eileen ivers fiddles around, up and down

A JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY IRISH & IRISH AMERICAN AFFAIRS
JUN/JUL 2003 VOL. 4 ISSUE 1
EILEEN IVERS FIDDLES AROUND, UP AND DOWN
....AND MICHAEL MARTIN MURPHEY RIDES 'EM COWBOY: DENNIS LEHANE, HUGO HAMILTON AND JOSEPH
O'CONNOR CHAT BOOKS; THE IRISH TAKE A DIVE; AND
BROTHER PLAYS A TUNE.
2
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
Irish American Post
Publisher/Executive Editor
Martin Hintz
Eileen Ivers Fiddles Around, Up and Down
By Jason Kuban
6
Life on the Fleadh Road
By Larry Kirwan
9
The Abject Missioner, Confirmation and the Need for Resolve
By Ted Crowley
11
Down into the Depths of Ireland's Rockbound Coast
By Pól Ó Conghaile
12
The Census Taker
A short story by Michael Corrigan
14
O'Connor Looks to Past to Capture Readers in Star of the Sea
By Peter Schmidtke
16
Cowboy Singer Murphey Touches on Gaelic Roots
By Martin Hintz
19
Northern Ireland; Truth Be Told
By Michael Cummings
21
Film
Dan Hintz
Brother Keeps It All in a Family
By Adam Friedrich
22
The Irish American Post is a journal of
contemporary Irish and Irish American
affairs. It is published by The Irish
American Post of Milwaukee, WI 53202.
Photos Capture Irish Town Life
23
More Homesick Than Seasick
By Adam Friedrich
24
Gritty 'Shutter Island' the Latest Thriller from Dennis Lehane
By Peter Schmidtke
26
The Lights That Will Never Go Out
By Gerard McDonagh
28
Editor-in-Chief
Louis Fortis
Managing Editor
Ed Garvey
Book Editor
Martin Russell
Music Writer
Deric Green
For details on news, advertising or
subscriptions, contact:
The Irish American Post
301 N. Water Street, 3rd Floor
Milwaukee, WI 53202
Phone: 414-273-8132
FAX: 414-273-8196
E-Mail: [email protected]
Cover Photo
Eileen Ivers fiddles around, up and down during a
stopover in Milwaukee during the American
Fleadh Tour.
Photo by John Alley, Irish American Post
www.IrishAmericanPost.com
Publisher’s Comments
Music is in the air, as summer festivals again spark the entertainment scene in Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Newport, Kansas
City and many other cities. Get out there and have a great time.
The Orange marching season in Northern Ireland doesn't have near the charm as a well-rounded musical event. Yet as of mid-July,
there have been few -- if any -- serious disturbances scarring the landscape. That's good, a really welcome relief for all sides of the
political-cultural spectrum in the North. Let's hope that this might be a signal for more and more peaceful compromise.
So, now it's time to find a seat in front of the stage, order up a refreshing beverage, apply the sunscreen oil and get down for some
grand Irish boogie. See ya all at the ticket booth.
Jun/Jul 2003
Irish American Post
— Martin Hintz, publisher3
Now available for the first time
Your own Celtic Cross
for your garden or backyard
Call Irish New Orleans
at 504-309-3303
Or visit www.Irish-NewOrleans.com
4
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
A Last Bridge
At this, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month
of 1918; the war to end all wars will end;
will end a hell more hell than the doubt of heaven.
Private Seamus Pearce makes a last mad battle dash
at the last Hun machine gun,
and in that hollow spread of space
shards of fury ravage his legs, his arms, his lungs,
his face,
and time becomes not mere seconds, nor minutes
nor hours, but a bridge where Being is ransomed
of memory...
such a long-long way from Tipperary
such a long way from his home
In time begrudging prayer, Private Seamus Pierce
beseeches:
"be-jaysus, don't take me now,
here in this hour of Your hope."
After all this mayhem and murder
he prays,
"there must be a heaven
for this end must sanctify our means."
Outside him,
there is an unfathomable whisper on the wind,
it builds and builds and builds
as it floats over thousands of miles of bloody battlegrounds
surging up from the rat infested trenches
quaking the earth itself,
an ascending tidal wave of joy
till all that is all of the War to End All Wars
is one thunderous crescendo the whole world cheers at once....
HURRAHHHHHHH....
Private Seamus Pearce pleads not to die,
such a long-long way from Tipperary
such a long way from his home...
An order is barked into the hushed cusp of his entreaty.
"Pearce, take four of your Irish rangers
and secure that bridge!"
One last meaningless bridge between enemies
forsworn to peace...
How, at this time, in this place can such a call to arms
be important?
Or is it only for the honor and glory
of an officious British officer
contaminated by the poisoning sense of his own failure
in this war, or is it the officer's wish to avenge
his brother's death while battling the Irish insurrectionists,
at the wrong place...a stray Dublin street
at the wrong time...Easter week 1916.
Death is a scavenging cur starving for every morsel
of mortality,
at every scrap heap of history,
for every waste in time.
The war is over, and he is just another name on the
British army casualty list:
Private Seamus Pearce
Connaught Rangers
...and Irishman
condemned to historical oblivion.
he never heard the cheer
nor all the church bells on the Western Front
ring-singing out...
such a long-long way from Tipperary
such a long way from his home
— Denis Regan
It is time to attend to the bridge
Jun/Jul 2003
Irish American Post
5
Eileen Ivers fiddles around, up and down
By Jason Kuban
A long, sad note cries from her blue
violin, slicing through the heat like a
sword through velvet. The vigor of
Eileen Ivers and her band, Immigrant
Soul, pulls her crowd together like a
lighthouse summoning a wayward fleet.
Such is the scene when the six-piece
band boards the Piggly Wiggly stage at
Milwaukee's Summerfest the last day of
June and sets hands clapping and feet
stomping.
Ivers Speaks Out
Violinist Eileen Ivers, front person of
Immigrant Soul, then speaks about the
wide range of venues where the band
plays. In addition to festivals, Her group
has played more formally with symphonies
and at performing art centers. Immigrant
Soul has played with the Boston Pops on
PBS and with the National Symphony
Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. Be it to
an auditorium of suit and ties, or a
Photos by John Alley, Irish American Post lakeshore of t-shirts and sandals, Ivers and
Someone grab some anchor bolts, the benches were hopping off
Immigrant
Soul
invite
these
challenges.
the ground!
Ivers prefers the informal scene of festivals, although she
Ivers and Immigrant Soul, along with Black 47, Hothouse
considers it an honor to play alongside symphonies. "It's part of
Flowers, Saw Doctors and several other Irish performers are
Immigrant Soul's nature to be compatible to both," she explains,
part of the American Fleadh Tour, hitting major cities coast-toadding that it is the wide array of musical backgrounds
coast. The Milwaukee gig is in the middle of the high-juiced
comprising the band that makes it appealing to such wide
jaunt
audiences.
Backstage, Ivan Goff — the pipe and flute player for Immigrant
Soul — wipes
down
his
pipes
and
tucks
them
neatly
into
their case. He
p r e f e r s
touring with
groups, rather
than playing
solo, because
a
band
provides more
of a communal and supportive atmosphere.
Goff says the most stressful part of touring is stepping off of the
bus minutes before a show starts. Other times when touring
becomes stressful, he says goes off into a corner by himself and
plays his flute. Overhearing his secret, the pack of Irish
musicians around him laugh. But Goff is no loner. He's busy
maintaining his title as the Fleadh Tour Foosball Champion.
Immigrant Soul bassist Emanuel Chulo Gatewood doesn't let
much get in the way of his performance. To prepare himself for
a gig, Gatewood simply stays quiet. "You got to be quiet inside,
get rid of any ego barrier and let the voice come out through the
music," he emphasizes. Gatewood therefore can focus on "that
which is always there: the music." He adds, "Just shut up and
let the spirit play."
6
For instance, Ivers says that the group's Latin and African
element draws in a hip hop crowd that otherwise would be less
exposed to world music, much less the strains of folk or
bluegrass that filter through her sound.
With a degree in mathematics, Ivers admits she never dreamed
of having a music career. She laughs, saying she once imagined
working for NASA. Ivers dispels the rumor that mathematicians
cannot be musically creative. "Math skills facilitate the creative
process because they aid in critical and analytical thinking,
which are powerful creative tools," she points out.
Recently, Zeta Music has sought Ivers' out to develop a
signature series violin crafted to her specs.
Black 47 Takes the Stage
Soon after Immigrant Soul wrapped its set up, Black 47 took
the stage, fortified with percussion, bass, trombone, tenor and
soprano saxes. Front man Larry Kirwan came on armed with a
Stratocaster
and an old,
beat-up
Fender amp
from
the
early '60s.
Black 47's
style
of
music may
not summon
the
same
f o o t -
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
s t o m p i n g
response
as
Immigrant Soul,
b u t
i t s
improvising
musical nature
drives
the
audience's
imagination to a
state of militant
loyalty.
It takes minimal effort for Kirwan to get the first few rows on
their collective feet. The fans poise like a battalion, extending
right arms up and forward in salute as the drums slow to a
marching beat. But there's always an element of surprise with
Black 47, that improv nature lurks mischievously in the near
future, ready to spin the musicians into a new groove.
In fact, the audience is surprised when the march recedes and
Black 47 bursts into "When the Saints Come Marching In."
Then the same number takes another unexpected turn, and
closes with a few romping bars of classic American R&B
boogie-woogie.
Black 47 bassist Andrew Goodsight laughs after the upbeat
show. When asked if he had any pre-show rituals, Goodsight
laughs and says, "I'll have to talk to my lawyer before I can
answer that one!" Obviously, Goodsight relies on his humor
when things get stressful. For Goodsight, hardest part of touring
is the driving from gig to gig and all the sitting around waiting
to go on stage. Goodsight rarely writes material when on the
road. The hustle-bustle of touring gives him little chance for
reflection, he confirms. Though he refrains from drinking
alcohol at home, Goodsight admits that he drinks, eats worse
and sleeps less when on the road.
Band Tours Year Round
Black 47 tours year round, mostly on a three-day-on, four-dayoff schedule. Within this time frame, the band sees a lot of
different venues. Goodsight says that Black 47 plays to
audiences ranging in size from 50
people at a bar and up to 7,000 at
outdoor venues. "I don't have a
venue preference, it's all about the
crowd," he affirms, adding that
fan reaction is what makes or
breaks the gig. "The more positive
the response, the bigger the
payoff," he says, going on to state
that Summerfest is among his best
touring experiences.
Black 47 founder Kirwan prepares
for gigs sometimes with yoga and
other times with a beer or shot of
whiskey. His trick is to eliminate
any nerves. "No nerves," says Kirwan, "thinking is a
distraction, I must stop thinking in order to be creative."
Jun/Jul 2003
For Kirwan, the most stressful part of touring is the short period
just before going on stage. It is a time when he has to transform
himself from an ordinary guy into a rock and roll showman.
Kirwan says that it's a pact among other members of Black 47
to roll with the changes.
"There's no smile required to be in this band," he says. "But try
to take however you're feeling that day and turn it into energy
onstage." When things become stressful, Kirwan simply
dismisses the challenge as being a part of the business.
Scope Has Not Changed
Kirwan proudly says that the original scope in which Black 47
was founded has not changed. He
still believes that music can
facilitate social and political change.
Kirwan also incorporates his theater
background into his music.
"Every Black 47 song is a small
play, with a character, all of which
must be interpreted," says Kirwan.
On Black 47's web page, Kirwan
calls the band's early days "sexy,
booze-driven marathons." When
asked whether this description still
applies, Kirwan smiles and says, "Not so much anymore."
Black 47 used to do up to four sets a night but now the most
they do is a "double header," which consists of an afternoon and
evening set. Kirwan says, "If there's an audience I'll play in a
pig sty."
In addition to Black 47's reduction of performances per day,
Kirwan says his lifestyle has taken a turn for the better. He
watches himself on the road, drinks less than he used to and
sometimes spends nights in the hotel staring at the ceiling. The
years have helped Kirwan realize that he cannot give the
audience their dollars worth if he parties like a rock star every
night.
Kirwan is a road warrior who occasionally misses his relatives
back in Ireland. Otherwise, he loves being on the road. Every
city is a home, there are places all over where he can go and be
welcomed by someone he knows, he says.
"I'm like Dylan in that sense," says Kirwan. "He loved being on
that fuckin' bus."
Eileen Ivers' Summertime Schedule:
July
10 – Falun, Sweden Falun Festival
12 – Vikedal, Norway Vikedal Festival
17 – Ramapo, NJ Ramapo College
18 – East Greenwich, RI
19 – Mashpee, MA Boch Center
21 – Ocean City, NJ Ocean City Music Pier
29 – Cleveland, OH Cain Park Summer Arts Series
Irish American Post
7
August
01 – Steamboat Springs, CO Strings Music Tent
02 – Arvada, CO Arvada Center Amphitheatre
03 – Copper Mountain, CO Copper Mountain Ski Resort
04 – Santa Fe, NM Lensic Theater
10 – Lorient, France Festival Interceltique
12 – Galway, Ireland Town Hall Theater
13 – Dublin, Ireland National Concert Hall
17 – Dundee, NY Glenora Wine Cellars
21 – Alexandria, VA The Birchmere
22 – Orkney Springs, VA Shenandoah Valley Music Festival
23 – Lowell, MA Boarding House Park
25 – Lenox, MA Tanglewood Boston Pops Orchestra –
29 – Tonder, Denmark Tonder Festival
30 – Tonder, Denmark Tonder Festival
31 – Tonder, Denmark Tonder Festival
Black 47 Schedule:
July 12 — Troy Brewery, Troy, NY (with The Fabulous
Ruffians)
July 13 — Solarfest, Green Mountain College, 1 College
Circle, Poultney, Vt
July 15 — Port Jefferson Irish Festival, Long Island, NY
(Jeanie Johnston Docking)
July 18 — South Street Seaport Music Festival, Pier 17 @
Fulton St. 6PM. 212-SEAPORT
www.seaportmusicfestival.com Pre-show appearance at J&R
Music, Park Row, NYC
July 19 — Ocean Mist, Matunuck, RI
July 25 — Beachcomber, Quincy, MA
www.beachcomberquincy.com
July 26 — Cavanaugh's River Deck, Philadelphia, PA
Aug 2 — Stephen's Talk House, Amagansett, Long Island, NY
Aug 8 — Delaney's Irish Ale & Steak House, 980 Route 6,
Greenville, NY 12771 (845) 856-6435 (for tickets 845-8582917
Aug 9 — John Boyle O'Reilly Festival, Springfield, MA
Aug 11-28 — Vacation
Aug 29 — Blackthorn, E. Durham, NY
Aug 30 — Blackthorn, E. Durham, NY
Aug 31 — On The Waterfront Festival, Rockford, IL (815)
964-4388
Sept 5 — Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
Sept 13 — TBA
Sept 20 — Altamont 2000 Festival, Albany, NY
Oct 4 — Hoboken, NJ
Nov 13 — Roisin Dubh, Galway, Ireland 091 586540 Tickets:
Mulligan 091 564961 or Zhivago 091 509960
Nov 14 — Whelans, Wexford St., Dublin (01) 4780766
Tickets: Ticket Master: 0818719300 or www.ticketmaster.ie
Nov 15 — Whelan's, Wexford St., Dublin (As above)
Nov 16 — Talbot Hotel, Wexford, Tickets: Whites For Music
053 22067
Nov 18 — The Gleneagle Hotel, Killarney Telephone (064)
71555
Nov 28 — Bodle's Opera House, Chester, NY
8
Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul
Celebrate Album Release With
National Tour
Tour to include seven dates as part of American Fleadh
Festival
Featuring a Celtic music infused with a global sound, Eileen
Ivers & Immigrant Soul announce their 2003 spring/summer
tour in support of their self-titled release on KOCH Records.
The tour will include 7 dates as part of the American Fleadh
Festival.
Nine-time All-Ireland champion Eileen Ivers has established
herself as the pre-eminent exponent of the Irish fiddle in the
world today. The violin virtuoso who has an amazing array of
accomplishments including headline tours, recording credits
on more than 80 contemporary and traditional albums,
numerous movie scores, and affiliations with the London
Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony at The Kennedy
Center, Boston Pops, the musical star of Riverdance, The
Chieftains, Paula Cole, Patti Smith, Hall and Oates, and
Cherish the Ladies,
In 1999, Ivers formed Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul to
present her signature sound, which encompasses Irish
instrumentalists, soulful American vocals and a mix of
African and Latin percussion and bass. Their heart-pumping,
show-stopping live performances continuously receive
accolades from audiences of all ages and rave reviews
worldwide.
As part of their 2003 tour, Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul will
perform seven dates for the American Fleadh Festival. These
dates showcase the best of contemporary Celtic music. Also
appearing on the bill is Black 47, Hothouse Flowers and Saw
Doctors.
Here's what the critics have said about Eileen Ivers’ dynamic
live performances:
"The Eileen Ivers band [& Immigrant Soul] electrified a
familiar repertory, merging the Celtic and African diasporas...
she made her instrument sound like Jimi Hendrix's guitar."
— Neil Strauss, The New York Times
"(Ivers) launched into one of her amazing accelerando
takeoffs that leaves the earth behind…She has charisma and
technique to burn, but she isn't playing into a mirror ? it is all
about tradition and renewal … the audience went wild."
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe
"The music that had the capacity audience leaping to its feet
and clapping in unison was...Ivers’ incredible fiddling."
— Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
Letters Home
Life on the Fleadh Road
By Larry Kirwan
Greetings from the road. We're now well into the the second
week of the American Fleadh tour. I'm writing this while
moving on to Buffalo. It's been an intense and whirlwindexperience. Some great music from some great bands: Flogging
Molly, The Saw Doctors, Black 47, Hothouse Flowers, Eileen
Ivers and Immigrant Soul, The Prodigals and O'Malley's March.
We've already played Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston,
Meadowlands NJ, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Buffalo,
Milwaukee, Chicago and Columbus lie ahead. It still seems
amazing that a sleep-deprived idea, born last year at Gaelic
Park in Chicago, is now a reality taken seriously by many
thousands of people.
Mike Farrahger in The Irish Voice superbly sums up the
general mood of the American Fleadh while backstage at the
Meadowlands.
Go www.irishvoice.com for his take on things.
But let's just say that the interaction between players themselves
and listeners, in general, has been inspiring and augurs well for
the future and special nature of this event. I've seen all these
bands many times. I can vouch that the American Fleadh has
brought out new elements and peaks in their performance.
And now the rain has finally stopped, South East Pennsylvania
is green and luscious as we speed by. It's always strange for me
leaving Pittsburgh, seeing the highway sign for Wexford —
wondering about the emigrants from my hometown who came
to and named this area
Were they lonely in this strange new land? Did they miss the
simple certainties of home? Did they eventually fit in, or
continue westwards like so many others? I never have time to
stop and inquire. Always moving — the next gig, the next city,
the next audience, the next...
But now the land is warm and sunny — the countryside dotted
with little fundamentalist churches full of their own
certainties — the accents are almost southern — not even a
trace of the staccato Wexford drawl that I grew up with and
remember.
But I digress. With six shows under our belts, the American
Fleadh is already somewhat of a success and seems to have
found a spot in many people's hearts. With a bit of a push, we'll
do it again next year — perhaps, in your city. Already, we're
thinking of new bands and performers to bring aboard.
How about Richard Thompson? Arguably, the founder of Celtic
Rock — what a blast to hear him reprise some of the songs and
Jun/Jul 2003
music that he pioneered
with Fairport Convention.
How about a Fairport
Convention reunion with
Richard? Sadly, there's
way to bring back the
great Sandy Denny, but
how about Dolores Keane
singing "Who Knows
Where the Time Goes?"
How about Boston's
D rop ki c k M u rp h ys
blowing the roofs off all
the venues? Ashley
MacIsaacs fiddling up a
Larry Kirwan
storm? Shane showing
how he can be imitated but
not surpassed? Damien Rice who may be a superstar by this
time next year? What do you think? Let me know? I'm always
amazed at how big the tent is for Irish/Celtic type music.
Any other ideas that might add to the potency of the Fleadh are
welcome too. Constructive criticism about the shows you've
seen. I have many, myself, still I'd love to hear yours. But
whatever you do, come out and support the remaining shows.
You're the ones who make this type of event possible, and your
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2003/2004 Now Available
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While paid entrants will receive their complementary
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Irish American Post
9
Milwaukee Irish Fest Features Another
Blockbuster Music Line-Up
At Milwaukee Irish Fest, Aug. 14 to 17, 15 stages will come
alive with the latest and greatest in Irish and Irish American
entertainment. The world's largest Irish festival promises another blockbuster entertainment experience in 2003.
"Each year we try to bring back popular talent while mixing in
the best new talent, and we've really achieved that goal this
year," says Chuck Ward, Irish Fest entertainment coordinator.
"It's going to be a very exciting festival."
Returning to Milwaukee Irish Fest's stages are some of the most
popular Irish and Irish American performers, including Tommy
Makem, Leahy, Gaelic Storm, Altan and La Bottine Souriante.
Mix them with festival newcomers like Barra MacNeils, Slainte
Mhath, Flook, The Cottars and Afro Celts, and it's a recipe for
non-stop music and fun, according to Ward.
"Though our 2003 entertainers offer very diverse music styles,
they all have one thing in common — a lot of energy!" says
Barry Stapleton, Milwaukee Irish Fest rock stage coordinator
and director of the John J. Ward Irish Music Archives at the
Irish Fest Center.
"What's interesting is that quite a few bands are coming from
Canada this year, including Barra MacNeils, Leahy, The
Clumsy Lovers (Canada), La Bottine Souriante, Evans & Doherty, and Slainte Mhath. Canada has a tradition of great folk
fests and great folk fest bands, and those coming to Irish Fest
have developed a strong stage presence. They know how to
communicate with the crowd."
Milwaukee Irish Fest kicks off Thursday night, Aug. 14, with a
Hooley and preview performances by several groups, including
Flook, Brigid's Cross and Slainte Mhath, which is fast becoming known for its folk-rock approach to Scottish dance music.
Interestingly, the band members are the sons and daughters of
the famed sibling band Barra MacNeils, also performing at Milwaukee Irish Fest on Aug. 14 and throughout the weekend.
Groups such as the McPeake Family, Dublin City Ramblers,
Carbon Leaf, Waking Maggie and Fonnmhor will perform several times during the four-day festival, as will Brendan Nolan
and Welsh harpist Robin Huw Bowen.
Milwaukee Irish Fest goers have always found great diversity in
the festival's entertainment offering, and the 2003 festival
should live up to that popular tradition:
* Altan, North Cregg with Karan Casey, Charlie Piggott, Liz
Carroll and Tommy Peoples are all on the "must-see" list for
those who favor traditional Irish music, while Irish tenor fans
will be sure to enjoy Irish tenor Daryl Simpson's encore performance.
*Previously known as the Afro Celt Sound System, the
Grammy-nominated Afro Celts make their debut at Irish Fest
this year. Fans will recognize the group's unique blend of Celtic
singing, Irish melodies and West African rhythms on the soundtrack of the 2002 film Gangs of New York.
*With his blend of comedy and musical talent, balladeer Seamus Kennedy always puts on a show that has the audience
laughing and singing along.
*Spirited steppers Cashel Dennehy Irish Dancers, Glencastle
Irish Dancers and Trinity Dance Academy will perform, while
fest-goers can dance to the music of Barefield Ceili Band, Public House Ceili Band and
*Popular local groups Blarney and Theiss & O'Connor return
this year, as do Anam Ri, Leahy's Luck, Baal Tinne, Mary Ann
Miller and The Jeff Ward Band.
*The Irish Fest Choir and the Omagh Community Choir will
partner for several performances. After touring on the east coast
of the United States for several days preceding Milwaukee Irish
Fest, the choirs will participate in an international youth exchange including an extended stay in Milwaukee for Irish
youth.
"Irish and Irish American music is very popular with the
younger generations, and that trend is reflected in some of the
groups coming to Milwaukee Irish Fest," says Milwaukee Irish
Fest Executive Director Jane Anderson. "All of the members of
the Barefield Ceili Band, the Omagh Community Choir, The
Cottars and our own Irish Fest Choir are still in
"More than 50 groups will be performing at Irish Fest this year,
so there's a great blend of contemporary, traditional, folk and
rock music," adds Ward. "There's really something for everyone
to enjoy."
For more information on all of the entertainers coming to Irish
Fest in 2003, visit www.irishfest.com.
It has been said that advertising is only successful
if it reaches its target audience.
If your product has a Celtic interest,
then the
Irish American Post is
the place to be.
To discuss your advertising requirements, phone our advertising department at (414) 273-8132 Fax: (414) 273-8196
10
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
Tea and Biscuits
The Abject Missioner, Confirmation
and the Need for Resolve
By Ted Crowley
That night, donkey's years ago, in a tiny village in the Wicklow
mountains, the missioner, behind the bar, pulled one of the best
pints of Guinness I've ever tasted. Otherwise, the pub was
deserted, apart from my friend and I and its chastened publican;
on a bar stool wedged against the door, to keep the regulars out.
The missioner, just down off the pulpit, had ended the parish
mission with a final, devastating, cannonade of hellfire and
brimstone. So shocked, awed, chased and chastised was the
congregation, including the publican, that they'd renounced the
devil, with all his works and pomps, before taking the
unprecedented and more difficult step of renouncing the demon
drink, itself. Evidently, the missioner's final struggle with drink
had left him starved for a pint.
I knew, at a glance, that he was my kind of preacher, a man of
scorching faith, who'd send sparks flying off church walls and
who'd cauterize the black marks from the souls of the
assembled congregation; the sort of poor lean man who's sent
by God, from God, to cleanse the Sodoms and the Gomorras of
this sinful world; including, if such exist, the dens of iniquity
and the sinners of Co. Wicklow.
Somehow, he reminded me of St. Paul: hard, lean, frail, utterly
dedicated, kind and human; taking a little wine, or Guinness,
for his stomach's sake.
He also reminded me of Fr. Mapple, in Moby Dick, verbally
chastising sailors with, "... In this world, shipmates, sin that
pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas
Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers..." And, this he
preached before working-up a full head of steam.
With 13 grandchildren and their christenings, First Holy
Communions and Confirmations, I'm working my way through
39 rites of passage. Today, it was a Confirmation in Greystones.
We sang and we responded from a booklet set-out like the
script for a play:"All Stand:
All Sing: Alleluia...
Cantor: Come Holy Spirit...
All Sing: Alleluia...
GOSPEL
Bishop: The Lord be with you.
All: And also with you.
Bishop: A reading from the Holy Gospel...
All: Glory to you Lord..."
Only once did it awaken me sufficient to turn up an ear, to hear:
"I see his blood upon the rose
and in the stars the glory of his eyes.
His body gleams amid eternal snows.
His tears fall from the skies..."
And there I was, throughout, stinking of mothballs in the old
suit, like a newly shorn sheep, a stranger to the lambs, talking
politely to the other newly shorn sheep, a phoney, out of my
working trousers, out of close contact with the youngsters,
when they're themselves and I'm myself, shouting and nagging,
"Ah! for feck's sake Conor (or Stephen or Alan), what did I tell
you? - hold the square in your other hand! - measure twice, cut
once! - put away that bleddy Mr. Freeze! - mind your fingers on
the saw! - oh bleddy hell!, do ye know what? - it's backwards
ye're going! - give it to me! before we're covered in your watery
blood."
But, today, it wasn't a bit like that. Neither the missioner, St.
Paul, nor Fr. Mapple were there, to lay it into the youngsters, so
that they'd never forget their Confirmation day and the pledges
they'd taken by rote, in a group, like sipping lukewarm watery
milk and water.
As sure as I'm bitching like this, within a year or two, if not
already, it won't be milk and water they'll be tempted to take.
Instead, it'll be their first alcoholic drink or shot of drugs, and
the furthest thing from their minds is likely to be their
Confirmation day; its lukewarm ceremonies and the pledges
they took, without appreciating what they said, because they
hardly said anything, as individuals; they just mumbled along
with the crowd, too young to know any better.
It won't be safe for them, from here on in, to mumble along
with the crowd. They'll need to know, in no uncertain terms.
They'll need tons of individuality and resolve. I hope they'll
remember their crotchety auld Grandad and what he so roughly
preached, if they forget the words of the mild-mannered and
gentle bishop.
There were no visions after the sermon, just counting their
takings, cameras, tea and biscuits.
(Ted Crowley lives in Co. Wicklow — [email protected]).
And so it went, on and on, for 19 pages.
Jun/Jul 2003
Irish American Post
11
Easy Diver
Down into the Depths of Ireland's Rockbound Coast
By Pól Ó Conghaile
Irish American Post Dublin Bureau
Over Baltimore Harbor, the sun is lobster pink. "Red sky at
night, shepherd's delight," a young man tells a pretty Dutch
tourist at the bar. "Red sky in the morning, sailor takes warning.
That's what they say around here. Can I buy you a drink?"
Outside, shadows pass across cliffs like time over an old man's
face; a toy boat putters back towards the children who have
launched it. Baltimore, Co. Cork, has provided shelter from the
Atlantic Ocean since its earliest beginnings as a pirate
settlement. This evening, as the sun dips into a glassy sheen of
surface, is no different.
Beneath this placid sea, however, something unusual is
happening.
"Imagine you're upside down with your head in a hole trying to
see what a conger eel is doing," Rianne Smith exhorts, pulling a
mask to her face. "Well we have a toggle on our left hip, so we
can dump air by pulling on that."
At the Aquaventures Dive Centre on Lifeboat Road, we are
surrounded by wetsuits, snorkels and oxygen tanks. Rianne and
her husband Jerry, running the center since they moved here
from London in 1996, are in their element.
"Because we're mostly water," Jerry smiles, pointing to a
freshly smelted pile of lead, "we need anything from 18 to 30
pounds to take us down." Rianne nods, drilling us with the
rules, principally: Never Hold Your Breath. "A lot of people
say their only regret is that they didn't discover scuba diving
sooner."
Some didn't have the choice. Since its nervous beginnings in the
1950s, when hardy souls endeavored to spend short times at
shallow depths, recreational diving has become one of Ireland's
fastest growing adventure sports.
Jerry and Rianne put it down to money, a booming adventure
holiday industry and the simple fact that more kids nowadays
know how to swim. Today, an estimated 10,000 certified divers
make use of up to 30 diving centers in Ireland.
"It's lovely to be working in an area you originally considered a
hobby; to be instructing people who actively want to be
instructed. Also, this is the only sport in which you get to use
ample quantities of rubber and baby oil," the Smiths agree.
Diving, according to the introductory video that kicks off our
PADI Discover Scuba Diving Course, offers "a sense of
freedom and peace." If that's so, it is at first glance a massively
complicated means to the end. Technological advances may
12
bode for greater rewards, but they also offer potential for
physiological danger.
The basics are exactly that: Are we able to swim? Yes. Do we
suffer from any listed medical conditions that would endanger
us at depth? Yes, unfortunately. As an asthma sufferer, I have
to get a letter faxed from my doctor, and even then,
disappointingly, can only dive to a certain depth.
Not to worry, however, we practice our technique and handsignals in the local pool, and repair to Bushe's pub for a hot
bowl of soup.
A perfect vantage point from which to monitor the comings
and goings of this tiny port, Bushe's also offers — amidst the
nautical pennants and fish charts on its walls — clues as to
the wealth of opportunity beneath the West Cork waves.
In particular, there hangs a lifebelt recovered from the
Kowloon Bridge, a super bulk tanker that ran aground on the
Stagg Rocks in 1986. The sunken shell, lying between six and
40 meters, is the largest diveable wreck in Europe and a huge
draw for divers.
"The beauty of it is that wrecks, over time, become reefs, and
reefs, over time, attract life," Rianne explains. Divers
descending into the Kowloon Bridge can be rewarded by
patrols of plankton feeders, pollack and crayfish. Rooted to
her hull, a forest of dahlia anemones, urchins and starfish
evoke life from dead metal.
As it turns out, there are up to 30 diveable wrecks lying off
the coast of Baltimore, for two simple reasons. Firstly, the
straits between Fastnet and Kinsale are one of Europe's
busiest shipping routes, and were ruthlessly stalked by
German U-boats during the Second World War. Secondly,
they have always invited the most inclement of weather.
Hence Carpathia, the steamer that came to the aid of Titanic
survivors in 1912, was torpedoed en route to Boston in 1918,
and lies at 150 meters. The Lusitania lies at 90 meters off the
Old Head of Kinsale. Both require complex mixes of helium,
nitrox and oxygen to dive, however, and are as such off limits
to all but the most experienced of divers.
Others are easily accessible. The Alondra, for instance, sunk
in 1916, tips six meters off Kedge Island, and is accessible to
experienced novices.
So wherein lies the wrecks' appeal? "It's about seeing things
from the past, visiting things you might never see again,"
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
Jerry says. "They're actively deteriorating."
This eerie wonder, the sense that history is breathing down
one's neck, reaches its apotheosis with U260, a VII C-class
German submarine scuttled in 1945 after striking a mine off
Fastnet Rock.
Lying at 46 meters on a rocky bed, U260 is intact save for the
bow and reachable by most experienced divers with training in
decompression techniques. Peering through the lens of an
extended periscope, brass gears and prisms can be observed, as
can four torpedo tubes in the bow and the nose of a torpedo
sitting in her racks.
Back on dry land, Rianne dismissed shanty tales of sunken
treasure. Conservation is key, and responsible divers are always
mindful of future generations that may wish to follow their
bubbles.
"It's a privilege for us to be down there," she muses; though it
must be said, not everyone can resist the urge to plunder. In
particular, Jerry recalls the time one of U260's guns was
discovered in a local field. "That was either a guilt-ridden
diver," he deadpans, "or a particularly strong storm."
At any rate, spectacular as they no doubt are, these hulking
exoskeletons are but one facet of the West Cork diving
experience. "A lot of the guys want to head straight for the
wrecks," as Rianne puts it. "But I prefer the life."
And what life there is! Dolphins, seals and whales are plentiful
in the summer months; leatherback turtles have been spotted in
autumn. Five miles offshore, changeable currents around the
Fastnet Lighthouse encourage a smorgasbord of activity.
fish. I feel weightless, privy almost to a different taint of
consciousness; time is forgotten, and it seems like only seconds
before we are in the boat once again, drinking from a hot flask
of coffee.
Speeding back towards the harbor, I noticed a drop of sunlight
twinkling off Rianne's knife. She explained why such
instruments are necessary. Diving one afternoon off Long
Island, in search of a Second World War bomber rumored to lie
there; she caught her leg in an abandoned fishing net.
"You can't panic in those situations. You have to stop, feel for
the net, and cut it. If you keep swimming, or start thrashing
about, you get even more entangled."
A scary thought, and it illustrates a downside to this universe of
idylls. Take a walk along Ownahincha or Long Strand and
you'll see the same thing: bits of nets, floats and junk. Ireland's
culture of littering does not exclude the ocean, and unlikely as
an encounter is, one should be careful to avoid reaping the
spoils of this murky debris. That, and draw confidence from the
fact that divers keep coming back.
They do so of course, because off Cape Clear lies the larger
island of Ireland. And this is spring. You expect to look like a
gargoyle stumbling from the water in these temperatures, but
not come summer. Those elusive months are on their way, and
with them 18ºC comparative bliss and 15m visibility, extending
as far as 30m on occasion at Fastnet Rock. It takes just five
days to become an open water diver, and those in the know say
there's no better place to do it:
"The water is never going to be gin-clear," Rianne says. "But
anyone who learns how to dive here is going to be able to dive
almost anywhere in the world."
Fish feeding and sleeping in the kelp can make for ghostly
memories on a night dive, too: "I had one experience with a
shoal of haddock, moving away in a carpet-like motion,"
Rianne remembers. "It felt like something from The Birds."
Aquaventures Dive Centre can be contacted at (028) 20511 or
www.aquaventures.ie.
Where you choose to dive, of course, depends on the worts of
the weather. Today looks good for the Gaeltacht Island of Cape
Clear, where sweet conditions can toss out up to 20 meters
visibility inside the harbor. One of Carbery's famous Hundred
Isles, reached by a kicking and bucking motorboat, this is bang
on the Continental Shelf.
Furey Wins Folk Album Award
in Irish Music Magazine
Reader's Poll
Nor does anything quite prepare you for back-rolling into the
Atlantic Ocean. Kitted out with tanks, fins and Buoyancy
Control Devices, we guide ourselves down the mooring rope,
stopping periodically to equalize the pressure in our ears.
Rianne's voice is clear in my mind: Never Hold Your Breath!
Finbar Furey's Chasing Moonlight, Love Songs of Ireland
was voted Best Folk Albumin the Irish Music Magazine
reader's Poll 2003 beating out Christy Moore and others for
the distinctive title. The poll is based on artist and bands
that have released albums or have been active in live performance over the last eighteen months. Participants can
vote on the Internet from around the world.
Each dive, you soon learn, creates its own little narrative.
Careering across the sea floor, we accidentally disturb two
mating spider crabs; provoking a grumpy flexing of claws. A
dogfish glides beneath us. Starfish are everywhere; groves of
kelp undulate like a gospel choir.
Also the release of the DVD of Martin Scorcese's Gangs of
New York, starring actor Daniel Day Lewis, brings Furey's
music into homes across the US . He is featured in the
film's raunchy bar scene singing the tune "New York
Girls."
There are sea urchins, anemones and dozens of tiny, flickering
Jun/Jul 2003
Irish American Post
13
Short Story
The Census Taker
By Michael Corrigan
They sat in the Kennedy Farmhouse, a bright fire burning. Mr.
Cronen, the census taker, thought the farm to be better than
most. Cronen wore gold rimmed spectacles and had a red face
with a gray mustache. His job had given him some insight into
the Irish Catholic farmers who lived in the Sligo-Mayo counties; all of them survived on rocky soil and fed large families.
Why did the Catholics have to breed so many, was his silent
question. Patrick Kennedy, age 55, above average height, was
friendly and yet private.
"Do you have all your information, Mr. Cronen?"
He saw the same friendly stare of Patrick Kennedy, penetrating
but not threatening.
"And you're not, Mr. Cronen? A left hander, perhaps?"
"Church of Ireland. In fact, my grandfather even changed the
spelling of the Cronen name from an 'i' to an 'e.'"
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Kennedy said. "So even the spelling
of a name sets us apart."
Kennedy's wife, Agnes, came into the room and picked up a
wash basin, her hands steaming. Mr. Cronen could see she had
been a beautiful woman at one time but life on the farm had
aged her. She wore the inevitable apron.
"I believe so."
"Sure, and who needs this census to be taken?"
"The government needs it for funding purposes. We need to
know how many people are living in Ireland as we begin the
20th century."
Patrick Kennedy smiled to himself. "Funding purposes, you
say? And who gets the funding? Not the Irish from the English
Government, that's for sure."
Mr. Cronen put down his form. "Every country needs to take a
census," he patiently explained. "That's how budgets are created."
Mr. Cronen watched a ten-year-old girl enter the room with her
two brothers, aged five and three. She had soft clear blue eyes
with an alert expression.
"Da, can we play outside?"
"Agnes, it might get a bit wet, so bundle your brothers up if you
do."
But she had already dressed her brothers. Delighted, the three
children bolted outside to play. It was an overcast day.
"You say you have three other daughters who have left?"
"That's correct. Two more will be leaving for America, soon,
when they earn the fare. There's nothing here."
"But you're here."
Patrick smiled and Cronen saw a glint in the man's clear blue
eyes.
"And where is Kate?"
"Hasn't come home yet," Kennedy said. "Agnes has the others
playing outside."
"Isn't it a bit cold for them?"
"It's always wet and cold in Ireland."
Agnes didn't look at Cronen.
"We don't have any Bushmill's, but we may have a drop of
Catholic Jameson's whiskey for the gentlemen."
"Never drink while working, ma'am."
Agnes pushed back a lock of hair and briefly met his eyes.
"I have work to do." She left the room.
"I like to have a drop taken," said Patrick Kennedy. "It's a good
man's failing. I had to laugh at an Englishman I met in Dublin
last month. He asked me where the local pub was. My God,
there's a pub on every block. Well, I met the gentleman's eye
and I said, 'We have many ways of killing Englishmen, sir, but
you won't die of thirst.'" Patrick Kennedy laughed but Cronen
didn't see any humor so Kennedy asked, "Would you be after
taking a cup of tea? Don't the Anglo Irish love tea?"
"I'm not English," Mr. Cronen said. He checked his list. "Soyou have your wife, Agnes, age 45, and four children living on
the premises?"
"Correct, Mr. Cronen. Little John Emmett is the last one," Kennedy said.
"That I am. Until the end."
"These other girls can't be very old," Mr. Cronen said.
"God save us, no more."
Patrick lit his pipe and nodded in agreement. "The first to leave
was only twelve when she took off for America."
"Twelve?"
"Oh, she got a sponsor, of course. She'll be after working in
Boston. A lot of Irish in Boston," Kennedy added.
14
"Irish Catholics," Mr. Cronen observed.
"I guess that will suffice." Mr. Cronen paused. "Maybe I could
stand a cup of tea."
They spent another hour having tea and discussing the state of
Ireland. There were the Fenians and some felt Ireland would
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
break away from England eventually, but Mr. Cronen couldn't
imagine it. Of course, so many Irish were leaving their own
country, with or without independence. Mr. Cronen felt comfortable with farmer Kennedy, and so admitted he suspected
Irish Home Rule would be Rome Rule.
He tipped his hat.
"And what's wrong with that?" laughed Kennedy, with that
same mischievous gleam in his eye.
"Not at all," said Mr. Cronen.
"We are part of England and England is Protestant," Mr.
Cronen insisted, feeling suddenly bold.
"And most of the Irish Protestants live in Ulster," the farmer
said. "A cursed part of Ireland from the beginning. They have
always been at unrest. Even the legends are full of wars-Irish
heroes killing other Irishmen."
"I remember that epic, The Cattle Raid," said Mr. Cronen. "A
lot of killing in that one."
Patrick Kennedy sat in his big chair and looked out the window
at the children playing. Kate, seven, had joined her sister,
Agnes, and the two boys. They chased each other around a tree.
Beyond the tree was a stone fence and the road leading toward
the Sligo border.
"Good day, girls." The two little boys approached closer. Both
of them carried rocks.
"Are you a soldier?" the older boy named Peter asked.
"He doesn't have a gun," the youngest boy said. He was a
handsome child.
"Go back inside," insisted Agnes. "Kate, take them in."
Mr. Cronen picked up his bicycle propped next to a tree. He
looked at Agnes, still watching him.
"And are you going to America, someday?"
"Yes," she said.
Mr. Cronen got up on the bicycle and after a wave to the girl,
pedaled down the narrow path past a cemetery. Kennedy's
sheep grazed on a brilliant green hill. In the spring, purple
heather and yellow gorse would cover the fields.
(Michael Corrigan can be reached at [email protected].)
"There will be more violence," Patrick Kennedy told him,
somewhat sadly.
"I hope my children escape it." His gaze was direct and not so
friendly now. "And you better be careful, Mr. Cronen. Some
Irishmen don't like strangers coming around asking questions
even the census taker."
Kissers on Tour
Cronen drained his tea and stood up. They shook hands.
"Thanks for your cooperation," he said.
"No bother, at all."
Cronen looked at his list and then examined the weathered face
of the Irish farmer before him. "You were born in 1846, the second year of the great famine."
"Yes-and left to starve by the English."
"Why didn't your parents escape, then?
"I don't know. Perhaps they were like me, Irish people who
wanted to stay and survive in their own country."
Mr. Cronen picked up his bowler hat and nodded.
"I see. Good day to you."
"Good day."
Outside, Mr. Cronen looked down the narrow dirt road toward
the next farm. The girl called Agnes came up to him. Kate
stood behind her sister. Already at seven, she wore thick
glasses. Agnes spoke.
"Are you a policeman?"
"Oh no, child. I'm the census taker. I list who lives in the
house."
The Kissers are on tour! Be sure to check the website for pictures daily from the road. Also, the show in New York on
July 1 (see below) will be broadcast live on the internet.
Check Paddy Reilly's website (http://www.paddyreillys.com/)
for details.
Upcoming Shows:
Get all The Kissers shows on the showdates page
(http://www.thekissers.com/shows.htm).
Tue., Jun. 24 9 pm
Mike 'N' Molly's
http://www.ichampaign.com/directory/
business.cfm/id/154516
105 N. Market St., Champaign, IL
(217) 355-1236
Thu., Jun. 26 9 pm
Connors Pub
6331 Ferguson St., Indianapolis, IN
(317) 255-5039
Fri., Jun. 27 10 pm
Art's Billiards and Bar
2617 Vine St., Clifton, OH
(513) 227-4282
Sat., Jun. 28 9:00pm
Hi Fi Club http://www.hificlub.info/
11729 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, OH
(216) 521-8878
Sun., Jun. 29 Noon
Artvoice Street Festival
Buffalo, NY
Sun., Jun. 29 9 pm
Valentine's http://www.
valentinesalbany.com/
17 New Scotland Ave., Albany, NY
(518) 432-6572
Tue., Jul. 1 10 pm
Paddy Reilly's
http://www.paddyreillys.com/
519 2nd Ave., New York, NY
(212) 686-1210
**Whiskey Lash All-Stars**
Featuring Ken, Kevin, and Caitlin
"Why?"
"So the government can balance its budget. Give money to the
counties if needed. We need to know who's living among us."
Jun/Jul 2003
Irish American Post
15
Books
O'Connor Looks to Past to Capture Readers in
Star of the Sea
By Peter Schmidtke
A disfigured shape stares at his
crooked shadow on the worn deck of
a creaky schooner bound for America
in 1847. With a moldy bible and a
face contorted with affliction, Pius
Mulvey paces back and forth, bow to
stern, stern to bow. All that separates
the Connemara peasant and 416 other
escapees of Ireland's Great Famine
from reaching New York Harbor is a
month aboard the rickety Star of the
Sea.
But Pius Mulvey is far more than a downtrodden farmer. How
this limping Galwayman with a gift for verse acquires the ugly
moniker of "The Monster" is just one secret that Dublin-born
Irish author Joseph O'Connor unleashes in his fifth and latest
novel, Star of the Sea.
O'Connor in Star of the Sea blends different fiction genres to
produce a work that is equal parts historical novel, epic,
Victorian epic, and mystery. O'Connor's, whom the Sunday
Independent dubbed Ireland's "most brilliant storyteller,"
chronicles in detail the fateful coming-together of a handful of
fictional men and women impacted by the devastation of a
famine that killed over two million Irish in 1847 alone. The
disaster caused a mass exodus that resulted in three million
Irish living in America by the end of the century— 39 % of all
those alive who had been born in Ireland.
Told in a multiplicity of voices including letters, diaries,
newspaper articles, third person narrative, and ship captain's
notes, the central drama of the Star of the Sea involves a
Dickens-like intersection of Connemara figures from both
upper and lower crusts of society, each of whom has been
impacted to some degree by famine.
The solitary deck-dweller, Pius Mulvey, is introduced to the
reader as a man with a shadowy past and an even more cloudy
present. Lord David Merridith is a landlord who can't pay his
bills and was given the cold shoulder by his tenants for stern
measures forced upon them by his late father. Mary Duane,
Merridith's servant, is portrayed at first only as a woman who
will not acknowledge her master and wants to reveal nothing of
herself.
And watching it all unfold is G. Grantley Dixon, a Louisiana
journalist who spent four years in London and despises slavery
and the injustices of Ireland. He unceasingly hounds Merridith
for his high place in society.
16
Each of these characters bears the label of
protagonist as the point-of-view shifts
from one narrative device to another. As
the result of a guilt-laden letter Mulvey
writes to a woman he abandoned long
ago, the reader reluctantly develops a
fondness for this rough character who is
loathed by so many of the ship's steerage
passengers.
The journalist Dixon, who comes across
as troublesome and petty in the captain's Joseph O’Connor
log and diary, is cast in an altogether
different light when his new travel book is rejected by one
London publisher after another and he is forced to question his
future as a writer.
Likewise both Merridith and Duane are brought to the forefront
in different chapters when O'Connor describes the landlord's
earlier difficulties with his emotionally-rigid father and Duane's
former troubles eking out a life in famine-wracked Connemara.
The decision to intermittently shift narration was conscious,
O'Connor said "To me the reason for doing that was the nature
of the famine itself— which is at the heart of the book," he
explained. "In the same way that the ship is packed with people
and stories, the book should have that same feel— a suitcase
with the top kind of forced up, the stories trying to get out."
While O'Connor said that he did take stock characters or
"archetypes" of the trickster, the broken-hearted servant's girl,
and the cruel landlord, he said he did try to write about them as
though they were real people.
"Hopefully in some ways they are like traditional characters
with hopefully the extra dimension of being real."
Voices for lesser characters are provided by O'Connor as well,
including the ship's doctor, who treats Merridith and the general
passengers in steerage of illnesses like typhoid fever that were
common to cramped seagoing vessels, and Capt. Josias Tuke
Lockwood, a helmsman who balances his need to keep order
with his displeasure at the meager food supplies rationed out to
the poorer passengers in steerage.
O'Connor as Historical Storyteller
The obvious challenge of writing about such a central event in
the history of Ireland was a task that the author did not take
lightly.
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
"At some level, a novel is just about creating a story, and you
must always be aware that these are real people who died,
usually in terrible circumstances," O'Connor said regarding the
countless Irish upon whom his characters are based. "And it
mightn't be much consolation to them that they formed the
twists and turns of a novel."
O'Connor nevertheless read contemporary 19th century
accounts of the famine and first-person diaries from tenant
farmers and landlords to grain background knowledge. In his
voluminous acknowledgment at the end of the novel, the author
cites the importance for his research of The Irish Journals of
Elizabeth Smith 1840-1850, a set of diaries written by the
daughter of a landlord which is one of the most complete firstperson documents from the era of the Famine.
"And on the other side I guess is the ballad tradition which is a
source for information of what people thought of the landlord,"
O'Connor pointed out. "Not a lot, usually."
The author said he discovered commonalities between
contemporary accounts of the famine.
"A phrase that I found coming up again and again was people
saying 'The words don't exist to describe this,' People had never
seen anything like this."
This is precisely the journalist Dixon's reaction when in the
novel he investigates an Irish workhouse and witnesses mothers
silent mourning over their dead children and husbands as a
constable leads him through the dilapidated grounds.
"I sympathize with Dixon at that point because that's a problem
that I had or that anyone would have at trying to approach this
subject," O'Connor stressed. "In a way silence seems the only
response, but as Dixon reflects, silence is denial. So you have to
work through it."
In his six years of intermittent research, O'Connor said he
discovered both cowardly and uplifting reactions to the famine.
He cites the actions of Mary Wheeler and her husband James
Ellis, Quakers from England who moved to northern Galway in
1849 "simply because they believed that it was their duty to do
that."
Although the two had never been to Ireland and did not know
anyone in Galway, O'Connor related how they gave up a
successful milling business back home in England and set up
shop in Ireland where they employed the locals and treated
them with respect and improved the life of the community by
building schools and roads.
Their village, Letterfrack, is still exists, but O'Connor believes
that the history of Letterfrack is largely unknown because the
Ellis' were English.
"And so there are surprising stories from people who said, "I
won't accept this, and I will do the little bit that I can do to keep
this from happening."
Jun/Jul 2003
For all the background detail that he uncovered, O'Connor was
quick to point out that his novel is just that— a novel.
"You know, the research is really there to make the background
as correct as possible, which I think is a very important thing to
do in its own right, but it isn't a textbook. It's about imagined
characters."
Although The Star of the Sea is his first historical novel,
O'Connor said he is considering writing another specifically
about the Irish involvement in the American civil war. More
than 100,000 Irish fought in the Civil War, mostly on the Union
side.
"Of the one and a half million immigrants who came here, it's
only logical that many of them would have ended up on one
side or the other in the conflict."
A Modern Day Dickens
The great British novelist and social critic Charles Dickens
makes several cameo appearances in O'Connor's novel, meeting
both Mulvey and Dixon and appearing at a number of literary
functions at Merridith's estate and around London.
And it is a well-placed homage considering that O'Connor's
latest novel includes stylistic devices borrowed from the earlier
writer's work.
"Kind of an interesting thing— when I studied English
literature at university in Dublin, I didn't like the 19th century
great English novelists," O' Connor admitted. "But when I
started reading them again just to get the flavor of the use of the
language at that time, I found I liked them a lot."
Like Dickens and his counterparts, O'Connor in Star of the Sea
incorporates lavish chapter headings and synopses.
"All of those books were written over a two -ear period as
serials in the papers and magazines," O'Connor pointed out. "So
I think it's basically a good idea— in a book that's long— to tell
your reader at the beginning of each chapter what you are going
to tell them. It sort of keeps them on board."
With such a long and twisty narrative, O'Connor first mapped
out the sequence of events using a variety of charts and maps
before he commenced writing.
"Because I thought I would get lost," he said with a chuckle. "I
actually thought it would be like getting into the ship without a
chart, you know. You might be sailing for New York, but you
might end up in Rio De Janeiro— so I did a lot of structural
work before I wrote it."
Firm Roots in Ireland
While a great number of the Irish whom he wrote about found
their way to America, O' Connor himself does not have any
relatives in America.
"I'm the only Irish person I know who can say that. My father's
parents came to Chicago during the late '20s, and they stayed
Irish American Post
17
for a couple of years and then went to Toronto. And anytime
they managed to make a few dollars they lost it again— So they
came all the way back to Dublin."
But one area of his personal life that did lend itself to the book
is his family's connection to Connemara in Galway, a region of
western Ireland that was hit particularly hard by the famine.
As a child, O'Connor spent summers in Connemara in the same
house and with the same family that his father stayed with when
he was a boy.
"We have a kind of connection to the place going back 50 years
now, so I feel totally at home in Connemara. For a child of the
city, I feel that I kind of belong there, and I know it very well."
Born in 1963 in Dublin, O'Connor is the eldest of four children.
Musician Sinéad O'Connor is his sister. He earned a BA and
MA in English and history at University College, Dublin, and
then did postgraduate research at University College, Oxford.
O'Connor lived in London until 1996. When he started writing
full-time in 1989, O'Connor wrote columns for Esquire and the
Irish Tribune for 10 years.
O'Connor is the author of five novels, including The Salesman,
(1998) Cowboys and Indians, (1991) and Inishowen (2000). He
is also the author of five books of nonfiction and a number of
screenplays and collaborative works. O'Connor's stage play Red
Roses and Petrol was filmed in early 2003 as a feature picture
starring Malcolm McDowell and Blythe Danner.
The author has garnered numerous awards and nominations,
including the Hennessy First Fiction Award in 1989 and the
Miramax Ireland Screenplay Award in 1995. Cowboys and
Indians was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 1991, and
Star of the Sea was shortlisted for The Sunday Independent/
Hughes and Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award in
December, 2002.
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18
Irish Documentary Takes
Top Prize
Bord Scannan na hEireann/the Irish Film Board is pleased
to announce that Power Picture's documentary, ChavezInside the Coup has scooped two prizes at the prestigious
BANFF festival in Canada.
It wasannounced June 10 that the powerful documentary
was named best in its Information and Current Affairs category and won the International Jury's $50,000 Global Television Grand Prize from a field of 83 programmes across
14 categories.
The documentary was produced by Power Pictures and directed by Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain and was
broadcast as part of RTE's True Lives series earlier this
year. The documentary, depicted the attempted overthrow
of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, defeated competition that included US series The West Wing.
Producer David Power said, "This is phenomenal ...to win
the top award at a major festival and to beat such worldclass competition is testament to Kim and Donnacha's extraordinary work".
Rod Stoneman, CEO of the Irish Film Board said,
"Congratulations to Power Pictures. This is an amazing
documentary and deserves this recognition on the world
stage."
Banff 2003, the 24th Banff Television Festival, takes place
June 8 to 13 at the Fairmont Banff Springs in the Canadian
Rockies. It drew 1,800 producers, broadcasters, commissioning editors, content creators and other industry stakeholders from around the world who will take part in an array of plenary sessions, seminars, master classes, pitching
and networking opportunities.
Bush to Nominate Chicagoan
for Ambassadorship
to Ireland
The Irish American Information Service
President George Bush has announced that he intends
to nominate James C Kenny of Chicago as Ambassador
to Ireland. The president made the announcement on
July 8.
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
It's All in the Name
Cowboy Singer Murphey Touches on Gaelic Roots
By Martin Hintz
Singer Michael Martin Murphey was
sitting on his front porch, looking out
over the rolling hills around Westby,
Wis. His electrical power was off, as
line crew worked in the valley below
his house. Only the phones were operating and a bulldozer's rumble
could be heard in the background as
he talked about cowboys, music, the
Irish and horses.
became a promoter of alternative
country and western music. He
hung out with John McEuen and
Jeff Hannah of the Nitty Gritty
Dirt Band, Don Henley of the
Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Roger
Miller, Buck Owens, Michael
Nesmith of the Monkees and
many others musicians floating
around Southern California of the
time.
Murphey could have been at his ranch
in New Mexico or his hacienda near
Plano, Tex. But the Western recording artist was between gigs,
so he was pausing at the Murphey Rocking Ranch North in
Wisconsin. Since he performs between 100 and 150 concerts a
year, any chance for a layover was welcome.
"We usually travel by bus. But sometimes I drive or take the
train if a show is close by," Murphey, 58, related. "Gypsy, I
guess."
His dad, Lavare Pickney (Pink) Murphey III, however, was a
CPA and not as prone to moving around as his son. But Murphey's brother, Mark, 53, is a member of the Ashland (Ore.)
Repertory Theater and has been known to travel, too.
Murphey began waxing about his lineage. "My grandfather,
Spud Murphey, was sort of an entertainer. He was a magician,
played mandolin and was a boxing champ. He was stationed at
Pearl Harbor during the Japanese bombing and went on to the
general quartermaster for the Navy. He was a good friend of
Adm. Nimitz," Murphey recalled.
"He didn't want my dad born in Hawaii, because it wasn't a
state then. So he came to Dallas where my
father was born," today's Murphey added.
The family then then moved back and forth
from the mainland to the island. His grandfather, "who knew a lot of cowboy songs," then
retired in Hawaii. So, as youngster, Murphey
would visit and learn about Hawaiian cowboys, playing a plastic ukulele his grandfather gave him.
He kept up his singing and writing and performing, with his first published song, "Black Tattered Rags" came out when Murphey was only 19.
Subsequently, over the years, Murphey has written numerous
award-wining songs and appeared regularly on television programs such as "Austin City Limits" and "the Tonight Show."
Many other entertainers, including John Denver, Kenny Rogers
and Lyle Lovett have recorded his tunes. He's good pals with
Cowboy Celtic, a noted Irish cowboy band from Canada.
Murphey is proud of his Irish background, descending from
Col. Archibald Murphey served under George Washington during the Revolutionary War. That Murphey's son, Archibald Debow Murphey, was a founding member of the University of
North Carolina and the State of North Carolina. He was a judge,
scholar, teacher and farmer. His son, Alexander Hamilton Murphey, came to Texas when it was a colony under Mexico, musician Murphey related proudly.
Alexander's son was a pawnshop owner and watchmaker who
patented the first mechanical digital watch. The pawnshop was
always full of fine instruments and the family still owns Murphey the Jeweler in Tyler,Tex. Michael's
great-grandfather was a Methodist preacher in
Texas. And the lineage goes on. "I'm just fascinated by all that history," Murphey said.
When Murphey was 13, he graduated to a
Martin D-28 and began playing at church
socials, coffeehouses and house concerts. In
his early twenties, Murphey also played cowboy tunes for guests at Sky Ranch in Lewisville, Tex., and Hidden Falls Ranch, near
Amarillo. As a student at UCLA, Murphey
Jun/Jul 2003
He explained how the family name has
morphed over the years as the Gaelic was Anglicized. "There's Murthy, O'Murphy, Murphy
and our spelling as Murphey," he said.
"I guess we have the Irish charm," he then
laughed but admitted he has never been to
Ireland. The closest he came to the Auld Sod
was marrying an English girl whose mother
was a McAlister from Northern Ireland. The
Murpheys were boarding a Stateisde plane to
Irish American Post
19
fly over for a visit but an IRA bomb attack in London curtailed
that flight. "Nobody named Murphey was going to be allowed
into Northern Ireland that time," he indicated. "That just wouldn't float."
"You know the term 'cow boy,'
is well known in Scotland and
Ireland. The cow boys were the
cattle drovers in the 19th century," Murphey said, saying that
Wild West star Buffalo Bill
Cody defined the term and
made the two words as
"cowboy." He told how many
Irish immigrants headed to the
frontier to get jobs on ranches
after they landed in America.
The Golden Thread Gallery presents Autodecay, a solo
exhibition by Dublin artist Conor Caffrey, featuring a
series of photographic works depicting burnt out car
wrecks left by "joyriders" in the Wicklow National Park.
The exhibition includes the display of a series of poems
by renowned poet Dennis O'Driscoll.
At the time, Murphey said, the
classic movie image of the
Western "cowboy" hadn't been formed. "The trail drovers, as
they were more commonly called, were lower class, the bottom
of the ladder," he explained. "Some men worked only for food
and a place to live. But there's one thing. The Irish always took
their music with them, whether to Cuba, Australia or America,"
he went on.
"In the 19th century, they'd sit around and play music from the
Old Country. The Irish music was really popular. I guess other
cultures didn't really do such a good job in promoting their music. Anyway, the Irish instruments were portable: the mouth
harp, the concertina," he added.
According to Murphey, the guitar was more of a Mexican instrument, with music from south of the border flavored with
German polka s because of the influence of the European rulers
there. "But 90% of classic cowboy music has Irish or Scottish
roots. 'The Streets of Laredo' is the 'Bard of Armagh,'" he
pointed out.
Murphey added that the Scottish troops who put down Canada's
Red River Rebellion in the 1800s used to sing while on the
march. The drovers picked up the tunes as they filtered down
from Canada and adapted the words.
"I love the cowboy lifestyle, the cattle, ranching," admitted
Murphey. Subsequently, in addition to his singing, he keeps his
hands in the outdoor roundup business — now helping his wife
Karen raise quarter horses. Karen Murphey, a native of Illinois
who has lived in Wisconsin for more than 15 years, has been
inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth and appears there in a film on ranch women.
Murphey will be performing at the grounds of the Great Circus
Parade in Milwaukee, giving 11:30 a.m. and 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.
concerts, Thursday, July 10, following the Wild West Revue.
"I'd ride an elephant if it wouldn't buck me off," he laughed,
20
Belfast's
Golden Thread Gallery
Presents Autodecay
Caffrey began taking this series of photographs last November from a predominately environmental position,
aware of the impact that these "eyesores" have on an already flagging tourist industry, describing the images as
standing testament to the negligence and ignorance displayed with regard to conservation in Ireland.
"For a long time, we have looked on our boglands as
wastelands, and not as a national treasure," he said. "The
perceived emptiness and uselessness of the boglands has
long made them a favorite dumping ground for our rubbish and human detritus," Caffrey added.
The photographs bring attention to the wanton destruction and callous disregard for life implicit in "joyriding,"
he went on. At the same time these photographs undermine the common preconception of "joyriding" as a
purely urban phenomenon.
The Golden Thread Gallery will complement the Autodecay exhibition with a series of outreach activities.
These will include a competition for local schoolchildren
to design a road sign that will be used to discourage
"joyriding" in North Belfast and a talk by Sean O'Connell of the University of Ulster who is a leading expert
on the history of "joyriding". Schools, colleges and community group visits to the gallery are welcomed. Please
contact Peter at the gallery to arrange visits in advance.
The Golden Thread Gallery is supported by The Flax
Trust, Flax Art Studios, the Belfast City Council and the
Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
For more information, contact Peter Richards, gallery
director, at Brookfield Mill, 333 Crumlin Road, Belfast
BT14 7EA.Tel/Fax 02890 352 358.
Email [email protected].
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Jun/Jul 2003
Essay
Northern Ireland; Truth Be Told
By Michael Cummings
What is truth? Philosophers have pondered that question for
centuries. Lord Northcliffe a British newspaper baron once
remarked, "The truth is what someone else didn't want you to
know, everything else is advertising." While truth is not exactly the coin of the realm in journalism, it is making a comeback.
Recently, for example, William Safire accused the French of
"suppressing the truth" about their role in Iraq. Columnist
Tom Friedman claimed that Saudi Arabia "needs the truth "
about terrorism. Emir Saljacgic in an op-ed piece claims he is
freed by "the truth of the massacres of Muslims at Srebrenica"
recorded at The Hague. Amidst this fresh interest in truth,
Britain released a 20-page report of a secret campaign of government murder in Ulster. Was the report the truth or was it
merely advertising? Pray continue.
The New York Times recently sacked a reporter named Blair
who had consistently passed off fiction for truth. In the 1980s.
one of its reporters, Ms. Jo Thomas by name, reported the
truth about police death squads in Northern Ireland.
She was warned and then quickly reassigned from London for
"unexceptional reporting." While there may be progress at
The New York Times, another Blair has a similar difficulty
handling the truth. The British Prime Minister has suppressed
the truth about Britain's terror campaign in the North throughout his term but remains in office. Is it wrong if you only suppress the truth?
Consider:
• More than a generation has passed since Lord Widgery's
Report told the "truth" about the killing of 13 unarmed
civil rights protesters on Bloody Sunday in Derry. Today
the response of the British government to a new inquiry
into that slaughter has been to delay, to obstruct and to
destroy evidence.
• The largest mass murder in Ireland was the 1974 terrorist
bombings of the Dublin and Monaghan Town shopping
districts. Thirty-three men, women and children lost their
lives in an act of inexplicable cruelty. The Irish government sought six prime suspects from N. I., three of whom
were British soldiers. To this day the British government
delays the Irish government inquiry and refuses to cooperate with the families of the victims.
• Over a period of five years, the Sinn Féin party suffered
the assassination of five elected officials and 11 candidates and workers doing such evil things as canvassing
voters. A British double agent Brian Nelson was the key
to that campaign to crush democracy. In the past two
years, a William Stobie and another loyalist confessed to
knowledge about British Army and loyalist collusion in
those and other killings of Catholics. All three have died
violently and suddenly in the last year.
Jun/Jul 2003
George Bernard Shaw once referred to assassinations by the
British government to silence the truth as "an extreme form of
censorship."
The truth about truth in Northern Ireland is that it has never
been very popular with the British. Censorship reached its
peak during the Thatcher years and no wonder. Every part of
the justice system including the scrutiny of jury trials was corrupted.
Special rules were imposed on coroners to hide the truth
about the cause of death. If there was a danger the truth might
emerge from the testimony of a government witness a Public
Immunity Certificate was issued to prevent such a calamity.
Others in Her Majesty's employ like Stobie and Nelson were
not so fortunate.
The concern of the editors of the Los Angeles Times and
many Americans was the report released last month by Sir
John Stevens of the London Metropolitan Police about digging for the truth of government collusion in killing innocent
people in Ulster.
The release proved Britain and Blair showed little regard for
the truth. Only 20 pages of a 3,000-page report were released.
It was released as the Parliament session was ending thus
minimizing debate. And for good measure the government a
week earlier started leaking rumors and gossip about an IRA
mole called Stakenife. In short, the whole event was an advertisement.
Prime Minister Blair demands "acts of completion" from the
IRA before permitting elections but refuses to tell the whole
story of these murders. He demands "real change" from the
IRA but will not alter Britain's pattern and practice of deceit.
President Bush should urge the Prime Minister to clear the air.
But until Parliament and the English people accept responsibility and the consequences for these deeds Northern Ireland
may remain one place where truth could not be found!
(Michael Cummings is a member of the board of the Irish
American Unity Conference. He can be reached at
[email protected].)
Irish American Post
21
Band Report
Brother Keeps It All in a Family
By Adam Friedrich
It was hard to maneuver through the near capacity crowd at
Milwaukee's Shank Hall on a recent mild night. Fans had gathered long before Brother was set to take the stage. Everyone
was sipping drinks and anxiously awaiting the headliners. Fans
were so diverse, that chain wallets brushed up against Coach
purses and cell phones on dress slacks mingled with bandanas
on faded jeans. They gathered with one thing in common: an
enthusiastic appreciation for the creative, inventive and engaging sounds of Brother.
That diversity was a direct reflection of the many different inspirations and backgrounds that the band melds into an emotionally charged musical experience. With ancestors hailing
from the highlands of Inverness who sailed Down Under, brothers Hamish and Angus Richardson grew up on the farms of
Australia. "Our experience was very different from others interested in music," said Hamish, who does acoustic guitars and
bagpipes.
With lively stage performances — including bagpipe solos that
rival the intensity of an Angus Young guitar-thrashing — plus
brilliant compositions mixing aboriginal wind instruments, intense guitars and driving drums all touched up with DJ-like
samples, rapping and keyboards, it's no doubt why Brother has
earned such a devoted following. The combo creates a haunting
and invoking sound
Fueled by the inspiration of fellow Australian '70s rockers Cold
Chisel, the two real brothers have made their way across the
world and planted their flag in the musical landscape. They've
settled in L.A., which Hamish stated is a lot easier than "the
long commute from Australia for the last 10 years."
Joining them is a trio of talented musicians from all over the
music spectrum, each adding his own influence to the evolving
mix. Rick Kurek's driving lead guitars and on stage persona are
complemented nicely by newcomers, Derek (Dez) Stewart
(samples, keyboards, rapping) and 'T' Xiques (drums).
The sibling front men have survived and succeeded due to their
sharing of a collective goal. As Angus put it, "We haven't
known anything else. This partnership works really well."
When asked if there was ever any friction between the two,
Hamish stated, "We've had our moments and locked horns, but
we generally agree to disagree." They then move on "sharing a
dream." Keyboarder Stewart is amazed by the brother's collaboration, saying, "As a firsthand witness, it's inspirational. Their
definition of family is enlightening."
Down to earth, casual, friendly and eager to entertain can best
describe Brother as they sat around backstage prior to the show,
sharing a bottle of Pinot Noir. The group recently spent a weekend camping on a northern California beach, dieting on In and
Out Burgers' Protein Style/Animal Style sandwiches. As in
once voice, they all explain that was a hamburger wrapped in
lettuce instead of a bun.
As Kurek noted, "We're a health conscience band and eat good
as a band." The men shared a laugh about T's infamous "sand
nachos" experience during their campout. The bond between
the group is undeniable and genuine, perhaps surprising since
this current lineup has only been in place since January.
While the band isn't formally on tour, it played a few dates in
the Midwest before heading back to L.A. to finish work on an
upcoming CD. Though the members didn't indulge much information about the new album, they did say that it would follow
in the band's legacy of constantly forging new sounds and creating new ways to express themselves.
"When we listen to tracks for the new album, we ask ourselves,
'Have we heard it before" said Hamish. "We want to offer
something totally new." Angus added, "With the new record,
we have a new band, new sound, and new direction." T offers
his own preview of the album, "It's gonna be cool!"
There couldn't be a better name for a band that emulates the
kind of community, acceptance and familial support that
Brother does. In fact Angus and Hamish aren't the only siblings
in the band. Dez and T's wives are sisters, making them brothers-in-law. Each with two children, they hope to bring their
families on the road with them on future tours for a "gypsy
caravan."
Perhaps this inviting sense of community is the reason why
their crowds are growing larger and more diverse. But to
Brother, crowd size isn't necessarily the barometer of success.
To them success is not being stagnant, to not be categorized and
avoid industry standards. Success is to achieve balance, rather
than balancing checkbooks and to continue to make a living
expressing themselves creatively.
As Kurek summed it up, "'Day job' is not a term in our vocabulary."
The large crowd at Shank Hall was definitely thankful for that
philosophy.
Their attitude concerning their success is refreshing, considering that they are seasoned veterans of a music industry that, according to Angus "can bite you in the ass."
22
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
Photos Capture Irish Town Life
For 35 years Irish photographer John Minihan revisited and recorded scenes from his hometown of Athy in Co. Kildare, Ireland. An exhibit of his original photographic silver prints from
Athy has been displayed from June 3 to July 15 at the Artspace
Gallery on the second floor of Terrence Murphy Hall, 1000 LaSalle Ave., Minneapolis.
Terrence Murphy Hall is part of the University of St. Thomas'
downtown Minneapolis campus; its Artspace Gallery is open
from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays. The exhibit is free and open to
the public. The 35-print exhibit was curated by St. Thomas photographer Mark E. Jensen. It was presented in connection with
the annual meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies at St. Thomas held June 4-7 and is sponsored by the university's Center for Irish Studies.
Minihan's silver prints depict scenes from the life of the town
where he grew up. There are children at play, the necessities of
life, the gravedigger, scenes of frustration at the pub, and the
wake of Katy Tyrrell, which was photographed over three days
and two nights.
"Many of the people he captures," Jensen said, "he has known
for years. Athy is an ordinary Irish town that is feeling the incursions of industry, comparative wealth and modernity. Yet,
while these prints present a particular world, they also present
ongoing timelessness."
knowledge of small-town Irish
life, which most likely is a
vanishing way of life. Yet the
faces, especially the faces of
the children and the elders,
seem to show us the same innate survivability."
Many of the prints in the exhibit appear in Minihan's 1996
book, Shadows from the Pale:
Portrait of an Irish Town. His
work also appears in the 1998
An Unweaving of Rainbows:
Images of Irish Writers with
Derek Mahon, in the 1996
Samuel Beckett: Photographs
with Aidan Higgins, and in the
1981 Londoners with Richard
Bourne.
Old Joe with pipe,
County Home, Athy,
Co. Kildare, Ireland,
1963"
© John Minihan
Minihan had been a staff photographer for 28 years on the London Evening Standard. He
resides with his family and works out of his home in Ballydehob, in Co. Cork. Minihan currently is creating photographs for
a book on Samuel Beckett that will be published in 2005.
Jensen, who traveled to Ireland last year to select prints for the
exhibit, said Minihan "gives us a warm, though unsentimental,
US Congress Members Study Irish Economy
The US-Ireland Alliance and Microsoft joined forces the
week of May 30 to bring to Dublin members of the US
Congress not usually associated with Ireland.
Sen. Michael Enzi, a Republican from Wyoming, serves on
the Banking, Budget, and Labor & Health committees, as
well as the on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee
on Terrorism and International Operations. Rep. Xavier
Becerra, a Democrat, represents Los Angeles and serves
influential on the Ways and Means Committee. Being from
Los Angeles, he is particularly interested in the
entertainment industry, an industry of growing importance
to the Irish economy.
Microsoft's head of European Operations in Ireland, Matt
Rossmeissl, welcomed the project with the Alliance,
saying, "Microsoft has happily and productively made
Dublin its European headquarters and we were anxious to
show influential members of the US Congress the valuable
Jun/Jul 2003
economic relationship between the US and Ireland."
Trina Vargo, President of the US-Ireland Alliance, noted,
"The more American politicians who visit and learn
about Ireland, the better for our relationship."
The four-day trip included meetings with the Taoiseach,
the Tanaiste, Ministers, and heads of US multinationals
in Ireland. Cross Atlantic Capital Partners and Performix
Technologies hosted a dinner for the heads of Irish
corporations with US ties. The delegation also visited
Trinity's Nanotechnology Center and the MIT Media Lab
Europe, and were briefed by prominent Irish political
and economic journalists.
Additional corporate sponsors of the US-Ireland Alliance
include: Bank of Ireland, CRH, Cross Atlantic Capital
Partners, Diageo Ireland, Elan, IONA Technologies,
Jurys Doyle Hotel Group, and Riverdeep.
Irish American Post
23
More Homesick Than Seasick
By Adam Friedrich
Hugo Hamilton was not allowed to speak English
growing up. This served as an inspiration and
motivation for one of Ireland's most acclaimed
fiction writers to begin writing.
write it down," says Hamilton, who explains that
this book and the undertaking of writing it was a
therapeutic process for the family.
"My family can finally talk about it. That's one of
the biggest triumphs of the book. That it is out in
the open. That I turned our childhood, which was
alwa ys associated with shame and
embarrassment, and have turned it into a virtue,"
he says. Hamilton's Irish dad is tyrannical and
delusional, an extreme nationalistic advocate who
is hunkered down in the past. His German mother
escaped the Nazis horror by fleeing to France.
"I began to write to establishing an identity. As a
writer, it's always a challenge to write English,"
the author recalls. Hamilton, now 50,
demonstrates his writing talents and his solid
grasp of the English language in his new novel,
The Speckled People (Fourth Estate, 2003,
$24.95). This narrative biography documents
Hamilton's challenging childhood growing up in
post-war Dublin as a product of a half-German,
half-Irish upbringing.
It also details his struggles to find a common
language growing up on streets where survival
and acceptance is relied on the ability to speak English, but
living in a household that speaks only German and Irish.
The Speckled People (whose working title was More Homesick
Than Seasick, taken from the last postcard one of his
grandfathers sent from the navy before his death) isn't just
another retelling of a troubled and despaired childhood in
Ireland. But rather, it is a poetic, comical, and horrific reflection
on Hamilton's formative years told through a child's narration,
with an underlying of adult analysis and perception.
"It was essential to the story to find the child's voice," says
Hamilton, who indicates that finding this particular style was
both fortunate and the biggest challenge of the book. "I had to
view childhood, and myself as a child as a character. I had to
pull myself away and view him as a separate person. That was a
huge step for me personally and as a writer."
Hamilton had to dig deep into some old wounds and relive
some difficult times in his childhood when he was mocked and
taunted due the cultural differences he endured. He had to "join
his tormentors" so that he could keep the novel in a nonjudgmental voice and be an objective observer and storyteller
instead of a victim.
"I didn't want it to turn into an adult's analysis of a childhood.
When I first started writing the book, it
had too much analysis, so I had to find
that way of writing (as a child). It was a
fortunate position to be in as a writer. I
couldn't repeat it."
He also enrolled the help of his siblings,
who are themselves essential characters
throughout the novel. "This is very much
our collective story. It's as much theirs as
it is mine. I was given the responsibility to
24
Hugo Hamilton
1953
It seems as if this were the only time in
Hamilton's life when he could have written about
his life and his parents in such an intimate way. "I
needed to achieve a necessary distance to tell the
story." Hamilton claims that anger at his father
would have clouded any attempt to write this story any earlier
in his career.
"My father did everything for family and for his country. He
made a lot of sacrifices, but he included us in those sacrifices.
He didn't do that deliberately or wasn't malicious with his
intent, but his crusade injured us, and that was his mistake. He
realized later in life, and apologized for it. At that point, it was
almost too late."
Hamilton developed this
project out of a short
story entitled, "Nazi
Christmas," (which is
based on an anecdote
included in The Speckled
People) that he wrote
years ago. So although
the present is the
appropriate time for
Hamilton to handle all of
this personal material, the
premise that this was a
very important story to
tell has been with him for
quite some time.
Hamilton stepped away from writing after the completion of
The Speckled People, but is currently working on another
fiction piece. He is also developing a screenplay for a Londonbased film company. Asked what his response would be if a
film company optioned the rights to The Speckled People —
due to the success and popularity of fellow memoir writer
Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes — Hamilton responds, "I
wouldn't be opposed to it. The book has a great deal of
subtleties and echoes. The director must catch those echoes and
be very subtle."
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
Would Hamilton like to read about his life as a father if one of
his three children also wrote a memoir? He chuckled, "No I
would not. I hope I have a clean slate. I hope I get off lightly,
and they only remember the happy times. From my past, I have
tried to give my children all that they have wanted and to hear
what they have to say." Hamilton adds, "Memoirs have become
such a prominent art form, that it really instructs parents to
behave themselves and to consider the impact on what they're
doing to their children."
With a rapidly growing global culture blurring the distinction
between cultural lines, it is unlikely that Hamilton's children
would have to face the same struggle of finding an identity.
Hamilton himself has been liberated from cultural and language
barriers as he writes, "I'm not afraid any more of being German
or Irish, or anywhere in between. Maybe your country is only a
place you make up in your own mind. I'm not afraid of being
homesick and having no language to live in. I don't have to be
like anyone else."
Milwaukee Irish Fest Goes
Reality:
Irish Music Magazine's Irish Idol Contest to Showcase
Best New Talent
The hype. The hopes. The heartbreak.
American Idol and its British forerunner, Pop Idol,
have inspired an exciting new attraction at Milwaukee
Irish Fest: a dramatic talent search for the best newcomer as decided by festival visitors.
"Milwaukee Irish Fest has long been known at the
best American source for up-and-coming contemporary Irish music. This new contest showcases the latest
talent in a fun and suspenseful format," says Robert
Heuston, publisher of Irish Music Magazine.
Milwaukee Irish Fest, Aug. 14 - 17, has identified
more than 15 bands for consideration for the award.
Each band will be making its Irish Fest debut in 2003.
Voting will take place throughout the weekend by festival visitors; ballots will be available at festival information booths and in the Irish Music Magazine booth
in the Cultural Village.
The Irish Idol winner will receive a Waterford trophy
and be profiled in an upcoming issue of Irish Music
Magazine.
The Irish Idol will be announced prior to the Sunday
evening "Scattering," a musical farewell that unites
many of the weekend's musical performers on one
stage for a final performance.
For more information about Milwaukee Irish Fest,
check out www.irishfest.com.
Jun/Jul 2003
Applications now being
accepted for Irish Fest
Summer School
Classes Begin Aug. 10
During the five days preceding Milwaukee Irish Fest each
year, Milwaukee Irish Fest Summer School offers the most
diehard devotees of Celtic culture an interactive week of
instruction spanning the music, history, dance, crafts and
traditions of Ireland.
"Summer School furthers our mission to promote and
preserve the Irish heritage by making Irish culture and
traditions accessible to the public," says Milwaukee Irish
Fest Executive Director Jane Anderson.
Summer School 2003 runs Aug. 10-15 throughout the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus.
Accommodations for out-of-town students can be arranged
in the university's residence halls.
Eamon O'Cuiv, Ireland's Minister of the Department of
Community, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs, will deliver the
Summer School's keynote address at 7:00 p.m. on
Wednesday, Aug. 13. O'Cuiv's presentation is titled
"Ireland 1840-1940: A Personal Perspective" and may offer
rare first-hand insights. O'Cuiv's grandfather was Eamonn
de Valera, the activist for Irish independence who became
Ireland's first prime minister and eventually its president.
Other new lecture topics at Summer School will include
"Pathways to Peace," presented by the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Tim Crain; a genealogy workshop
by Dubliner John Grenham; "Early Irish Society Literature,
Law & Myth," by Trinity College graduate Seosaimhin Nic
Rabhartaigh; and "Representations of Ireland in American
Popular Culture" by Natasha Casey, a writer and academic.
Step dance students will have the opportunity to study
under Jean Butler, one of the originators of Riverdance.
Other significant highlights will be an intergenerational
puppet making class and the return of the new teen
curriculum offering music, song, Gaelic and calligraphy.
Many popular offerings from past years will also be
available. They include music lessons in flute, fiddle, harp,
bodhran, singing and history; dance lessons; and a
revolving roster of arts and cultural activities including
history, language, genealogy, film, Aran knitting, basket
weaving and calligraphy.
Classes run $15-$110 for a single class. Weekly rates are
$215 for one child including supervision throughout the
day, $375 for a single adult and $500 for a family of up to
5.
Classes are arranged for children 6-10; teens 13-18, and
adults. Family participation is encouraged.
For more information about Summer School monitor www.
irishfest.com or call Barb Breed-Heidt 262-227-6538 or
[email protected].
Irish American Post
25
Books
Gritty 'Shutter Island' the Latest Thriller
from Dennis Lehane
By Peter Schmidtke
U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels can't help but feel cagey
as he stares at the bare cement walls of the closetsized cubicle at Ashcliffe, a hospital for the
criminally insane on Shutter Island off Boston
Harbor. It's the early 1950s, and Daniels and his new
partner have been sent to the island to track down a
murderess who escaped from the room in question, an
assignment that gives the two marshals the jitters.
context, so I thought I'd try to slip something in
every 20 pages or so. What I really wanted to
capture was the mood of the time, which was
paranoia."
In terms of the conflict that emerges at Ashcliffe,
Lehane said he immersed himself mentally into his
scenes, thrusting himself virtually into the different
locales
The warden and the staff aren't cooperating, a
hurricane is brewing, and to top it off, Daniels thinks
a little more patient-intervention may be going on at
Ashcliffe than just routine psychiatry.
This forms the basis of Boston writer Dennis
Lehane's seventh novel, Shutter Island, which became available
in bookstores nationwide in April.
Lehane, who is first-generation Irish and hails from Dorchester,
a southern borough of Boston, was on hand recently at Mystery
One Bookshop on Prospect Avenue in Milwaukee and
Schwartz's Bookstore in Mequon to sign copies of his new
novel.
At Mystery One, a large banner behind the counter projected
the cover of Lehane's new novel, a forlorn image of the
fictionalized institution of Ashcliffe atop craggy cliffs by which
the patients and staff are held back from the icy Atlantic.
Lehane traces his inspiration for this setting to a childhood visit
with an uncle to a former mental institution on Boston Harbor's
Long Island when he was 8 or 9-years-old.
"He took me there and told me about it in spooky, boogedyboogedy terms," Lehane said. "And 27 years later, the idea just
kind of popped into my head when I was walking on a beach —
so you never know which idea will be the one you'll write."
While the action in his new novel takes place on a fictional
island, Lehane said that he looked extensively at texts to
research both the physical descriptions of the 34 islands off
Boston Harbor and the past use of drugs on schizophrenics in
American institutions.
Lehane said he boarded a ferry to one of the islands to have a
look around, but was unsuccessful. "I seriously tried to, but the
boat broke down."
Shutter Island is staged in the 1950s, and Lehane adeptly
includes appropriate slang and events important to that era,
including references to the aftereffects of World War II and
Korea and the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests.
"But I'm very much a less-is-more writer in those terms,"
Lehane says. "I didn't want to overload you with language and
26
"I say to myself, 'OK, what would be going on
here?' There would be power struggles and things
like that, but I wanted the world to be a little to the
left of reality. I was attempting a Gothic, so I didn't
want to be locked into any kid of hyper-realism."
While he says that he doesn't like to 'map out' the plots for his
books, a technique practiced by many mystery writers and
novelists, Lehane said that he was forced to do so with Shutter
Island.
"The mechanics were so complex that I had to write it down-it
was such a high-wire-act, that one wrong move and the book
collapses."
Along with a plot that will keep readers guessing, fans of the
author's novels will take pleasure in the platter of rich
characters he has laid before them in Shutter Island.
Lehane details the head federal marshal's sobering flashbacks to
both his military action in WWII and his relationship with his
father, a fisherman who was lost at sea in a raging tempest. The
reader receives a glimpse of Daniels' own person life — when
the marshal is forced to confront a troubled female patient on
the island, Daniels thinks back to the night before he left for the
war that he met his own wife, Dolores, at a local dance.
And even for Daniels' partner, Lehane provides details about
him including his sudden transfer to Boston as a result of his
marriage to a Japanese woman, an unpopular action in the '50s.
Dr. Cawley, a psychiatrist at Ashcliffe, is also given the full
treatment by Lehane when he is introduced to Daniels and his
partner:
Dr. Cawley was thin to the point of emaciation. Not quite the
swimming bones and cartilage Teddy had seen at Dachau, but
definitely in need of several good meals. His lips and nose
were as thin as the rest of him, and his chin appeared squared
off to the point of nonexistence. He had an explosive smile,
however, bright and bulging with a confidence that
lightened his irises."
Like all good novels, the author's dialog in Shutter Island helps
move the plot forward and shed light on the nature of the
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
Lehane's cast of players. One of just many occasions in which
Lehane showcases his mastery for dialog can be seen when Dr.
Naehring, a psychiatrist on the island whom the marshals
detest, grills Daniels and his partner about their backgrounds:
"You father is dead, yes? And yours as well, Marshal Daniels?
In fact, I'll wager that both of you lost the dominant male figure
in your lives before your fifteenth birthdays."
"Five of diamonds," Teddy said.
"I'm sorry?" (Naehring) Hunching ever forward.
"Is that your new parlor trick? Teddy (Daniels) said. "You tell
me what card I'm holding. Or, no, wait-you cut a nurse in half,
pull a rabbit from Dr. Cawley's head.
Given Lehane's use of dialog, plot, and social commentary,
mystery fans who pick up Shutter Island will be getting much
more than a standard 'who-dunnit.'
"I did that with a couple of the series books, and I had a desire
to do a Gothic, to pay homage to the great pulp films of the
'50s," Lehane emphasized. "Like Invasion of the Body
Snatchers and movies that indirectly addressed what was going
on in the country, when directors and writers couldn't overtly
address these problems."
But, Lehane says, if people want to say that he's just writing
mysteries, that's fine too.
Upcoming Projects and New Releases
Mystic River, his previous novel which won the Anthony
Award, the Barry Award for Best Novel, and the Massachusetts
Book Award in Fiction, was also produced as a film by Clint
Eastwood and will be in theaters next October.
Although Lehane did not write the screenplay, he said that he
was included in the process with Eastwood and his production
company, Malpaso.
"I can honestly say I've never heard of any writer being treated
as well as I was," Lehane pointed out. "I was informed at every
step of the production, and then I was on the set. And I hung
out with Eastwood and watched 84 musicians score the music
for the film- incredible."
And Lehane has a collection of short stories set in South
Carolina, Texas, and Florida that will be published next year.
Concerning upcoming novels, Lehane says that from this point
on, he will return to the urban, working class neighborhoods for
which he is known.
"Shutter Island was definitely the furthest a field I've ever gone,
or will ever go," he confided.
Lehane as Writer
Lehane has been crafting fiction since he was 8-years-old, but it
took dropping out of two colleges for him to understand this.
"I realized that I just wasn't good at anything else, and I might
as well take this seriously," he said. "And I set my sights on it."
graduating in 1988 from Eckered College in St. Petersburg,
Fla.
"That was the only time I couldn't write," Lehane said. "That
was one of those jobs that you definitely carried home with
you."
Shortly thereafter, Lehane entered the creative writing
program at Florida International University in Miami and
graduated with his MFA in 1993. His first novel in his
Kenzie-Gennaro crime-fiction series, A Drink Before War,
was accepted by a publisher a month before he finished the
program, the happenstance of which pleased the author.
"It was great," Lehane says with a raised eyebrow, "because I
didn't know what the hell I was going to do."
Despite this early success, he continued chauffeuring and
parking cars at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Boston.
In 1996, when he got a contract for his third book, Lehane
came to the realization that what he was then making as a
writer was exactly what he earned as a chauffeur,"
"So I quit," he says matter-of-factly. "But I put this in
perspective by saying that almost no one could have quit on
what I quit on- I had two roommates, low rent, a crappy car
and no kids or a mortgage."
This may sound risky, but a quick chat with Lehane reveals a
writer who is focused on writing.
"The beginning is torture for me," he explained when asked
about his writing process. "I start very slowly- then it gains
momentum, and by the end I'm pulling really long days and
not even noticing it."
For the past two years, Lehane has also taught a writing
course at the University of Southern Maine at Stonecoast and
will be teaching this September at Harvard. He has taught at a
number of writer's conferences, including the Seaside Institute
Writer's Conference in 2002.
Irish Roots
Both of Lehane's parents came to the States from Ireland in
the mid 1940s. His mother, Ann, arrived from a small village
outside of Galway and worked for the United Services
Organization (USO), in New York. Lehane's father, Michael,
grew up in the village of Clonakilty outside of Cork. He and
Ann met in Boston.
His parents are now both retired...his dad as a foreman at
Sears and Roebuck, and his mother as public school cafeteria
worker. Lehane's folks now divide their time between Cape
Cod and St. Petersburg, Fla.
Lehane has been to Ireland several times. Because his father
had 17 brothers and sisters, and his mother had "only slightly
fewer" siblings, many of his relatives can still be found in
Ireland. Lehane himself has three brothers and a sister, all of
whom, with the exception of one brother, live in Boston.
From then on, Lehane wrote continuously until he worked with
sexually and physically abused children for two years after
Jun/Jul 2003
Irish American Post
27
Trekking Up Knockdoe Hill
The Lights That Will Never Go Out
By Gerard McDonagh
One night recently, I decided to take a walk. It was a dry, calm
night, a welcome respite from the endless rain. Above me the
stars were twinkling in their own galaxies, whilst all along the
road, the windows of the new houses were lit up. Then I got a
sudden urge. Something I had not done for over twenty years. I
decided that I would climb to the top of Knockdoe Hill.
This low hill was the scene of a now forgotten battle in 1504
which some historians like Gerald Hayes McCoy say was the
death of Gaelic Ireland. A savage battle in which thousands
were slain by the axe of the gallowglass among others, it now
lies silent, overlooking the stonewalled countryside.
With only the moon and stars to light me, I set off. The years
had not diminished my ability to step and hop over the limestone rocks that lined the route as I had traversed them so often
in my younger days. Instinctively, I kept going until I reached
the top and stood on the ruins of Teach Mor, a legacy to a man's
folly in 1850 who decided to build a house in such a windswept
spot.
I looked 10 miles westward to the illuminated City of Galway
and its suburbs and turned a full circle clockwise. I saw the
bright orange lights of Moycullen, Claregalway, Annaghdown,
Corofin, Tuam, Abbeyknockmoy, Athenry, Oranmore and finally Galway once again Linking those towns and villages were
the many lights made up of the countryside's "one-off" homes.
It looked like a golden ring, the towns and villages being its
encrusted diamonds, priceless, irreplaceable. A countryside
alive and vibrant, its lights being a symbol of our prosperity.
Every parish, village and byroad breathing again where once its
life had all but expired.
Yet, such a wondrous scene does not please a certain sector of
the very people who claim to have the best interests of the environment at heart. If they had their way, one would only see the
diamonds but not the ring that holds them together. For "oneoff" rural housing is a blight on the landscape according to esteemed bodies like An Taisce.
The government defines the National Spatial Strategy as "a
twenty year planning framework designed to achieve a better
balance of social, economic, physical development and population growth between regions." It claims that "its focus is on
people, on places and on building communities." This strategy
is being loosely adopted by our County Councils who use such
terms in the NSS like sustainable development being
"minimising the consumption of non-renewable resources like
soils, groundwater and agricultural land." What they really
mean is that there should not be any private "one-off" houses in
the countryside! Even the opposition parties like Labour are in
agreement. Their document, "Visions of Ireland", is very much
in line with this new thinking on the clustering of towns and
villages.
28
There is nothing wrong with the clustering of towns and villages. But when this occurs at the expense of populating the
general countryside, then the balance is distorted. Michael D.
Higgins of that same Labour Party said recently, "Last year, one
farmer in seven sold a site". That statistic is an excuse for this
new policy. Yet the reality is that somebody will come in to that
area, build a house, send their children to the local school, shop
in the local supermarket and contribute to the economic and
social development of that area.
The hinterland around Knockdoe Hill is a prime example of
this. For the last 25 years, farmers have helped supplement declining incomes, by selling half-acre sites. This has had a number of knock on effects.
For instance, it has given financial freedom to some farmers,
away from the clutches of banks and financial institutions. To
others, it has given them an opportunity to reinvest that money
back into building another house on their land, alleviating the
onus on the government (that seeks to stop this type of development,) on having to provide housing.
This influx of people has meant that the elderly no longer feel
isolated and afraid of a night-time attacker. The end of "no
other house for miles around roads" mean that they feel secure
in the knowledge that help is never far away.
The infusion of new ideas, customs and initiative allows traditional dwellers look outside their own sometimes narrow world
and embrace these for the betterment of all. One has only to
drive by and see beautifully kept farmhouses and gardens which
traditionally might not have been so well kept. People learn
from each other. Over time, a blend of indigenous and imported
ideas is achieved, which maximises the good and consigns the
bad to history.
This "mixing" of customs can be found in the "Stations",
around Knockdoe. An old Parish custom, whereby a mass is
said in a different persons house once a year in each area of the
parish. In our area, as a boy, there were but seven houses and
thus we had the stations once every seven years. Today, over 30
years on, there are now 24 houses in our area, with two different station masses each year. This allows us to meet our
neighbours who hail from places as far away as England and
the U.S. to people from Dublin, Mayo, Kildare, Cork and other
counties. It creates a community, which is the basis of all habitation. Isolation is banished. Interaction flourishes.
This mixing is also good for those "outsiders" who choose to
settle in the country. It lets them see at first hand the way the
countryside pulses. The farmers who make their living on the
land are existing side-by-side with birdlife and wildlife. The
changing seasons painting their colours on the fields. It allows
them to see that the so-called urban-rural divide is only there
because of ignorance and lack of understanding.
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003
In fact, the usual problems faced by farmers are very much like
their own, be it money, health or whatever. Only the format is
different.
The ancient Irish dispersed village which survived hundreds of
years of wars, occupation and famine is now facing the greatest
threat from the most unlikely of sources-the government of this
country!
The NSS, in jargon that only scholars could understand, says
that it has its best interests at heart. Yet, already Galway County
Council has put its own interpretation on it and decided to grant
planning permission for "one off" rural housing only in exceptional circumstances within a 15km radius of Galway City.
suddenly occurred to me. What if all the planners, so called environmentalists and all those opposed to "one-off " rural housing were to be brought to the top of the hill at night. At a prearranged time, all the lights would be switched off in those same
country houses. Perhaps then, they might see how those diamonds are devalued without the ring upon which they are set.
(Gerard McDonagh, a Galway-based freelance journalist, is a
regular contributor to The Irish Farmer's Journal. He also
writes a monthly article on parenting for Reality magazine and
has contributed recent articles to The Word, Today's Parent,
Ireland's Eye and The Western People. He can be reached at
[email protected])
As I stood on the summit of Knockdoe Hill in the light of the
moon, with the graves of the slaughtered all around, a thought
Irish American Heritage Festival,
July 11, 12, and 13
If you are like thousands of other good folk in the area, you
have already made your plans to attend our upcoming festival.
In what promises to be one of the most heavily attended festivals in years, the Irish American Heritage Festival is scheduled for the weekend of July 11, 12, and 13. The only Irish
Festival held in Chicago will be at 4626 N. Knox Avenue.
This year's fest will be highlighted by the performances of
The Young Dubliners and Lúnasa on both Saturday and Sunday. The Young Dubliners are considered one of the best
Celtic rock bands in the U.S. and Lúnasa is hailed as the best
traditional Irish music band to come out of Ireland in the last
decade! On Friday night, local favorites The Tossers will
bring a high energy show perfect for the party crowd.
The festival always provides a wide variety of family entertainment and this year will be no exception. The children's
area will be open throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday
and there promises to be a few different wrinkles to keep the
kids entertained. We will be hosting a variety of craft and cultural exhibits from the Center's own Nimble Thimbles and
Cultural Committee, as well as several artisans and craftsmen
who will provide demonstrations of their crafts.
ing to the schedule with a mix of activities for children as
well as hands on displays of Irish music, step dance lessons,
and an old-fashioned sing-along.
Rounding out the weekend's incredible line-up is a vast array
of the best local musical groups. Scheduled to appear are: Gan
Bua, Whitey O'Day, Salthill Mines, North and South, The
Heritage Singers, The Larkin Brothers, The Dooley Brothers,
St. James Gate, Another Pint, Dyed in the Wool, Fonnmohr,
The Chancey Brothers, Baal Tinne, Moore and Broaders, and
Finbar Fagan's Band.
Joining us once again will be our friends the Misericordia
Heartbreakers. Their special musical performances touch everyone in the audience and on stage alike. There won't be a
moment of down time at this year's fest as we will also have
several appearances by our own Shapeshifters and The Irish
Heritage Singers, as well as a few bagpipe bands thrown into
the mix.
Tickets to for the festival are available now! $8 Pre-sale if
purchased before July 9, $12 at the door, $7 for seniors and
children under 12 free. Call the Center for your tickets with
Visa or MasterCard - (773) 282-7035.
Several dance schools will be in attendance, providing us with
some of the best in local step dancing and showcasing many
of the area's talented youngsters. The Folk Tent is also return-
Jun/Jul 2003
Irish American Post
29
Milwaukee Irish Fest
The Good, the Bog and the Underworld
New Exhibits Enhance Milwaukee Irish Fest's Cultural Village
Wherever you are, you are home.
This year, Ballyfest, Milwaukee Irish Fest's Cultural Village,
celebrates that universal feeling of being in a place where the
Irish congregate - by exploring the influence of the Irish outside Ireland. Come home to several new cultural exhibits this
year, including:
* "The Irish American Outlaws," examining the lives and
times notorious villains of Irish descent, including of Billy the
Kid, Mad Dog Coll, members of Murder Inc., and associates
of Al Capone in Chicago;
* A still-building demonstration by stone wall builder Bartley
O'Dohmnaill, highlighting the old Irish moon shining techniques used to distill poteen;
*An exhibit tracing the Claddagh area in County Galway and
the origin of the popular Claddagh ring in cooperation with
Dillons of Shop Street and Galway historian Peadar O'Dowd;
*Horticultural displays exploring the common traits of bogs
found in Ireland and Wisconsin;
*A new interactive Irish music session activity for festivalgoers led by Waltons Music of Dublin and New York;
*Bing Crosby memorabilia from the Ward Irish Music Archives and a visit from Bing's nephew, Howard Crosby, in
celebration of the Irish American crooner's recent centennial
birthday; and
*Irish folklorist and storyteller Eddie Lenihan sharing stories
about fairies in our midst.
Favorite attractions from past years will return and expand in
2003 including an enhanced exhibit about the Irish Railways;
willow rod basket weaving demonstrations by Irish sallyweaver Grainne Ui Mhaitiu; the Hedge School and Seanachie's Space; Irish language, song and storytelling in the
Gaeltacht, authentic crafts and wares in the Moore Street Market; some of the best in Irish music and song in the Pub, the
opportunity to discover family's roots in the Genealogy tent;
and organized games of tug of war. Currach races will be held
in Lake Michigan and hurlers will be playing north of the
grounds at Urban Park.
For more information about the Cultural Area at Milwaukee
Irish Fest, call 414-476-3378 or monitor
www.irishfest.com.
Wee Energy:
Children's Activities Electrify Kids' Celtic Curiosity
Milwaukee Irish Fest boasts a proud tradition as Milwaukee's
only festival with an interactive children's area.
A rainbow of activities promise creative play with cultural
value, including:
• The Lilli-putt mini-golf area, built by volunteers to
look like Ireland including a drawbridge, a castle and
sheep;
• Crafts and educational activities, including castlebuilding with Legos, fashioning Celtic crosses from
foam, weaving fairy wreaths, and decorating potatoes with JuJu fruits;
• The Fairy Ring musical game where youngsters hop
among stepping stones; and
• Birthday parades for Official Irish Fest mascot
Paddy McFest on Friday and Saturday in which kids
can participate using hand-made instruments.
30
Children's entertainment is designed with the interests and
attention spans of the little ones in mind. Performances on the
children's stage are interactive and under 45 minutes long.
Attractions include storytellers, plays and sing-alongs.
Kid tips
• Admission to Milwaukee Irish Fest is free for children under 12
• Children under 12 must be supervised by an adult in
the Children's Area and throughout the festival
grounds.
• Consider volunteering as a family with kids 12 and
under; teens 13-17 may volunteer with friends or on
their own.
• Kids rule at Irish Fest. If you know a talented teen
Irish Fest enthusiast, please refer them to the new
Youth Leadership Program.
For more information about activities for children and teens at
Irish Fest, contact 414-476-3378 or [email protected].
Irish American Post
Jun/Jul 2003