn’t know everything there was to know about traditional Irish music but he listened. He listened to whatever anyone was saying and he took advice, something most of us have trouble doing. He was one of the sharpest, most intelligent guys I ever met.”

It safe to say that many never knew what Frank Malley did for a living, except for the steel erectors in the city who “came to him when no one else could figure out a job,” says Hiteshaw. “Everyone would come to him because he was accurate. He was the master of his trade. He was the best structural steel detailer around. He made the actual nuts-and-bolts drawing that tells steel erectors how to bolt beams together so they fit correctly and look like the architectural drawing said they should look.”

A few weeks before his death, says his daughter, she helped him put his office in order. “I have about 50 of his drawings, which he did by hand, not by computer, that are works of art.”

Most people knew Frank Malley as as a singer and storyteller. He made two CDs, “Live at the Mermaid” and “The Captain’s Old Dog.” He performed regularly at the Ceili Group Festival, the Philadelphia Folk Festival (he was also a member of the Philadelphia Folk Song Society), and the Heritage Dance Festival.

“He didn’t get involved in music till he was a teenager and he loved listening to Big Band and jazz, classical music and folk, and he was always an opera fan,” recalls Courtney. “He loved old cowboy tunes and bluegrass, but with Irish music he found the love of his life.”

Malley was born in Norristown to Patrick and Katherine Duffy Malley. His father was from Coor Point, Donegal, and his mother from Skaheen, Kilmove, County Mayo. His father was the resident farmer on the Highlands estate in Whitemarsh, a Georgian house dating to 1794, which now belongs to the state and is open as a museum. Malley’s father worked for the Roosevelts, relatives of President Teddy Roosevelt, who owned the property for many years.

“He seemed to get a lot of nurturing from his parents in the Irish culture,” recalls friend Jim McGill, a Ceili Group board member. Once, he said, Malley organized an Irish event at the Highlands. “He had tried to set up a museum there to honor the Irish domestic people who came over and worked for people around the Hill, but the hobnobbers wouldn’t have anything to do it. When we had our festival there, Frank said the former owners ‘would be turning over in their graves if they knew the Irish were having fun on the lawn.’”

If he were writing Frank Malley’s obituary, Hiteshew says, “I would have to call Frank a seanchaí, a modern seanchaí, a storyteller, and a hardworking man, someone you could depend on who gave you his word and stuck to it. I think he would want to be remembered as the guy who worked hard for the Ceili Group, an active member of the Folksong Society, who was devoted to his family.”

In addition to his daughter, Frank Malley is survived by a son, Bryan Patrick Malley; brothers John and James Malley; his longtime companion, Connie Koppe; his former wife, Rose Marie Burke Malley, and five grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, August 1, at the Irish Center, Emlen Street and Carpenter Lane in Mt. Airy. Memorial donations may be made to any member of “Team Canada” for the Breast Cancer 3Day walk at www.the3day.org.

Listen to a few tracks from Frank Malley’s CDs, thanks to Frank Dalton.

See a compilation of photos of Frank Malley. 

View photos as a slide show.

What others have to say:

Anne McNiff, Philadelphia Ceili Group Member

I unfortunately only knew Frank a short time. We met the summer of 2007. As a relative new-comer to Mount Airy, I attended a Ceili Group meeting thinking that I might be interested in volunteering a time or two, given that I loved Irish traditional music and was looking for a way to become more involved in the local community. Little did I know how going to that meeting would change my life!

Frank was festival chair and spoke passionately about what still needed to be done to prepare for the festival and I remember thinking that he was getting quite riled up about what seemed to me, at the time, to be a relatively uncomplicated event. (Ha! Little did I know!) There was concern at that time about e-mails going out about the festival in a timely manner and the Web site. I tentatively raised my hand and said I would be happy to help out with both those things if I could. I was immediately put on a committee and plans were made to meet with Frank about the issues specific to the festival. We met up a short time later and so it began.

There are some people that you meet that you immediately are drawn to their commitment and passion about what they are doing. Frank was that kind of person. Don’t get me wrong, Frank had no delusions about the festival, the people working on it, or the people attending. As a matter of fact, he had a few pithy remarks about all three groups!  His dry, somewhat cynical, wit but obvious love for the event and the people involved really drew me in.

And so, after doing what I could to help in advance, I showed up on the Saturday of the festival and reported to Frank. He told me, “Annie (one of the few outside my immediate family who calls me that), I have someone I want you to meet, I think you will both like each other very much.” This was quite a intimidating introduction to his daughter, Courtney Malley, who amidst running the door, chasing after twins, and generally being second in command, took the time to get my story and tell me it didn’t matter if I didn’t really know anyone and didn’t have much to do outside of work. That would now all change, starting on Thursday nights. I think Frank may have had a small, self-congratulatory smile.

And so because of Frank Malley and his uncanny way of bringing people together, I found my community, a group of friends I have come to love and care about more then I can say.  A group of people that Frank and his family are at the center of.

I loved the “Renaissance man” aspects of Frank’s personality—the man who would tell me a bawdy story as easily as he would discuss fine French and Italian wines; who talked about theater we had both seen (or been in) and the World Series; who made me laugh and think and mostly just smile to be in his company.

Because of his death, it feels like there is a hole in the fabric of so many of our lives. I will miss him very much.

Mary Lou McGurk, President of the Philadelphia Ceili Group:

I don’t remember when I met Frank. It’s been so long that I feel that I have always known him.

I was a teenager when I joined the Ceili Group in 1976. They had already held one festival that I missed, and I can’t remember if Frank was involved, but I do remember the next couple. They were held at Fisher’s Pool in Lansdale, and it was the boonies. It was a big, open place. It was hard to believe that a festival would be there.

Frank had a crew of workers that would go there a few days in advance and change it from an open field to a concert area. He had plans and sketches! He rented flatbed trucks and turned them into stages. On the day of the festival he was like magic. Anything that you needed, he was there: fix a sign, move a speaker or rig up a hospitality area for the musicians. He was all ready to help and so were all the people on the committee. He had the attitude that he was there to make things run smoothly and he wanted his people to have that attitude also. He was a great leader.

I remember when we were trying to set the prices–most of the people on the festival were young and single. We didn’t know how to price tickets for children. Frank used Courtney as the measure for the cut-off; anyone Courtney’s age or younger got in for free. Of course, every year the age limit went up until she was 17, I think.

People drifted in and out of the PCG as their lives made different demands, but Frank was a constant. He even talked me back onto the board a few years ago, and I don’t regret it. He was a good man.

July 31, 2009 by
News, People

Remembering Michael Donnelly

Nephew John Boyle displays Donnelly's medal of valor.

Nephew John Boyle displays Donnelly's medal of valor.

His friends called him “Smilin’ Mike.”

Eighty years after his line-of-duty death, they still remember that smiling and brave Philadelphia Police Officer, Michael Donnelly. On April 12, 1929, the County Leitrim native and World War I U.S. Navy veteran was gunned down by a robber he had chased down an alley following the holdup of Sobel’s Candy Store, just a few blocks from his headquarters at 4th and Carpenter. It was nearly midnight. He had less than 15 minutes to go on his shift.

On Wednesday, Donnelly’s surviving nieces and nephews from both sides of the Atlantic joined with Philadelphia police and local dignitaries to dedicate a sidewalk plaque in his memory near where he fell, at 921 South 4th Street.

Michael Donnelly has been gone a long time, but his relatives have never forgotten his bravery. One of those relatives, Sr. Peg Boyle, had heard about a program to honor Philadelphia’s fallen police officers with commemorative plaques. Lawyer Jimmy Binns oversees the Hero Plaque program and he remembers talking to Sr. Peg about it six months ago. “She asked me whether we would do a plaque for Michael Donnelly,” Binns said.

Soon, more and more relatives from the United States and Ireland joined the effort to memorialize Michael Donnelly. And the more they dug, the more they learned about him. “We all knew a little bit about Michael,” said nephew and plaque sponsor John Boyle of Hatboro. “We just had the family lore. It wasn’t until we started talking to Jimmy Binns that we were able to pull together the whole story.”

The story that emerged is one of extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice. In those days, cops’ uniforms were decorated with lots of shiny metal buttons. The light from nearby streetlamps evidently glinted off those buttons and Donnelly’s badge as he attempted to scale a fence in his pursuit of the suspect. The gunman aimed for those shining buttons, police reports from the time indicated. But Donnelly was undeterred. “He kept going over that fence,” said Boyle. “He was shot three times. But they (the police) expect you to stay in the fight, and he did just that.”

One of Donnelly’s relatives from across the pond, Tony Boyle of Kildare, was most impressed by the commemoration, which featured a police honor guard, the Philadelphia Police and Fire Pipe Band and a bugler to play taps. “We absolutely cherish every minute of this trip,” he said.

The skies threatened throughout the ceremony, and in the end finally opened up. Donnelly’s plaque was adorned with roses and spattered with raindrops. The plaque reads:

In Memory of
Police Officer
Michael Donnelly #1951
Died In The Line of Duty
Protecting the Citizens
of Philadelpha on
April 12, 1929
Dedicated by
His Family and Friends

    • April 24, 2009 by
    People

    Remembering Greg Duffy

    Greg Duffy

    Greg Duffy

    Greg Duffy was quite well known. Not the kind of “well known” that merits a page 1 headline in the New York Times, necessarily, or that prompts heads of state to issue statements of condolence.

    But within the worldwide community of Irish traditional music and culture, it was clear that Greg Duffy’s sudden death on the night of August 28 was truly of great moment. Indeed, notice of his passing had made it onto the Irish Traditional Music Listserv by 3:37 a.m. on Friday.

    Local musician Bill McKenty, who has known Greg and his wife Charlotte for 15 years, posted the announcement. It read, in part:

    “… husband, father, friend, photographer and great fan of traditional music and its people, Greg lived within the music, befriending many and opening his heart and home to the music …”

    Within the traditional community, Greg Duffy was quite well known indeed, and loved. And now, mourned.

    Greg was known for his loving photos of Irish traditional musicians. (A good example is currently posted on the Thistle and Shamrock Web site. It’s a remembrance of singer-guitarist Mícheál Ó Domhnaill.) View it here.

    He was also renowned for his great hospitality. Many, many road-weary musicians were fortunate to stay in his Jenkintown home.

    We asked a few of those who knew him best to share their thoughts and memories. (Of course, you can also offer your comments in the little form that follows.)

    Bill McKenty, longtime friend and musician

    Greg was always trying to drag me to concerts as I tend not to go to many.

    About a year-and-a-half ago, he enticed me to go on my birthday with him and his wife Charlotte to a Flook concert in Wilmington. Michael McGoldrick, one of my favorites, was filling in for Sarah Allen of the band as she’d just had her baby. I agreed to accompany the Duffys as McGoldrick almost never comes to the US of A.

    The Duffys were very well known at venues such as the Cherry Tree, Green Willow and Sellersville. They always had front row seats reserved for them as Greg’s wife Charlotte was pretty much confined to a wheelchair.

    So we get to the show. I go outside to catch a smoke, and who should bum a butt off me but Michael McGoldrick. We hit it off quite quickly, trading tunes in the “diddly di,” lilting kinda way flute players do.

    Later, as I was sitting in the front row with the Duffys, McGoldrick would sit next to me in an open chair on sets in which he wasn’t playing with the band, and egg the band on from the audience. McGoldrick and Flook were quite the characters.

    So at half time, McGoldrick and Greg compared notes and friends and chatted away. Nice concert. At the end they did an encore and went to start the first tune but couldn’t remember how it went. Greg looked over to me and said, “You know that,” so I hummed a few bars. McGoldrick hears me and goes, “Ah, that’s it.” He comes over to me, hands me his whistle and shoves me up on stage, much to the horror of the rest of the band, as they didn’t know me from Adam.

    After a few awkward moments they ascertained that i did know the tune and great fun ensued. Of course, Greg took much delight in this and started to shoot away …which is where the attached came from.

    He had a great eye, a great ear and a great love of the music and the people and characters who lived it.

    Andy Irvine, Irish singer-songwriter

    I was extremely sad to hear of the unexpected passing of Greg Duffy. He was a man I held in high esteem and respect for many years.

    I first met him in Philadelphia, at The Cherry Tree, sometime around 1985/86 and we became friends immediately. As any traveling performer might say, I never had enough time to spend with him and his wife, Charlotte.

    I stayed in his house in Jenkintown on a few occasions. He made a pretty good breakfast! Conversations with Greg were always witty and well informed from his side. He took a great interest in all things Irish.

    In retrospect I was very happy to have made a detour in June of this year to visit the family on the occasion of Charlotte’s birthday. Greg was in great form and walked me to my car when I was leaving. We had a farewell hug and I never thought it would be the last I would see of him.

    A good man has passed.

    Lois Kuter, longtime friend and Breton music authority

    I met Greg as a fellow fan of Celtic music—and that means not just Scottish and Irish, but also Welsh, Breton, Manx, Cornish, Galician, and Asturian (when you had the luck to hear them).

    I can’t recall where or when I met Greg but he and Charlotte listened to the Breton music radio program I did for WXPN from the mid ‘80s to the mid ‘90s. They had impeccable taste in music—picking out the most innovative and interesting. I renewed a friendship with them at a scattering of concerts over the years.

    I’ve met very few people who have such knowledge and true appreciation for the rich traditions and innovative variations of music from the Celtic world.

    I am sure all the musicians who beat Greg to Heaven are thrilled to have him there to share the joy and beauty of their music. I am sure Johnny Cunningham has a big hug for him.

    Kevin Burke, Irish fiddler

    He was a great supporter of the music. Ever since Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and I were newcomers to the U.S., Greg and Charlotte were regular attendees at our concerts anytime either of us were in the Philadelphia area.

    It was always a pleasure to see them as they always had a few kind, appreciative and supportive words for us. Greg was also a very talented photographer—he had the great and rare skill of being able to remain very inconspicuous with the camera while at the same time getting great live shots of the performers.

    To this day some of my favourite shots are those taken by Greg. He was much loved and will be sorely missed by all who knew him. My sympathies go out to all his family and friends.

    September 4, 2008 by
    People

    Sail On, Billy

    Billy Briggs

    Billy Briggs

    By Tom Slattery

    I tried but could not come up with a more appropriate title than Tommy McCloskey’s e-mail title of a recent conversation between himself and long-time friend, singing companion and fellow sufferer, Billy Briggs.

    I guess I could have used, “Yo, Bro,” Billy’s greeting to his friends. But that doesn’t say as much.

    On June 15, 56-year-old “Irish Billy” Briggs, who grew up in Bordentown, New Jersey, but who is better known as the owner of Trenton’s legendary Tir na nOg Pub, died after a year-long battle with colon and liver cancer. His death has cast a palpable pall over the New Jersey Irish and Irish-American communities.

    Billy’s wake and funeral were testimonials to his popularity and to the esteem in which people held him. He was waked at his pub for 12 hours (2 p.m. to 2 a.m.), during which hundreds upon hundreds of people passed through. His closed coffin was guarded, IRA-like, for the 12 hours. During the entire 12-hour period, the bar was open and yet, out of respect, there were no incidents.

    At 6 p.m. a solitary piper walked through the pub playing “Irish Soldier Boy.” He was followed by a priest, a blessing and a decade of the rosary. Musicians queued up to perform at his funeral Mass the next day. On Sunday, June 22, Billy’s remains were shipped to Tipperary, Ireland, where he was buried in the hometown of his wife, Margaret O’Donnell. Margaret, who came to St. Francis many years ago, started visiting the pub, and eventually fell in love with the big fella, who had recreated Ireland in America and a place for the lonely immigrants to call “home.” In addition to Margaret, Billy is survived by their 6-year old twin daughters, Ellen and Mairead, as well as many family members.

    Billy was not only a pub owner, but a singer, an actor, a quiet philanthropist, a man dedicated to a free and united Ireland, and a funny guy when the occasion called for it. His banjo now stands silently on the high chair on which he perched himself these past 17 years to bring his brand of Irish music and political commentary to his eclectic followers. Oh, yeah, the crowds on any given evening might include the Irish nurses from St. Francis, the young Irish contractors (of course, it’s where the nurses hung out), couples in formal wear going to or coming from some posh affair, local politicians, many senior Irish-Americans, and on and on—you get the idea. And in the midst of this happy crowd, and Billy’s presence guaranteed that mood, sat the king in his sartorial splendor—jeff cap, a clean black bowling shirt, dark pants which could hardly remember a crease, black sneakers not normally laced, with one foot carefully balanced on the spittoon (which I hope is bronzed)—knocking out song after song in a clear tenor voice through the cigar firmly ensconced in the corner of his mouth. The spittoon’s main job was to catch the ashes, which on rare occasion it did.

    Billy usually was not the sole entertainer. Over the years, his bandstand (a platform capable of holding no more than four musicians—three, if any were Guinness drinkers) hosted so many talented musical performers, from the late Sligo Anne to the latest, Tom Glover. In the in-between years the crowd was treated to the likes of Billy J. O’Neal, Dr. Nancy Ferguson, Tommy McCloskey and many others, including visiting musicians who dropped in and amateurs who volunteered and who heard about it unmercifully if they did not meet the audience’s approval—especially from Billy, who had that special capability to put the dagger in, twist it around, and never lose your friendship.

    One of Billy’s favorites was Mary Courtney from the Irish traditional group Morning Star. As a writer for a paper many years ago, I once asked Billy how he would like to spend St. Patrick’s Day if, of course, he was not tied to his pub. He replied, “I’d like to be lying on my back on top of Dun Aengus (a fort on the Aran Islands) with a bottle of Jameson and a cigar, listening to Mary Courtney sing.”

    Tir na nOg was usually crowded, but St. Patrick’s week was always elbow to elbow (this is a family publication). At the start of the week, all seats, tables and barstools were removed to allow 20 to 30 more patrons to squeeze in. Trenton Irish could make the Japanese train “fillers” look like rank amateurs.

    But Billy will be remembered for much more than his singing. His generosity and hospitality were almost legendary. Many a young Irish person, or family, arrived in the Trenton area not exactly flush, only to end up with some needed cash or furniture from Billy, who was a firm believer that if you hung up an Irish sign, you sure as heck better take care of anyone Irish. Many years ago Trenton had its first St. Patrick’s Day Ball at a New Jersey State Building, which even back then did not allow smoking and so there was a continuous line to have a few puffs outside—and only a few puffs, because of the freezing March weather.

    Needless to say, at the following Ball, there was a huge “smokers” tent outside, donated by Billy. Never a man to be impressed with what he perceived as “high society,” he once emphasized the point when one of his closest friends ran the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Grand Marshal announcement with a wine and cheese party at the elegant Grounds for Sculpture (by the way, the announced Grand Marshal was also a close friend) by taking out a full page ad in their ad book saying, “Wine and Cheese, Boo.” He believed the real Irishman drank only beer or whiskey neat.

    At a young age, Billy became interested in Ireland, and when his high school in Bordentown offered another ethnic history class, he requested an Irish history class. Told there were not enough students to justify such a class, Billy replied that such a class was his right. And so, once a week Billy Briggs studied Irish history in the school library.

    He was a founder of Irish Northern Aid, as well as a co-founder of the Trenton St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee. Billy worked tirelessly for a united Ireland. He was a Provo and Sinn Fein supporter long before it was popular to be, and a quick look around his pub, once voted one of the Top 50 Pubs in America, confirms this. Just this past March he was awarded the Irish Patriots Award by Pat Doherty, Sinn Fein Vice President.

    In his old pub, one very similar to Cosey Morley’s (“there will never be another like it, because authorities would not allow it to be built”), late on a July 3 the crowd had dwindled to a hearty few as July 4 arrived. “We have to celebrate our freedom” said one. And Billy agreed. From behind the bar, he produced a picture of Maggie Thatcher, which he pasted on a bare spot on the cinder-block wall and then disappeared into the back room. “He’s gone to get the darts,” exclaimed one. However, a moment later Billy appeared with a 12-gauge with which he altered Maggie’s appearance and brought momentary deafness to those in the room. One claims that even thinking about it still causes his ears to ring.

    I said he was an actor and he was—in one Bronx Irish Theater production, he played an English lawyer! Needless to say we filled a bus to travel up to see that performance. And he supported the arts. Tir na nOg held not only annual Bloomsday readings, but for several years had monthly “literature” evenings, which included readings and poetry.

    Oh, grant me one more story. One of Billy’s patrons came in after suffering a very close loss in an AOH election. As Billy served him a pint, our friend bemoaned the fact that he had lost the election by a single vote. To which Billy replied, “Aren’t you glad I wasn’t there, you would have lost by two!!” Like the man, the stories about him are becoming legends as they are dug up and retold during this period of mourning but mostly, remembrance. Long-time friend, Billy J. O’Neal has set up a site to collect them.

    That, my friends, is vintage Billy Briggs, a man who embraced life with a zest and passion that few ever attain—a man who will be remembered by many as the years go by—a man who was a giant in the Irish community—a man who can not be replaced, but one who set a standard for friendship, loyalty and love that hopefully others will follow.

    Rest in peace, dear friend. I feel privileged to have been one of yours.

    Slán

    July 11, 2008 by