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St. Patrick’s Day Parade

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

It’s that time again.

Hope you’ve dug out your car. There’s plenty to do this week, so let’s get craic-ing.

Maria Walsh will be the International Rose of Tralee for another several months, but on Saturday night she gives up her local crown as Philadelphia Rose of Tralee at the gala selection event at the Radnor Hotel.

The Burlington County, NJ St. Patrick’s Day Parade, always the first in our area, won’t be first again this year. They’ve had to postpone it until March 29 because of this week’s snowstorm.

This and next are the weekends for the pub crawls that are part of the fabric of the St. Patrick’s holiday observance in the region. We posted several on our calendar, include the Shamrock and Roll in Delaware County. Marty Magee’s is part of the event and will have live music, including the Malarkey Brothers, Joe Magee and friends, and the John Byrne Band. Don’t drink too much and enjoy the music.

The McHugh Irish Dancers have also posted their schedule for the next couple of weeks on the calendar so if you have a hankering for seeing some step dancing—high recommended just for the adorableness overload—check it out.

Also on Saturday:

Lafferty’s Wake, an interactive play, continues at Society Hill Playhouse.

The Bogside Rogues will be providing the Irish music at Paddy Whack’s in Northeast Philly.

The AOH Division 6 Montgomery County is holding its St. Patrick’ Day party at St. Mary Parish in Schwenksville.

The Bucks County St. Patrick’s Day Parade Ball is Saturday night at Falls Manor Caterers (former Kings Caterers) in Bristol.

The AOH Notre Dame Div. One parade folks are having their grand marshal ball at the Elmwood Park Zoo Banquet Hall in Norristown. Congrats again to GM Mickey McBride.

Belfast Connection is playing at Darlington Arts Center in Garnet Valley.

Blackthorn is the headliner at the Beer Festival at Harrah’s Chester Casino.

You can spend an evening with Celtic Spirit at the Nazareth Center for the Arts in Nazareth or with Donegal’s own Altan at Annenberg Center on Walnut Street in Philadelphia. (Side note: Altan was the first Irish group I ever saw live, and they hooked me.)

Jamison is taking the stage at Brittingham’s in Lafayette Hill.

On to Sunday:

There’s an all-day fundraiser for the Springfield St. Patrick’s Day Parade at Maggie O’Neill’s in Drexel Hill. Doors open at 11 AM for Irish breakfast and if you tell your server you’re there to support the parade, a portion of your bill will be donated to the parade. At 4:30 PM, catch the local Celtic rock group Round Tower and meet the 2015 Grand Marshal Dr. William McCusker, who is the recently retired president of Cardinal O’Hara High School.

At 10 AM, there will be an Irish Mass at St. Malachy’s Church in Philadelphia, a recent tradition that looks like it might have staying power. Read our story from 2013.

The group Celtic Spirit will be entertaining at brunch on Sunday at Kildare’s Irish Pub in West Chester.

This Sunday will also mark the third anniversary of the burial of some of the victims of the Duffy’s Cut tragedy at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd. There will be a memorial event at graveside starting at 2 PM.

At 3 PM, Blackthorn takes the stage at The Deck at Harbor Pointe in Essington for a fundraiser for the 162nd District. It’s a GOP benefit.

Catch local young phenoms Haley and Dylan Richardson and Keegan Loesel, along with the Cumberland Highlanders Pipe and Drum Band and the group, Sligo Road, at the Down Jersey Celtic Celebration in Vineland stating at 3 PM.

The Paul Moore Band will be playing at the Jokers New Year’s Association—think Mummers’ Parade—St. Patrick’s Day party at the group clubhouse in Philadelphia.

Women of Ireland bring their full stage production to the Keswick Theatre on Sunday at 3 PM.

Then on Wednesday

Villanova’s Irish Dance group will be showcasing their prodigious talent on at the Connelly Center Cinema at the University starting at 7 PM.

At 9 PM, the Druids, a rebel ballad band from Kildare, will be performing at Mary Magee’s Pub in Prospect Park.

Thursday dawns. . . .

And so begins the 12 days of Irish music at the Green Parrot in Newtown. Slainte, Seamus McGroary, Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfetones, Clancy’s Pistol, McGraw and McLaughlin, Seamus Kelleher, Tom McHugh, the Hooligans, Secret Service and Challenge Accepted are all booked there through the holiday season. Check our calendar for links to the Green Parrot where you can see who is playing when. Some of the gigs are on our calendar. (Bands can post their gigs to our calendar, but there are so many of them that we can’t usually do those.) For instance, we know that Slainte is performing on Thursday night because they always put their gigs on our calendar. Well done, men!

The annual Philadelphia Parade Grand Marshal dinner will be held on Thursday night at the Doubletree Hotel in Philadelphia. Kathy McGee Burns, who has been the head of just about every Irish organization in the city from the Donegal Association to the Irish Memorial, is this year’s GM.

Also on Thursday night, the AOH Notre Dame Div. 1 Irish coffee contest is happening at the club house in Swedesburg. It’s a well-attended event that’s loads of fun—and, there are samples.

The Irish conversation group continues talking in Irish on Thursday at Villanova.

The Wolfetones will be performing at the FOP Lodge #5 in Northeast Philadelphia this evening.

On thank-God-it’s-Friday:

Hoo boy, this is quite a day and night.

Check out the Paul Moore Band on “Good Day Philadelphia” in the morning. That’s on Fox29.

Then, listen to the Bleeker Street Café Celtic Mandolin Concert on WDVR (89.7 FM) starting at 1 pm. That should be amazing.

The Hooligans will be playing for the early dinner crowd at Fluke’s on State Road in Philly.

The John Byrne Band with No Irish Need Apply are scheduled for World Café Live that evening. The show is almost sold out.

McDermott’s Handy—two fine musicians, Dennis Gormley and Kathy DeAngelo—will be in concert at the Bridgeton Public Library in Bridgeton, NJ. BTW, I know for a fact that these two will play anywhere. I once ran into them playing in the deli at a New Jersey supermarket.

The Celtic group, Carbon Leaf, will be at the World Café Live at the Queen.

The Glengarry Bhoys are scheduled to be on stage at the Sellersville Theater.

Blackthorn is back playing at Ambler’s The Lucky Well BBQ place. Love the band, love the BBQ. A win-win.

The Bogside Rogues are at Reedy’s Irish Pub in Philly.

The Hooligan’s are at the newly re-opened Dubh Linn Square in Bordentown (after their early bird special at Fluke’s in Philly).

The Broken Shillelaghs will be at Tavern on the Edge in Gloucester City, NJ.

2U, a U2 tribute band, is booked at Brittingham’s in Lafayette Hill.

Isla Verde, a Philly bar, is having its first St. Patrick’s Day Party, though we’re not quite sure how Irish it’s going to be.

And a word about next weekend:

The Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day parade is on Sunday. It’s broadcast by CBS3 and CWPhilly but it’s really fun to see live. Really. I wouldn’t lie. The crowds alone are worth the drive or train fare. There are two Irish pubs along the parade route that are crowded and convivial (Tir na Nog and Con Murphy’s). Me, I usually eat a pretzel from a vendor because, hey, I’m working here. Last year, I bought gloves from a vendor. Best purchase ever. $5. For both gloves. But the weather’s gong to be nice, so fear not the evil Arctic blast or polar vortex. Or polar bears. There won’t be any of those either.

There are lots of parties after, but may we suggest Sober St. Patrick’s Day at WHYY. It’s one of a group of St. Patrick’s Day events across the country that cater to families and to those in recovery. Maria Walsh, the International Rose of Tralee (and an affirmed teetotaler) will be there, as will a remarkable array of Irish traditional musicians from all over.

On Saturday, there are beaucoup parades: Bucks County, Springfield, Hamiton, NJ, North Wildwood, Trenton, Conshy. I’ll be going to all of them. Yeah, right. Look for me in Springfield, if all goes well. Look for Gwyneth MacArthur, our parade photographer, in Conshy and in Philly on Sunday. You’ll see Lori Lander Murphy in Philly on Sunday and you’ll also see Jeff Meade there, totally wrapped in camera straps like something from 50 Shades of Grey. No one knows where he’s going to be on Saturday. He is the man of mystery.

Take a peek at the calendar for next week. It’s already large and will grow to Godzilla size (Aieee! Aieee!) by next Friday, when we write the last big How to Be Irish in Philly for the season.

Also, consider joining our Irish Philadelphia Facebook page. There are some lively discussions going on there (I especially like the “who/what is more Irish” debates) but there’s also a great exchange of information and ideas. I now have lists of great Irish books, movies, and songs, thanks to this enthusiastic group of people who share a love for all things Irish (and Philly). It occasionally gets a little salty there, but if you can overlook that, I think you’ll learn a lot. And be entertained.

Check our calendar frequently this week. It’s changing almost every minute.

March 6, 2015 by Denise Foley

News

In Mount Holly, They Love a Parade

It was just a little cold.

“Precious” had a boo-boo. As witness the tropical-themed multicolored foam ring around her neck. That didn’t stop her person, Arden Townsend, from decking her out in St. Patrick’s Day finery—a little plastic high hat and a charming green silk doggie t-shirt.

And amazingly, Precious didn’t seem to mind at all.

It wasn’t the most unusual sight at the Burlington County St. Patrick’s Day Parade Saturday in Mount Holly.

Well, OK, maybe it was, but at this time of year there’s a lot of competition for “unusual.”

We’ve been covering St. Patrick’s Day in the Philly area so long, we’ve gotten used to even the most over-the-top top hat. Green hair? Ho hum. Shamrock deeply-bobbers? Fuhgeddaboudit.

That didn’t stop the folks along the parade route in Mount Holly from trying. Let’s face it, you have to be trying really hard to make a mummer look underdressed. The dude with the sparkly green tinsel wig sure pulled it off.

It was a bright but chilly day, and a lot of people along High Street wrapped themselves in blankets, but there’s something about a St. Patrick’s Day that leaves a warm feeling in your heart.

Or maybe it’s the Jameson’s.

Figure it out for yourself. Here are the pictures. More than 30 of ’em.

March 1, 2014 by Jeff Meade

People

Like Father, Like Son

John “Jay” Murray and sons

John “Jay” Murray III, the grand marshal of the 2014 Montgomery County St. Patrick’s Day parade, sits in a hard wooden chair hastily moved into the kitchen of the Ancient Order of Hibernians Division hall in Swedesburg. It was the only room available for an interview. You couldn’t hear yourself speak downstairs in the bar, and the Irish Thunder Pipes and Drums had just started wailing away in the meeting room next door.

So there we sit, a stockpot and an industrial-size colander drying in the sink, a glassed-in commercial fridge humming away alongside us, and a 50-pound sack of potatoes behind us on the counter.

Murray’s dark hair is neatly parted in the middle, as it always is. He is wearing a neat gray suit and a blue dress shirt, his black shoes gleaming with what looks like a fresh spit-shine. Still, his tie is loosened, his arm is draped over the back of the chair, and he’s slurping a pint of Guinness. He’s relaxed.

Hard to believe that this mild-mannered all-round nice guy was once a narc for the Norristown Police Department. You can’t imagine how he pulled it off.

Murray was a cop for almost 27 years, rising through the ranks to become a detective. (He reluctantly accepted a buyout in 1996.) He loved his job, and he especially loved being a detective. He acknowledges that cops are exposed to the ugly side of human nature, but early in his tenure at Norristown PD, Murray learned to separate the professional from the personal. The lesson came by way of his father, John “Jay” Murray, Jr., also a Norristown police officer, a hail-fellow-well-met type who went on to become mayor of Norristown.

“I worked good cases.” Murray says. “I wasn’t taking domestic disturbances or ‘someone stole the flower pots off my porch,’ the minor stuff. I was doing robberies, burglaries and homicides. Stuff where you can do some god investigation work. I had a good career. It keeps you you going. But I never brought anything home. What happened at work stayed at work. I learned how to turn it off. My dad was a policeman for 22-23 years, the same as me. When I joined the force, he was still there. We had long talks and stuff. Words of wisdom. He was rough and tough, but he had a heart of gold. He told me that there was the police side of life, and then there was the other side. He said you take all my good stuff and keep that. Let the other stuff go.”

Anyone who knows “Jay” Murray can tell he learned his lesson well.

Murray and his pop were close. Where his father led, he would follow. Which is how Murray, along with his dad, became founding members of the AOH division.

An old friend from the force, Jim Cahill, was a member of another Montco AOH division, but he thought there was room in the county for another one. The problem? You need a minimum of 12 members to start a division. Cahill had rounded up a few prospective members—but he needed more.

“Jimmy had called me and asked him about it, and I kinda said, ‘I’m doing this and doing that. But he got to my dad. He knew my dad. Finally, after a couple of weeks or a a month of this, my dad called me, and said, ‘C’mon. we’re going to join.”

Almost immediately, the division grew by leaps and bounds. Murray became the division’s first secretary, and he continued to assume leadership roles in the nascent division. The two Murrays assumed prominent roles. So prominent, in fact, that when the division started to work on the Montgomery County St. Patrick’s Day parade, John “Jay” Murray, Jr., became grand marshal in 1995.

Murray went on to become one of the founders of the division’s pipe band. He learned how to play the pipes, and he brought along his brothers, Bernie and Mike, who became drummers.

As it happens, Murray’s father stimulated his interest in piping. “My dad had taken me a few times to hear pipe bands when I was a kid. It always stuck with me. I always had a love for it, so I did it. Then my oldest son Sean said, ‘I’d like to do that, too.’ I was here, and then he came along not too long after.”

Murray has enjoyed a good life, surrounded by loving family and friends, but hard times came late in 2013, when his wife Donna passed away. He has good days and bad days. The night we spoke, he admitted, was a bad day.

The days immediately following his wife’s death were especially hard.

Then came the division’s annual Appreciation Day on December 21. Murray didn’t want to go, but his sons, Shane, Casey and Sean, talked him into it. “I hadn’t been around since my wife passed. My kids ganged up on me and said, ‘C’mon, dad you haven’t been out. You should go.’”

Traditionally, the grand marshal is announced at Appreciation Day, which Murray knew all too well, since he had been parade chairman. The sons knew what was up, but Murray had no idea.

“The guy doing the announcing was the parade chairman, Jimmy Gallagher. I was on the police force with Jimmy when he first came on. He was still in uniform. I broke him in. We’ve been good friends ever since. First, he announced a couple of awards for something or other … and then he looks at me, and then he looks away, and then he announces me. I was flabbergasted.”

It was a much needed lift that at least temporarily eased some of the pain. It’s hard, but he manages to count his blessings.

“It’s an honor. I know the things that go into nominating someone who is deserving. We’ve had some really good ones—all nice guys, all decent guys. It feels real good to know they must think you’re a really nice guy too. It’s nice to be loved.”

And once again, Murray’s thoughts turn to his pop. “I knew what they thought of him. It feels good in my heart to know that they think his son deserved it, too.”

The Montgomery County parade marches down Fayette Street in Conshohocken on March 15, starting at 2 p.m.

February 28, 2014 by Jeff Meade

People

Ten Years Is the Charm

One happy baby enjoys the parade.

A little over 10 years ago, Jim Logue had a brainstorm: Hey, kids, let’s have a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Burlington County.

Logue didn’t know what he was getting himself into. He enlisted the aid of a friend, Scott Mahoney, who didn’t have a clue, either.

That first year, it was a pretty short parade, with just 17 units. When the 10th anniversary parade steps off tomorrow in downtown Mount Holly, in the neighborhood of 60 units will march down High Street, including pipe bands, local paddy rock bands on flatbeds, Irish dance schools, AOH divisions, and more.

Every year, of course, there’s a grand marshal. This year will be two: the two determined young fellas who co-founded the parade.

“Jim and l and I were both members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians Tommy Maguire Division,” says Mahoney. “It was my first experience with the AOH. Right away, Jim was really into the idea of having a parade. I just went along for the ride.”

Scott Mahoney

Logue and Mahoney have been instrumental in picking grand marshals year after year. Logue says the parade committee had often suggested that the two consider accepting the honor, but Logue always declined. Just running the parade was a massive undertaking, months in the planning. “We were just trying to keep things together. It never crossed our minds.”

Mahoney laughs when he recalls how the honor came their way. In the beginning, when they weren’t sure whether the parade would take off, they kidded other people on the committee about it. “We had kind of joked around about it. We said, if we make it to 10 years, we’ll be grand marshals. Once we mentioned it, people remembered.”

Logue says they kind of knew what was going on. Still, he says, being named grand marshal is a great honor—particularly when he thinks of all the grand marshals who went before.

His partner concurs.

Jim Logue

“We have had some genuinely good people leading our parade. Being selected as grand marshal is something I’ll always remember, for sure.”

Typically, Logue emcees the parade from a platform at the bottom of the parade route. This year, he’s just going to sit back, take it all in—and try to relax.

“I’ll still be thinking: Is everything under control? The last few years, we got more and more people involved in the parade, and I know it’s gonna be even smoother this year. But still, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking: Is this gonna happen?”

Parade details here.

February 28, 2014 by Jeff Meade

News

A Big Day for Montco Irish

Joe McDonnell and Peanut

Did our eyes deceive us, or did the Montgomery County St. Patrick’s Day Parade just get even bigger?

Mummers, pipers, cheerleaders, buglers, firefighters, dancers … they all marched down Fayette Street in Conshohocken on Saturday in profusion.

Grand Marshal Jim Flood was one of the first marchers down the street, after which they all seemed to keep coming.

As always, there were big crowds. It’s a good bet that the weather—sunny, if a bit on the cool side—helped bring out the parade-goers.

We shot plenty of photos of the parade.

Check them out.

March 16, 2012 by Jeff Meade

People

A Blessing for a Peacemaker

Marie Hempsey

Every summer, “marching season” comes to Northern Ireland. For several weeks, members of the Protestant unionist Orange Order parade through towns and cities, often through politically sensitive Catholic and nationalist neighborhoods. This contentious time of year culminates in a torrent of parades on July 12, celebrating Protestant King William of Orange’s bloody victory over the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

All of this drama plays out an ocean away, but for the 2012 Burlington County St. Patrick’s Day grand marshal, Marie Brady Hempsey of West Deptford, N.J., this divisive tradition strikes close to home, and for two reasons. First, because she’s the child of a Catholic father and a Protestant mother, both first-generation Irish; and second, because she is the mid-Atlantic coordinator for Project Children, which every summer transports more than 20 kids out of Northern Ireland to the Delaware Valley for a different kind of season—a season of peace.

(Note to readers: The Burlington County parade, originally scheduled for March 3, has been postponed to March 31, due to the threat of heavy rains and thunder.)

Hempsey, a Realtor and the mother of five, comes by her deep understanding of Northern Ireland divisions as a result of early childhood experience. Her father James Brady of Philadelphia’s Fairmount section and mother Florence (née McKnight) from Southwest Philadelphia met in October 1961 and eloped in January 1962. The Bradys embraced Florence, but the union didn’t go down well among the McKnights.

“It upset my mother’s parents more, to be honest with you,” says Hempsey. “My dad’s parents were deceased, but his family were much more accepting of her. Ultimately, the families did not get along. My grandmother (Mary McKnight, from Bushmills, County Antrim) was very hard-nosed against my father. It kind of destroyed my family, I didn’t get to know my cousins. I’m getting to know them now, and I know what wonderful people they are, but it took a while.”

Religious divisions were nowhere evident within her immediate family. In fact, Hempsey was brought up with no religious preference; she was left to decide for herself.

Decide she did in 1990, when her third child Kelly was very ill with a rare autoimmune disease that affected her lungs and her crippled her ability to breathe. “They had to put her on a vent, and people said she needed to be baptized,” Hempsey recalled. “I had a wonderful family and husband (Phi), but I knew something was missing. Father (James) Curran came to the house, and I asked him what I could do. He said, ‘Picture Jesus holding her,’ and I did. “That was my epiphany. I just knew I was meant to be a Catholic.”

Kelly’s survived the ordeal, by the way.

One life-changing experience would be enough for most people, but one more awaited Hempsey. It came in 1995, when she and her family were attending an Irish festival in Gloucester City. A nun by the name of Sister Frances Kirk, then the local coordinator for Project Children, was handing out fliers when she suddenly dropped them. Hempsey, her husband and the kids chased them all down and returned them to their rightful owner.

Before Hempsey knew it, she found herself pumping Sister Frances for information about Project Children. “I asked her about it, and when she told me, I said, ‘I want to do that!’ She said, ‘Send me an application and we’ll see what we can do.’”

A few years went by before the Hempseys were approved to host kids from Northern Ireland for the summer. Hempsey suspects Sister Frances held back because she knew there were five kids in the house already. “It probably looked to her like I already had my hands full.”

The Hempseys became a host family in 2000, taking in up to four kids every summer since, most of them multiple times, 11 kids in all. This summer, they’ll take in three kids, making for one packed household. Hempsey takes it in stride. “We’re a little crazy … fun crazy.”

Right from the start, Hempsey knew she was doing the right thing.

“For some reason, we always get the kids who are the ‘real deal.’ They have parents in prison, or had grandparents who were martyred. They send us a lot of kids from Belfast and Derry and Armagh.

“A lot of the kids’ parents we talk to say they can’t afford to take them away somewhere over the summer. If you’re a kid living in live in Ardoyne during marching season, you don’t get much of a summer. You know the parades are coming.”

Hosting fulfilled a need for Hempsey, a way to restore a bit of sanity to the lives of deserving kids. She wanted to do more.

From the start, Hempsey was an enthusiastic supporter of Project Children, and that enthusiasm evidently impressed Sister Frances. In 2004, Sister handed off the coordinator role to Hempsey.

“She said she prayed and prayed for someone to have the passion and drive to do this, and ‘God sent her me.’ That’s the best compliment I could have received.”

Given a lifetime of accomplishment and dedication to Irish causes—Hempsey is also historian and chairperson of immigration and legislation for the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians Camden County Division 1—it perhaps should not be very surprising that she was selected as this year’s Burlington County grand marshal. And the first woman grand marshal in the parade’s seven-year history, at that.

Really, only one person was surprised: Hempsey herself.

Now that it’s all sunk in, Hempsey plans to just enjoy and treasure the moment.

“I was absolutely shocked,” she says. “When I was told I was the grand marshal, I just laughed. I said, ‘What, are you kidding me?’ I’m honored. I really am.”

———

You can help support Project Children by attending the group’s annual benefit April 21 at the Richard T. Rossiter Memorial Hall in National Park. Tickets are $30. Call Hempsey at 609-330-4484 for details.

February 26, 2012 by Jeff Meade

People

A Generous Heart at the Heart of The Montco Parade

2012 Montgomery County Grand Marshal Jim Flood

In its early years, the Ancient Order of Hibernians’ Notre Dame Division got to know the inside of firehouses pretty well. Launched in 1989, the Montgomery County division had no home of its own, so meetings were typically held within shouting distance of pumpers and ladder trucks.

Attorney Jim Flood joined the division in 1993, a couple of years after moving from Bucks to Montgomery County. Very active from the start, even as a relative newbie, he took an interest in the division’s continuing state of homelessness.

“We had always had a building fund, but it was raising very little money. So a group of us went out on a limb and hired the Wolfe Tones for a benefit concert. If that had failed, it would have been a huge disaster for us. Luckily, we raised $15,000.”

That large infusion of cash helped turn the dream of a home into a reality. The division bought the former Marine Corps League hall on Jefferson Street in Swedesburg, Upper Merion Township, in 1996. Spurred on by Flood, who was by then on the board of directors, together with other members, the division paid off the mortgage six years later.

That’s just one example of Jim Flood’s level of commitment. His fellow Hibernians can think of plenty more.

Flood spearheaded the division’s Catholic high school scholarship. He runs the golf outing. Outside of the division, he created a “Coats for Kids” drive that benefits poor children. He helps the needy by donating time to the Montgomery County Legal Aid Society and representing children through the Montgomery County Child Advocacy Project. Flood and his wife Helen have also raised funds to support their parish school (St. Helena’s), the CYO and the church construction.

Flood has a well-deserved reputation for being a “go-to” guy, and in recognition of his hard work and devotion, the division is going to him again: this time to ask him to serve as grand marshal of the 2012 Montgomery County St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

His selection came as a shock.

“I didn’t even know I’d been nominated. The division held a membership appreciation day on December 16, and my wife are I were there; that’s when I found out. During a break in the music, the chairman of the parade committee said ‘I’d like to announce the grand marshal for the 2012 parade.’ The he announced it was me. I was floored.”

Perhaps it was because Flood tends not to draw attention to his efforts that he was so surprised. His AOH brothers know that when it comes to good works, Flood is the kind of guy who takes to heart one of the key lessons of the Gospel, courtesy of Matthew 6:3: When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And maybe it’s because Flood appears not to think twice about helping his friends and those who are less fortunate than he; it’s just what you do. It’s not something you think about.

The coat drive is a good example of Flood’s charitable mindset. “We started ‘Coats for Kids’ when my son Will, who is now a junior in high school, had a fifth grade service project,” Flood recalls. “I tried to teach him that a lot of kids don’t just wear coats during the day to keep them warm; they also wear them to bed.”

With permission granted by the principal, Flood and his son installed bins in the school to collect coats. The drive turned out to be a success. The following year, Will asked to do it again. Flood incorporated “Coats for Kids” and made him on the president. “Coats for Kids” continues on at St. Joe’s Prep, where Will now attends, and at St. Helena’s. Flood’s daughter Kyra is also involved.

When asked where he gets his sense of social responsibility, he doesn’t have to look far for inspiration: his parents William and Jacqueline.

“I guess it was instilled in me as a child—you do for others,” he says. “It’s the old ‘time, talent and treasure’ idea. Not everybody can give all three, but most people can give at least one or two.”

As he heads down Fayette Street in Conshohocken on March 10 wearing his grand marshal sash, Flood plans to just enjoy himself in the company of his friends, family and fellow Hibernians. And he’ll remember his parents, who were such an inspiration and so proud of their Irish heritage: “I just wish my mother and father could have been there to see me.”

February 17, 2012 by Jeff Meade

News

Conshy Parade is Looking for Next Grand Marshal

Spreading good cheer down Fayette Street.

Yes, St. Patrick’s Day 2012 is still months away. If you’re like the rest of us, you’ve only just begun to think about Christmas.

The same cannot be said for the organizers of the local St. Patrick’s Day parades, who are already thinking well ahead … including the members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians Division 1 who stage the big Montgomery County parade in Conshohocken, set for March 10.

Based in Swedesburg, the division is already searching for someone special to lead the parade. What’s more, if you know someone who’d make a great grand marshal, better let the division know soon. The deadline for nominations is December 9.

Here are the rules, according to parade committee spokesman Pete Hand. The nominee must:

Live in Montgomery County
Have contributed to the local Irish community, or the broader community
Be of Irish descent

“We’re looking for someone who’s really involved in the community, and in local organizations like the Ancient Order of Hibernians, CYO, the church, the fire company, somebody who actively promotes Irish culture … someone outgoing like that,” says Hand.

Whoever wins will have big shoes to fill. Two past grand marshals, former Conshohocken police chief Jim Dougherty and Verne T. Leedom, former drum major of Irish Thunder Pipes & Drums, passed away this past year. They pretty much set the standard.

So far, the division has received a few nominees, says Hand (himself a former grand marshal). He can’t say whose hats are in the ring. “I don’t know who they are … the nominations come in sealed envelopes.”

If you want to nominate someone, send a letter to:

St. Patrick’s Parade Committee
“Attention Grand Marshal”
342 Jefferson St.
Swedesburg, Pa 19405

The next grand marshal will be named on December 17, the division’s Member Appreciation Day. The Grand Marshal’s Ball will be held March 3 at the Jeffersonville Golf Club Banquet Hall.

November 25, 2011 by Jeff Meade

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