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How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Blackthorn's Michael Boyce at a prior Penns Landing fest.

This is one jam-packed weekend if you like rugby, Irish music, dancing, and fun. Surely, one of those things will entice you out either to the 2011 USA Sevens Collegiate Rugby Championships in Chester on Saturday and Sunday, the Irish festival in Mont Clare throughout the entire weekend,  or the Irish Festival on Penns Landing on Sunday.

Notre Dame is one of the teams competing over the weekend at the Philadelphia Union’s waterfront soccer stadium during the sevens—so-called because the team is made up of only 7, rather than 15 players, which amplifies the action. The matches will be televised by NBC, but only if you go out can you also enjoy the Saturday night concert by the Dropkick Murphys.

Speaking of Notre Dame, the AOH Notre Dame Division 1 annual Irish festival is this weekend too. The fun starts Friday night at St. Michael’s Picnic Grounds under the pavilion in Mont Clare, PA. Enjoy the music of Jamison, the Belfast Connection, Misty Isle,  the Bogside Rogues, and a ceili with Tom McHugh, Kevin and Jim McGillian.  There’ll be food, vendors, pipers, Irish dancers, $2 pints all weekend long and tickets are only $15 for the entire weekend. Doesn’t get any better than that. Oh, wait, yes it does. All proceeds from this annual festival go to support AOH charities.

It’s year 13 for the Penns Landing Irish Festival which draws thousands to the Delaware River for free music and entertainment along with plenty of vendors selling beer, food, and Irish stuff. This year, Blackthorn, the Hooligans, and Jamison will appear on the main stage. There will be nonstop Irish dancing and kids activities.

The events simmer down during the week (though there’s a session every night somewhere) until Friday, when the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion and the Rosenbach Museum present the world premier of “Stoker’s Dracula,” adapted and performed by Philadelphia actor Josh Hitchens. The story by the Irish writer will be told by candlelight in a dark room. Sounds like spooky fun!

Also on Friday night, catch Philly-based, Dublin-born singer-songwriter John Byrne with jazz vocalist Lili Anel at Milkboy Café on Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore. Byrne has received accolades for his debut album, “After the Wake,” and Anel, who grew up in New York but now makes Philly her home, was recently honored as best female singer/songwriter and best female jazz vocalist in the prestigious New York Music Awards.

As always, there’s more information on our calendar, the cutest, most cuddly calendar in the entire Delaware Valley.

News, Sports

A Donnybrook Breaks Out on Saturday

A member of the Irish Wolfhounds rugby team at practice.

They come at each other like charging rhinos, tackling each other at the chest and knees until someone is on the ground under 600 or so pounds of human flesh. All for a prize that looks like a football with a growth disorder.

It’s rugby, and it’s coming—for one day only—to Philadelphia this Saturday, March 19, reviving a tradition called The Donnybrook Cup, which pits a semi-pro/amateur team from the US against Irish players, many of whom play in the Rugby League in England.

The Tomahawks—the US National team, ranked 15th in the world—will face the Irish Wolfhounds (ranked 7th) at Charles Martin Memorial Stadium on Cottman Avenue in northeast Philadelphia, with kick-off at 4 PM (gates open at 2:30 PM). The match-up was a regular St. Patrick’s Day event until 2003, and it’s being revived this year with two teams who have met on the field six times, with the Tomahawks holding a 4-2 edge.

If you don’t think of rugby as an Irish sport—or even an American one—you’re mostly right. “Footy” is most popular in places like England—where it was born—and Australia (Aussie actor Russell Crowe owns his own rugby team). But, says Wolfhounds’ coach Alan Robinson, it’s actually the number two sport in Ireland.
“It’s second after soccer,” says Robinson, who also coaches a team in Coventry, England.

And all those rugby t-shirts you’ve seen are true: They play without protection, they have bigger balls, and they may indeed eat their dead. Well, maybe not that last one, but rugby is as tough as American football, but without helmets, pads, and multimillion dollar salaries. (Ironically, the team is sponsored by a UK insurance and risk management company, Bartlett Group.)

Here’s basically how it works in the International Rugby League:

The object of the game is to get the ball to the other end of the field (where you need to place it on the ground, a goal that gets you 4 points). That earns you the right to kick it for another 2 points. You can also kick it over the opposing goal for one point. The means by which you get there is a series of what in American football are “downs.” That’s where the kicking, running, tackling and blood happen. There are no quarterbacks with a rocket arm in this game—passing is done backwards or sideways so the player with the ball needs to stay a little ahead of his teammates. And the game lasts for 80 minutes, 40 minutes a side.

“Unlike American football, where they rest between downs, in rugby it’s continuous play,” says Robinson. “We don’t rest at all.”

That means rugby players spend more time than their American football counterparts using the cardiovascular machines at the gym, as opposed to the weights. “American footballers are big athletes, but big guys have a tougher time in rugby, you really need to be cardiovascularly fit,” Robinson explains.

Many of his players get plenty of running practice while training for their semi-pro teams. For example, Brendan Guilfoyle, team captain, plays for the Treaty City Titans in Limerick City, as do four other Wolfhounds. Some play for British teams, like the West London Sharks and Northampton Demons. Their opponents are, appropriately, multicultural, with four players from Hawaii, a New York player of Tongan descent, Salesi Tongamoa, and a team captain named Apple Pope from Florida. (Interesting side note: Pope, who has played in Australia, has two brothers, Taco and Pepci. His mother, Chili, has siblings named Peper and Cofi. It’s a long story, involving a grandmother named “Pork.” You can’t make this stuff up.)

Promoters are expecting an exciting game from two teams made up of some of the cream of the rugby crop and some up-and-comers. Fans can expect 80 minutes of pure unadulterated action. You’d be crazy not to go. About as crazy as they are to play a game where one of the most popular t-shirts reads, “Give blood. Play Rugby.”