Mummers

The Irish-American String Band struts its stuff in Philadelphia.

Mummery has been a tradition in Philadelphia since the late 17th century—in celebration if not in name.

Mummers’ historians say that the Swedes extended their tradition of “Second Day Christmas,” when they visited friends, into New Year’s Day, throwing in some masquerades and noisy revelry (which later erupted into musket fire, bells and noisemakers.)

But mummery, which some say dates back to ancient Egypt, is also a 2,500-year-old tradition in Ulster, the northernmost counties in Ireland and Northern Ireland, so Irish immigrants to the US found a little bit of home every New Year’s Day. And just a little bit. In medieval Ireland, mumming meant plays, both religious and secular, often presented by local trade unions. Even today, when the “mummers” appear in Ireland, it’s to tell a story.

In Wexford, for example, mummers take to the streets to perform original plays (since none of the play scripts from yore have actually survived) about heroic figures from the Celtic past, like S. Patrick, Brian Boru, Wolfe Tone, and Owen Roe O’Neill. (Originally, the play’s characters were British figures such as St. George and Cromwell, but clearly that didn’t play nearly as well.) The plays are always in verse and swordplay is inevitably involved, as is death and rebirth.

Wexford mummers are so well known there’s even a song called “Wexford Mummers Song,” once recorded by Mary O’Hara, which tells the sad story of two maids of Shroden, in Derry Town, Patty Grey and Nancy Hogan, who “lead an awful life, an awful life and dreary.” It involves pig mutilation, death, and some cheery fa la las.

Like Philadelphia’s Mummers Parade, the Irish mumming street plays are performed as part of an annual competition. However, there are no banjos, feathers, sequins, and golden slippers. But there are disguises (mummers are also called guisers, as in “disguise”), usually intricate masks, much like the tall, conical masks worn by the chief entertainers of King Conor, legendary king of Ulster, at his palace in Eamhain Macha. In rural areas, like one small town in County Fermanagh, the mummers traditionally wear costumes of straw (giving rise to the name, “straw men”), largely because it’s cheap and available. Another parallel to the Philadelphia Mummers: In Ireland, it’s also traditional for men to dress up as women.

While the Irish didn’t bring mumming to Philadelphia, they certainly supported it. In his book, “The Irish in Philadelphia,” the late historian Dennis Clarke wrote that the Irish took immediately to the “generally uninhibited frolic” of the Mummer’s Parade.” Such displays were compatible with the Irish propensity for enjoyment. The folksy pantomime, the jingling music, and the ardent defiance of freezing winter weather made the Mummers famous, and the Irish were an eager part of the tradition.”

Mummers factoid: The word “mummer” is thought to stem from a German word meaning “disguised person.”

Probably not for the first time, "Rip" McDonald takes the cake.

“Rip” McDonald’s career in the Mummers began casually enough. He was 15 years old at the time, and he knew how to play harmonica and guitar. “One day, some of the fellas said, ‘Hey, let’s join a string band,’” McDonald says. “I said ‘OK.’ So we joined the Uptown String Band. That was in 1938.”

Since then, James “Rip” McDonald’s commitment to the musical tradition that is Mummery has been anything but casual. He just turned 84 and has made more than 60 trips up Broad Street—with a few years off during the Second World War, when he was in the service. On New Year’s Day 2008, weather permitting, he’ll strut his stuff in his last Mummer’s Parade, marching with the unit he started in 1998, the Irish American String Band.

Before Irish American, Rip—a spry, talkative Bridesburg resident with a thick grey brushy moustache—was a member of the Ukrainian American String Band. “I was a member for five years,” he says, “and each year we came in last. I said to the guys, ‘If we come in last one more time, I’m gonna leave this band.’ Well, we came in last again. A few of the guys said, ‘Rip, whatever band you go to, we wanna go with you.’ But I said, ‘I’m not going to join another band. I’m gonna start the Irish American String Band. And in 1998, on St. Patrick’s Day, I started the band.”

Irish American is one of countless string bands that McDonald has belonged to, if not had a hand in starting. His devotion to the tradition is all-consuming. After World War 2, when Mumming was starting to become a bit more polished, he learned a new instrument, saxophone, which he still plays.

“When string bands first started, they were all string instruments—banjos, mandolins, guitars, violins. After the Second World War, they wanted harmony to get a better sound, so they started to add saxophones. You just can’t get the harmony sound with string instruments. So I had one of the great old-timers teach me sax.”

Not long afterward, observing the constant turnover in string band musical directors, he resolved to do something about it. “They had a lot of music directors, but they couldn’t seem to keep them,” he says. “So I went to the Granoff School of Music (at 17th and Chestnut in the old Presser Building, where Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane later attended) to earn an associate’s degree in music. It took me seven years. Then I became music director for several string bands, and started making arrangements.”

Since then, it’s hard to think of a string band leadership post McDonald hasn’t held at one time or another. It’s become something of a family tradition. One son Brian is the Irish American String Band’s music director (a position initially held by Rip).

Of course, being a Mummer is not a full-time position, and it’s far from his only extracurricular interest. Years ago, he owned a tavern at Rising Sun and Wyoming, the Sun House Tavern.

Rip has also served as chaplain of several veterans’ organizations. Not a bad set of accomplishments for the son of a one-time Girardville coal miner and, later on, Philadelphia paper hanger and occasional political speech writer. “That’s where I get my ‘gift of gab,’ from my father Joe McDonald,” he says. By all accounts, he says, his grandfather, who was born in Ireland, was at least equally garrulous.

Though he does not know where in Ireland his grandfather was born, Rip—like so many Irish Americans—feels a fierce attachment to the country. In 2002, when the Irish American String Band traveled to Ireland to perform in the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Rip had an opportunity to reinforce those emotional bonds just a bit. It was his first trip to Ireland. “What a thrill it was for me,” he recalls. “I got off the plane, kissed the ground and said, ‘Grandma and Grandpop, I’m here.’ I never thought that would happen.”

(Bonus: The band won the “Spirit of the Parade” prize, a glittering Waterford cup.)

As memorable as that parade was, though, nothing can top the thrill of marching in the Mummers Parade for this longtime vet. “I’ve been playing for 70 years, but every year when I get to the judge’s area, I just fill up. I think: Here we are again. I love it.”

Update: In the 2008 New Year’s Day Parade, Irish American came in 16th out of 18 bands; the band’s Kelly Marie Mahon was ranked 15th of 17 string band captains. (One band, Pennsport, had no captain.)

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