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Irish Musicians Launch a New CD to Benefit Mercy Centre in Bangkok

Gabriel Donohue

Gabriel Donohue won’t soon forget his visit to the Mercy Centre in Bangkok, Thailand.

A couple of years ago, Donohue joined fellow Irish musicians Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis and Niall O’Leary to play for—believe it or not—the Asian Gaelic Games, which were being held in Bangkok. Mick Moloney, well-known folklorist and multi-instrumentalist, has had a long association with the Centre, which provides services for orphans, street kids, and children and adults with AIDS, so he asked his traveling companions to join him there in an impromptu concert.

“Mick made sure we got down to the orphanage to play for the kids,” Donohue recalls.”I saw the work Father Joe (Maier) was doing there in the slums. It’s an amazing place. It’s in the worst neighborhood in Bangkok. It’s the Slaughterhouse District, which is a Catholic neighborhood. Buddhists won’t kill animals, so Catholics run the slaughterhouses. These kids have lost their parents to AIDS, and they have it too. Father Joe just wants to make sure they have a good quality of life.”

Donohue is far from the only Irish musician to come away impressed by Father Joe and his mission. A few years ago, he says, fellow musician Donnie Carroll met Father Joe at a benefit, and he resolved to raise funds for the Centre. The project that emerged from that resolution is a new CD, “Irish Musicians for the Mercy Centre,” produced by Donnie Carroll and mastered by Donohue. Nearly 20 Irish musicians and ensembles, including Donohue and partner Marian Makins, Moloney, Tergis, Joanie Madden, Larry Kirwan and Black 47, contributed tracks.

If you want to get a sampling of the tunes that made their way onto the disk, you can attend a CD launch party Sunday, December 11, from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Shanachie Pub, 111 East Butler Avenue in Avenue. Music will be provided by Timlin & Kane (Gerry Timlin is one of the pub’s owners), Donnie Carroll—and out own Donohue and Makins. Copies of the CD will be on sale, of course. Every CD purchase benefits the Mercy Centre. There will be a raffle, with special prizes donated by the musicians and Marianne MacDonald, host of “Come West Along the Road” Irish radio show.

And hey, remember Christmas is coming. An all-star Irish music CD makes a great gift.

December 9, 2011 by Jeff Meade

Arts, News, People

A Big Day for the Sunday Irish Radio Programs

Gerry Timlin: singer, guitarist, publican, and auctioneer.

Between phone-in pledges in the morning and a rollicking musical fundraiser in the afternoon at the Shanachie Irish Pub in Ambler, the Sunday Irish radio shows made more than $5,000. That will keep the Vince Gallagher Irish Hour and Come West Along the Road with Marianne MacDonald on the air at WTMR 800 AM“for a few more months,” MacDonald says.

Among the all-star lineup at The Shanachie: Dublin-born singer-songwriter John Byrne, the Bogside Rogues, Gerry Timlin (co-owner of The Shanachie) and his musical partner Tom Kane, fiddler Mary Malone, the Malones (Luke Jardel and Fintan Malone) and the Vince Gallagher Band, with Gallagher, Pat Kildea and Patsy Ward.

Timlin ran a rousing auction for a plethora of prizes, including a week’s stay at a County Clare cottage, a bike, and an autographed Flyers’ jersey, as well as concert tickets to some of the hottest tickets around, including Altan, Scythian, Eileen Ivers, and Dervish.

March 3, 2010 by Denise Foley

News

A Torrent of Talent Comes to the Aid of the Sunday Irish Radio Shows

Gerry Timlin, your emcee.

And, lo, the clouds masseth in the sky and unleasheth a whole heap o’ water. Yea, verily, the water did riseth up to filleth up Bethlehem Piketh and lots of other roadth. Lightning and thunder was there, and hailstones and winds, even. And the Lord looked down from on high and said, to no one in particular, “Holy cow … did I do that?!”

You betcha. No one would have been surprised if frogs and locusts had suddenly showed up. It was that bad.

Did any of the flooding stop dedicated Irish music fans as they made their way to Shanachie Pub on Sunday for a benefit to support local Irish radio shows? Well, maybe it stopped some, but lots of other people just strapped on their water wings and floated on into Ambler for an afternoon jam-packed with local musical talent.

Gerry Timlin, your genial emcee and co-owner of the Shanachie, presided over the entertainment, which included the Bogside Rogues, the King Brothers, McDermott’s Handy, members of the Morrigan, the Jameson Sisters (Maura and Lessa, also known as Ellen Tepper and Terry Kane), and more.

And, yea, the fans hung around for the fun and saw that it was good.

We’ve captured lots of the aforementioned fun.

August 7, 2009 by Jeff Meade

Music

Christmas Comes Early to the Shanachie

Guitarist John Doyle in a pensive moment.

It was billed as a Christmas show. Think of it as a Christmas present.

Mick Moloney, with fiddler Athena Tergis and guitar great John Doyle, headlined at the Shanachie Pub in Ambler Thursday night. They were joined onstage, from time to time, by special guests, local fiddler Caitlin Finley and old-timey fiddle whiz Rafe Stefanini.

There were just enough Christmas tunes along the lines of “The Holly and the Ivy,” to satisfy those who were looking for an early dose of holiday merriment. Mixed in were some of the vintage tunes Mick Moloney typically champions—including a great little song about some fairly lethal Christmas cake—and, between Tergis and Doyle, there were enough musical pyrotechnics to rouse the denizens of the jammed dining room and bar.

We’ve posted some photos from this wonderful concert, which Shanachie co-owner Gerry Timlin suggested might become a tradition.

Check them out.

December 5, 2008 by Jeff Meade

Music

Finbar Furey in Concert

Fiddler Mary Malone came because, when she was a young mother, someone once gave her a homemade tape of Irish folk legends, The Fureys, a group of Dublin brothers that helped put Irish traditional music on the map.

Will Hill came because, as a teenager, he first heard the uillean pipes played by Finbar Furey on two now-collectible LPs, when Furey was young and still had a head of curly hair. Hill brought those albums with him to The Shanachie Pub in Ambler on Monday night to have them signed by Furey, who made a stop in the Philadelphia area while touring the east coast to promote his new CD, “No Farewells, No Goodbyes.” He was accompanied by performer Brian Gaffney.

And the actor, singer, poet, songwriter didn’t disappoint—not in any way. He signed the albums, performed the songs that first endeared the Fureys to American audiences, mesmerized the crowd with his intricate piping, and made everyone laugh with his stories. Like the one about how, as a young man, he asked famed ‘60s folksinger Tom Paxton if he would mind if he altered one of Paxton’s songs a bit. “I was cheeky back then,” he confessed. “Tom Paxton looked at me with his cold blue eyes and said, ‘What are you going to do with it?’”

He was going to rewrite it for banjo, Furey explained. Oh, and change the words a little.

There was a long, deadly gap in the conversation, Furey recalled. Then Paxton said, “Oh, go for it.”

So Furey did. And the Fureys recorded Paxton’s “I Will Love You,” catapulting it to number one on the Irish charts. “Then one night I get a phone call. ‘Finbar?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘This is Tom Paxton, Finbar.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Bastard! I’ve been singing that song for years and nobody’s hardly heard it!’” Furey roared almost as hard as the audience, who began singing with him at the first song and to the last.

October 17, 2008 by Denise Foley

News

Session Surprise: A Visit from Angelina Carberry and Martin Quinn

Angelina Carberry and Martin Quinn settle in next to local fiddler Caitlin Finley.

Banjo whiz Angelina Carberry and her husband, the great box player Martin Quinn, were in town over the weekend for a concert at the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series. I missed it, and I was feeling bad about that.

Of course, one way to make yourself feel better when you know you’ve missed out on some choice traditional Irish music is to find yourself a good traditional Irish music session. So I headed off to Shanachie Pub in Ambler on Tuesday night, bodhran in hand, planning to console myself with a couple of pints of Smithwick’s and the odd reel or jIg. (If you’ve ever heard me play bodhran, you know what I mean by odd.)

The place was already jammed with musicians when I got there, including—estimating conservatively—327.5 bodhran players. My partner Denise showed up, with her husband and son in tow. With so many drummers, I sat things out for a while with Denise, Ed and Pat.

Then I looked up to see Dennis Gormley and Kathy DeAngelo, who ride herd over the Three Beans session in Haddonfield, walk in the door. And right behind them … Carberry and Quinn. Kathy manages the two.

I headed back to my seat and waited for an opportunity to jump in on a tune or two. I got the opportunity at last … a blistering set of reels. My right hand fell off at the end. And it was good.

Carberry and Quinn, based in County Longford, play with laser-like precision, and yet they somehow—magic, I’m thinking—sound spontaneous and fresh.

The unexpected appearance caused no end of upset for Denise and me. We’re rarely sans camera. Shanachie co-owner Ed Egan went off in search of a disposable camera (thanks, Ed!), and Denise squeezed off a few shots. Not the quality we’re used to, but workable. Oh, thank heaven for 7-11.

Thanks, too, to Ed for risking life and limb by standing on a chair to capture an aerial view of the proceedings.

Aside from an accidental encounter—and what are the odds of that?—your last chance to see Carberry and Quinn in this neck of the woods is Saturday, August 2, at the Hunting Shanty in Tuckerton Seaport, 120 West Main Street. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15.

July 31, 2008 by Jeff Meade

Music

Musicians Rally for One of Their Own

From left, Mick Moloney, Jimmy Crowley, and Robbie O'Connell.

Sitting on the stage at the Shanachie Pub and Restaurant between Irish trad buddies Robbie O’Connell and Jimmy Crowley, musician and folklorist Mick Moloney recalled the time in the early 60s when he met famed Irish balladeer Danny Doyle in Dublin.

“The hardest thing about playing in pubs was getting paid at the end of the night,” he said. He recalled one barkeeper with Parkinson’s disease whose hands shook so badly that “it was four or five different grabs before you could get your money. Whenever I get together with Danny, we always talk about that.”

These days, however, Doyle, who has recorded 35 albums and performed at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and the National Concert Hall in Dublin, hasn’t had any gigs to get paid for. In August, surgery for a carotid blockage left Doyle unable to perform. So on Sunday, Gerry Timlin, co-owner of the Shanachie, organized the benefit to help Doyle meet the bills. And before they headed to another benefit at St. Malachy’s Church and School in Philadelphia, Moloney, O’Connell and Crowley stopped in at the Ambler pub to sing for their friend. So did a gang of other performers, including McGirr and Alberts, the King Brothers, and the Malones. Bill Reid of East of the Hebrides Entertainment, emceed the event which interspersed raffle drawings with some great music.

November 8, 2007 by Jeff Meade

Food & Drink

Farmer’s Breakfast Casserole

By Brian Duffy

3 cups frozen shredded hash browns, 24 oz. bag
3/4 cups Monterey jack cheese, shredded
3/4 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
1/3 cup mild salsa
1 cup ham, or Canadian-style bacon, diced
1/2 cup green onions, sliced
1/2 cup cabbage, thinly sliced
4 eggs, beaten
12 oz evaporated milk, canned
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt

Make Ahead (day before)

Grease a 2-quart square-baking dish. Spread the potatoes evenly in the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle with cheeses, ham, salsa and green onions. Combine the eggs, milk, pepper, and salt and pour over the potato mixture in dish. Cover and refrigerate. To serve, bake, uncovered at 350°F for 50 to 60 or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Optional: Add extra shredded cheese to the top during the last 15 minutes of baking. Serves 6.

March 12, 2007 by Guest

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