Sarah, left, and Mary Conaghan filming at Philly's City Hall.
On Monday night at 8 PM, you can type in www.phillyirelandconnection.com on your browser and see the premier episode of a new local internet TV channel.
It’s the brainchild of sisters Sarah and Mary Conaghan of Delaware County. “We’re planning to cover events and organizations in the area,” says Sarah, a nursing student at Delaware County Community College. “For our first episode, we’re doing a feature on the Irish Center and the history behind it, and a piece on the Tyrone Ball which is coming up in April.”
The two young women were filming on Thursday at Philadelphia’s City Hall where Mayor Michael Nutter presented a proclamation honoring the Philadelphia Tyrone Society, which has a 100-year history in the city.
They’re putting it all together via WorldTV.com, a company started by two Dublin men that makes it easy to create your own web TV channel. Of course, it helps that Mary Conaghan is studying broadcasting at Temple University. “She’s very good with the camera and the technical side of it,” says Sarah. “I’m not. I have a very shaky hand.”
The sisters have been talking about launching an Irish-themed channel for about a year. “Everyone is on the Internet,” says Sarah. “I think it’s more of an interest for people than real TV. Someday I think they’re going to be combined. We just thought it would be neat to have a program featuring the Philadelphia Irish-American community.”
And they certainly know it. Their father, Tom Conaghan, is the founder head of the Irish Immigration Center of Philadelphia and the Irish Cultural and Heritage House of Pennsylvania in Upper Darby, which serves the Irish immigrant community in the Delaware Valley and is a hub and meeting place for both recent immigrants and Irish Americans in the region. Sarah and her sister, Karen Conaghan Race, also run the Rose of Tralee pageant every year.
The PhillyIrelandConnection show will run weekly on Monday nights at 8 PM.