ALSO BUTTE`S BEST BAR … NIALL GIVES HIGH FIVE TO GUYS

A JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY IRISH & IRISH AMERICAN AFFAIRS
DEC. 05/JAN. O6 VOL. 6 ISSUE 3
ALSO ... BUTTE’S BEST BAR … NIALL GIVES
HIGH FIVE TO GUYS … SPIES IN THE
WOODWORK … ANDY GOES TO HILO …
MITCHELL SCHOLAR SMARTS …
WHO’S OUTSIDE MY WINDOW.
Cover Photos
The photo of Brian Keane is courtesy of Brian Keane Music,
http://www.briankeanemusic.com
Other artwork is courtesy of PBS,
http://www.pbs.org/thewarthatmadeamerica
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2
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Irish American Post
Publisher/Executive Editor
Martin Hintz
Editor-in-Chief
Louis Fortis
Managing Editor
Ed Garvey
Book Editor: Martin Russell
Music Writer: Deric Green
Film: Stephen Hintz
Health columnist: Dr. Bob Gleeson
http://www.drbobgleeson.com
Irish American Post Chicago Bureau:
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Documentary Filmdom's Top Musical Gun Has Plenty o' Irish
By Martin Hintz
6
Celtic Women Get Gold/Platinum Nod
8
Music Reviews
9
Ahern at Ease in Author's Role
By Kaitlan Murphy Tauber
11
With Library, IAHC Opens New Chapter
By Sheila Burt
13
A Montana Town Celebrates its Irish Roots
By Sean G Conneely
14
Fraction of a Vision: Political Documentaries vs. Mundane Reality
By Christopher J. Falvey
17
The Intruder
By Kristin King Stapleton
18
How a Donegal Rebel Died in Wicklow
By Mattie Lennon
19
Pubs of the Month
22
Murph’s Original Sauce Making the Rounds
By Mario Raspanti
24
Animals Find Holiday Love
By Ted Crowley
26
In the Tank, Shoulda Stuck With Guinness
By Ted Crowley
27
UWM Theater Goes Irish
By Mario Raspanti
28
2006 Mitchell Scholars Announced
By Steve Hintz
29
Passageway Through Time
By Wynne Crombie
31
Irish Andy Sails to Hilo and Other Poetic Ports o' Call
By Mario Raspanti
33
Niall Gives High Five to Irish Guys
35
Guinness Might Just Be What the Doctor Ordered
By Dr. Bob Gleeson
36
Publisher’s Comments
Bliain nua fe mhaise dhuit! The new year is well along by now, with a great selection in this issue of Irish American Post short
stories, features and all sort o’ other good stuff to peruse by the roaring fireplace.
Regrettably, political news from Northern Ireland reads almost like a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, what with spies under the table at
Stormont and tales of who’s peeking in on whom. But there are serious charges flying around about years of sniffing for the Brits on
the part of renegade republicans. And then there’s the gallop around potential OTR (On the Run) legislation and whether it’s on or
off again for chasing after the bad guys and gals.
On the Wisconsin front, entrepreneur philanthropist Michael Cudahy jetted (in his private plane) a contingent of Wisconsin pols and
policy makers to showcase Ireland’s roaring economic Tiger. Cudahy, son of the first U.S. ambassador to Ireland, escorted Gov.
James Doyle, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and several business and education muckety-mucks around Eire. They all return
mightily impressed with the Republic’s emphasis on schools and its tax structure.
Everyone was coy on how much Guinness was imbibed on the jaunt but there wasn’t need to be nervous. In this issue, read Dr. Bob
Gleeson’s expostulation on the health benefits of Sir Arthur’s stout. Drinking in moderation and walking to and from the pub is part
of Dr. Bob’s sage advice.
Cecilia Ahern, daughter of Prime Minister Bertie, has certainly been a charmer as she sweeps across America promoting her latest
book. Hers may be chick lit, but it’s Celtic chick lit and grand fun reading. Our own Kaitlin Tauber tells what makes the frolicking,
and hard working, colleen tick and tock.
So, as we say at closing in Paddy’s snug, “Sláinte!”
Dec.05/Jan 06
Irish American Post
— Martin Hintz, publisher3
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Dec.05/Jan 06
Carrick Michael
(Michael A. Clarke, 1934-2000)
1
If I go back to Donegal town
and step off the Dublin bus
onto the glittering diamond there
in the first day’s fading dusk,
where I missed your faces
in the five-o’clock holiday rush,
would I not see yours everywhere?
on that midnight highway outside the inn
where the Dublin City Ramblers sang,
where we hugged goodbye as the tolling of our time
together on the island rang,
If ever I sit in the riverside room
where the Eske becomes the bay,
where the telephone rang with your voice
from the bar downstairs at the end of that day,
finally arrived from Limerick with friends
and the tale of your airport delay,
if ever I hurry down the Christmas stairs
to the public room with the little peat fire
where our separate paths across Ireland since dawn
met again at the merry bar,
and you and your friends told of passing by Yeats’s
grave ˜Horsemen!˜ beneath Drumcliff spire,
would I not see the Santa Claus beard?
If ever I go on Killybegs Road
as I did next day in the rain,
chasing you and Marge and the millennium sun
to Gleesons’ to share life again
as we did for six decades that century
now ticking down to its end,
would there be more dew than tears?
2
If I ride once more from Donegal town
on the Letterkenny bus
as we did that last day from the diamond there,
the three of us,
through Balleybofey in the early night
and to Milford by taxi then
up near Lough Swilly in the north country dark,
if ever I stand there again
if ever I stand in Portarlington Station
at the phone beside the track
there in the middle of Ireland
like the day you were flying back
when I called you in Dublin at McGuinnesses’‚
our last words over there,
before you flew home for good
and I caught a train west somewhere,
could I stand in that lone black station
and not hear our most loved sound,
your voice, Michael, fill
those four green fields all around?
Before they ferried you over
to lay you down
so abruptly,
could I?
Could we?
Not in a hundred,
not in a thousand years.
3
Or couldn’t we? Some lifetimes,
some centuries ahead,
come back and not remember.
Maybe. Or then maybe, after all,
on road or river down to sea
if we go there again,
a white-curled wind will Sláinte up, titter the clouds,
and give us wings so we can fly.
— Andrew Clarke
Poet Andrew Clarke lives in Milwaukee and can be reached at [email protected].
A feature on Clarke, "Irish Andy Sails to Hilo and Other Poetic Ports o' Call," is included
in this issue, page 33.
Dec.05/Jan 06
Irish American Post
5
Documentary Filmdom’s Top Musical Gun
Has Plenty o’ Irish
By Martin Hintz
When it comes to music for films, Brian Keane marches to his
own creative drumbeat.
The Connecticut-based Keane has won 32 Emmy awards, including 14 for best picture and seven for outstanding music
composition," 16 Peabody awards, 37 Dupont awards, eight
Ace awards and a Columbia/Dupont Gold Baton. He has become a highly sought-after composer for films and television,
working alongside notable filmmakers like Ric Burns, Bill
Moyers and others.
According to his biographical notes, Keane has scored more
350 films, many of which have won awards, as well as produced more than 100 CDs . He’s had 29 Billboard Top Tens,
five of which went to No. 1. In 2002, Keane became the first
composer to take all the Emmy nominations for Outstanding
Music Composition in a single year.
In 2003, he followed up that by winning the award again for
Outstanding Music Composition for HBO's Picture Perfect, as
well as composing the music to the Peabody Award-winning
film, The Complete Angler and Ric Burns' Ansel Adams which
won the Emmy for Best Picture. In 2004, Keane again won the
Music Emmy for HBO's Curse Of The Bambino, which also
won Best Sports Documentary. Keane was also nominated for a
Music Emmy for three other scores including Ric Burns New
York: The Center of the World which won another Emmy for
Best documentary of the year.
Kickback Guy
Despite the impressive array of trophies, ribbons, certificates,
medals, bowls, crystal objects de art and other knickknacks,
Keane remains a kickback sort of guy who appreciates his deep
Irish roots, has a passion for good music and loves history.
His latest effort was scoring the music for a complex four-part
PBS documentary, The War That Made America, which highlighted the 250-year-anniversary of the French and Indian War.
The series was broadcast in mid-January, explaining the loss of
French North America to the British empire. That 18th century
conflict was one of the first real world wars, as it pitted the
era’s superpowers against each other from India to the Caribbean, to Europe and to the thickly forested mountains of New
York and the rocky islands off Canada.
The war laid the groundwork for the American Revolution and
involved dozens of noteworthy personalities who earned a footnote in history. They included Maj. Gen. William Johnson, an
Irishman who routed the French in a 1755 battle on the shores
of Lake Champlain.
"The idea (for the series) was not fully formed when we first
met to discuss it in the spring of 2005," Keane recalled. "But
the producers had a little bit of footage so I had a sense of what
6
it would look like. We had the story line and the major players,"
he explained. "I was constantly advised on the history, to ensure
accuracy. For instance, George Washington, while a great president, was a bumbling idiot as a young officer. He caused the
war by attacking a French diplomatic party."
Keane’s challenge for The War That Made America was to fine
tune a musical odyssey that reached across four distinct cultures
(French, Indian, Native American and colonial) and more than
two centuries. "This was a very unique project and a demanding
score to produce because the film itself is a hybrid of drama and
documentary," Keane said.
Themes Assembled
The composer needed to express all that in a creative, musical
fashion. Keane subsequently assembled a series of different
themes, bringing musicians to his studio for recording sessions.
He then digitally wove this material to construct the documentary’s brief musical moments, using as many as 100 channels of
sound.
Keane is used to what seems to be such an insurmountable task,
having worked on similar projects for years. Numerous periodinstrument musicians such the Waverly Consort and Baltimore
Consort, Douglas Spotted Eagle and Joe Firecrow have been
helpful in the past, helping Keane gain experience with multiple
layers of historical and ethnic sound patterns.
For the French and Indian War project,. Keane brought together
30 performers to make up a baroque-period orchestra. They recreated British and French court music, which Keane either composed or chose from the work of 18th-century composers such
as Handel. Other musicians recorded traditional colonial folk
tunes, playing instruments such as the hammer dulcimer, lute
and viola da gamba. For the authentic sound of the military
snare drums used on the battlefield, Keane had traditional rope
drums made by craftsman Jim Cooperman. Native American
singers from the Six Nations also recorded songs.
Even with electronic magic in his studio, Keane admitted that
score was a difficult project, even as he successfully put the
whole thing together this past autumn. "This was a very unique
sound track, one you’ll not find anywhere else. What made it
interesting for me was that where else can you fuse authentic
French, British and Native American music? Especially in an
era where commercial interests try to make everything sound
the same. It’s becoming harder than ever to find things that are
so unique, that evoke emotion."
Yet the composing and fine-tuning was still a tough job. "It gets
to the point where you don’t know how the brain does it," he
said, indicating that the French and Indian War documentary
was one of 16 projects he worked on in 2005. From late spring
until early September, Keane worked almost 24/7. "It was a
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
nightmare," he said, continuing, "When I went home at night, I
needed my 20-minute drive decompression time."
Keane works with computers, saying, "It’s the most direct thing
from my brain." Starting with programs that he chuckled were
"now extinct," Keane still uses a DOSS-based operating system.
"But we also have all the latest stuff around for the younger
guys. I have a staff for orchestration, a copyist, secretary, three
digital editor/engineers and two or three other folks for pickup."
Keane composes each piece, working from a silent film that the
producers send him. He then forwards his file to be orchestrated
and copied, where it then goes on to the musicians, he explained. "We’re a well-oiled machine," Keane asserted goodnaturedly. "It’s better than it used to be," he said of the process.
"There’s a lot more technology.
"I wish I had a more full-bodied hobby life but it’s hard to take
off time, Keane went on. "However I do play some golf, shooting in the mid-80s," he said. In addition, Keane does write some
noncommercial music for his own enjoyment. "And more and
more as I get older, I am trying not to fill every working moment," he said.
Chops Wood
Keane also unwinds by going to the movies, chopping wood on
his 12-acres, visits with friends and takes in a good college
football game on occasion, usually favoring Notre Dame in true
Irish fashion.
Last year’s deadline crunch was typical of many of his documentary projects. "A director knows the power of music. But by
the time, he gets around to it, he’s out of time, out of money
and the creative process is mostly completed. Then the composer is supposed to have everything done in a month. It becomes the crisis of the week," Keane laughed.
Keane was born in Philadelphia in 1953 to a musical family,
with Co. Cork family roots. His great-grandfather, Michael
Keane, hailed from Kilkey in southwest Ireland. Keane has visited that family village on regular visits to Ireland.
Growing up, he heard mostly Tin Pan Alley Irish music and
songs by tenor John McCormack, especially since his grandfather, Al, was a vaudeville singer and "did all sorts of stuff with
liquor during Prohibition," according to Keane.
His mother, Winifred, is an avant garde composer and singer.
His dad, George, is an experienced Irish tenor who still enjoys
singing. His brother Geoff, who owns Merit Music in New Canaan, Conn., plays cello, sings, Keane’s sister Sheila has also
sung professionally and now lives in Australia. "We’d sing
every Sunday, but there weren’t a lot of traditional Irish tunes,"
he said. Keane said he didn’t delve deeply into the trad gene
until the 1980s.
But to his credit as an adult, Keane became more interested in
the Irish sound and worked on a two-volume Hearts of Space
record entitled Songs of the Irish Whistle with Joannie Madden
of Cherish the Ladies and another called Celtic Twilight. Liam
and Aoife Clancy, Eileen Ivers, Sinead O’Connor, Mary Black
and Paddy Moloney are among other Irish performers with
whom he has worked.
Dec.05/Jan 06
Much of the labor for his collaboration with Moloney’s A Long
Journey Home: The Irish in America PBS miniseries was recorded at Liam Clancy’s home in southeastern Ireland and produced in Dublin. It earned a Grammy in 1998. Yet everything
always doesn’t result in Irish gold. Although he was in the running to score the movie version of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s
Ashes, the nod went to another composer.
When his kids were younger, Keane often took them to Irish
sessions, Chieftains’ concerts and productions of Riverdance.
Referring to his youngsters, their dad proudly said that they appreciated their Irish lineage. "My son Wilder, who is 18 now
and a guitarist in a heavy metal band, has bright red hair so it’s
hard to ignore the heritage," Keane said.
Another son, Dylan, 17 is also a guitar player and now studying
at the Squaw Valley Academy near Lake Tahoe where he is a
snow boarding devotee. His third son, Chris, 33, lives in Seattle
where he develops video games. Wife Susan keeps the whole
brood fed and watered when they are all together, as well as
being a jeweler who makes custom pins and rings.
While growing up and playing rock and roll in Westport, Conn.,
Keane, now 53, eventually studied privately with John Mehegan, a Julliard professor and jazz pianist. After being graduated from high school in 1971, Keane attended Cornell University and Ithaca College, graduating with honors in three years.
While in college, he studied with Czech composer Karel Husa.
Becomes Session Guitarist
After school, Keane moved to the New York area and became a
session guitarist, working with disco star Vicky Sue Robinson,
a jazz trio with Eddie Gomez and Jeremy Steig, and as Eartha
Kitt’s musical director. He was hired by jazz guitarist Larry
Coryell and the two toured as a duo for several years. They
would regularly break out in sessions with other musicians such
as flamenco guitarist Paco De Lucia, and Polish violinist Michael Urbaniak. Keane and Coryell recorded three records together. During the 1980s, Keane toured with other jazz stars
like Bobby McFerrin, the Brubecks and Spyro Gyra.
Keane said he scored his first film in 1981, entitled Against
Wind And Tide: A Cuban Odyssey. The documentary told of the
Mariel boat lift to the United States, a process in which Fidel
Castro emptied his jails and asylums. The movie, by Jim
Burroughs and Suzanne Baugman, was subsequently nominated
for an Academy Award. By then, Keane was severely bitten by
the film bug.
"Movie people began learning about me through word of mouth
at that time, even though I kept up my jazz at first," Keane recalled. Then in 1986, his friend, Suzanne Baugman, asked him
to score a piece about the Ottoman Empire called Suleyman The
Magnificent.
Needing help, Keane sought out producer Arif Mardin, an old
jazz session guitarist pal, and asked him to recommended musicians for the score. Keane said Mardin called back shortly, indicating that his cook suggested visiting a belly dancing club in
New York called Fazil's, which was noted for its upbeat Middle
Eastern music.
Keane followed the advice and was able to link up there with
Irish American Post
7
musician Faruk Tekbilek. With Tekbilek, Keane’s ensuing
soundtrack combined Western and Middle Eastern instrumentation. The successful film became a must-see within the industry
and German record company president Eckart Rahn secured the
score for his Celestial Harmonies label.
The soundtrack from Suleyman The Magnificent became the
first of a series of recordings made by Keane and Tekbilek before Keane soloed for Blue Note Records. In the late ‘80s and
early ‘90s, Keane continued to develop his producing career,
scoring such films as the HBO film Chimps: So Like Us. That
also won an Emmy and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Documentary film guru Ric Burns also hired Keane to score his
highly regarded Coney Island and he has continued to score all
of Burns’ subsequent films.
Keane has plenty to say about today’s music world, particularly
when it applies to films and television. "What’s negative about
the industry these days is that nobody wants to use a melody.
There’s a whole school out there of bombastic music, going for
cheap thrills," according to Keane. "It’s a P.T. Barnum mentality," he complained.
"Basically, the reason is that its all about dollars, going for the
low common denominator," he indicated, pointing how that he
appreciates working for HBO, PBS and National Public Radio
where the focus is different than that of the more commercial
outlets.
"Think of the last 50 movies you’ve seen. Can you hum anything anymore like Doctor Zhivago or the Sound of Music?" he
asked. "People do consider my stuff melodically memorable, I
suppose. And I thank my Irish roots, where melodies are
strong."
He pointed out that music can make or break a film or change
the entire focus. A tragedy can become a comedy and vice
versa, depending on how you use the music, Keane added.
"You don’t notice it unless it’s gone," he said.
"My success? I guess I’ve done pretty well to live like I live and
what I do. I’ve produced quite an eclectic collection over my
career," Keane said. He then cited noted jazz pianist Keith
Jarrett who lived on a small New Jersey farm. "Keith lived very
well and always said his music was built to last."
"That philosophy rang true," Keane concluded.
Information on Keane was gleaned both from an interview and
from his website. For more additional information on the composer and his work, see www.briankeanemusic
Celtic Women Get Gold/Platinum Nod
Celtic Woman, which just completed the second leg of its U.S. tour were presented by Manhattan Records/EMI with a plaque for
Platinum DVD sales and Gold CD sales on Nov. 8 after a show at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The group’s self-titled release
has been the #1 World Music album for the past four months. The U.S. fall tour was a tremendous success with sold out dates in several cities including Boston, Minneapolis, San Diego, Cincinnati, and others. The five-member group will return to the U.S. for a
spring tour.
Shown at the Carnegie Club in New York City are from left to right:
Deirdre of Celtic Woman, Dave Kavanagh, chief executive, Celtic
Women, Orla and Lisa of Celtic Woman, Ivan Gavin, chief operating
officer, EMI Music North America, Sharon Browne, producer, Celtic
Women, Bruce Lundvall, President & CEO, EMI Jazz & Classics, David
Downes, Musical Director, composer of original music, Celtic Woman,
Ian Ralfini, senior vice president/general manager, Manhattan Records,
Mairead and Chloe of Celtic Woman.
Shown at the Carnegie Club in New York City are from left to right:
Deirdre, Orla, Lisa of Celtic Woman, David Downes, musical director for
Celtic Woman, Mairead and Chloe of Celtic Woman.
Photo by Gary Gershoff
Photo by Gary Gershoff
8
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Music Review
Imíonn an tAm
Rogha Amhráin – Selected Songs
Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin
http://www.futafata.com/
What a wonderful CD this is, showing as
it does that the songwriting tradition in
Irish is alive and well. Not only that, it
shows a talented Irish singer and songwriter putting out rich songs and melodies that do not follow what have become thought of as "traditional" Irish themes. The songs come
in a variety of styles, from bluesy to melancholic to country.
idea, McAloon’s playing never looses the thread of the tune.
The CD is a collection of some of Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin’s
best-loved songs from the last 20 years. Imíonn an tAm (imeun
un tahm), which means "Time Goes By," is also the name on a
particularly beautiful song on the CD. The song is about a
young girl who asks her father one fall day why the tree has
given up her leaves, and why the bird nest at the end of the garden is empty. Imíonn an tAm.
This CD is available at http://celticgrooves.homestead.com/
CG_McAloon_Sean.html
Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin, born in the West of Ireland, has had a
long career as a teacher, broadcaster, and promoter of the Irish
language. He has also been a key part of CDs and TV programs
aimed at Irish language learners and speakers, especially children. He most recently released "Gugallaí Gug," a collection of
traditional children’s rhymes in Irish.
Most of the songs are in Irish, and there are no translations next
to the lyrics on the CD jacket. That said, if you can’t read Irish,
or aren’t learning it, the melodies themselves are beautifully
crafted, and a great pleasure on their own.
— Paul Carr
Stór Píobaireachta – Piping from the Archives
Seán McAloon
http://www.pipers.ie
A great paradox it is that Seán McAloon
was one of the most brilliant uilleann
pipers of the last century, and yet he is
not well-known, and there are almost no
recordings of his music. Fortunately, in
the 1970s Joe Corrigan made some recordings of McAloon as part of a teaching project for the Fermanagh school system. Thanks to a
chance meeting some two decades on between Corrigan and
piper and broadcaster Robbie Hannan, Seán McAloon’s amazing piping is now finally on CD.
Although Joe Corrigan used a wee, battery-operated, cassette
recorder, the sound of Seán McAloon’s magnificent playing on
this CD still has the power to bend the mind and lift the soul.
Undimmed by 25 years on tape, McAloon’s playing is bright
and clear, showing off his brilliant gifts.
McAloon, also a gifted fiddler, recorded on the first ever pipesdulcimer duet album, Drops of Brandy, with John Rea. That
inspired the second ever pipes-dulcimer duet, An Mhéar
Fhada – The Long Finger, by Joe McHugh and Barry Carroll,
reviewed here recently.
Although Seán McAloon went on to "the other country" in
1998, his playing lives on through these rare recordings. If
you’re a piping devotee who has never heard Seán McAloon
play, this CD will amaze. If you’re a music lover interested in
Irish piping, this CD will be a wonderful introduction.
— Paul Carr
Cláirseach na hÉireann – The Harp of Ireland
Siobhán Armstrong
http://www.irishharp.org/shop/
http://www.clarsach.net/
Siobhan_Armstrong/
The Gaelic harp is one of the most ancient instruments in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, going back as it does at
least 1000 years. It is also called the
cruit, cláirseach (Irish Gaelic), clàrsach
(Scottish Gaelic) and wire-strung harp.
As the great Gaelic civilization of Ireland and the Scottish
Highlands weakened in the 1600s due to gradual English infiltration, use of the Gaelic harp declined. The tradition died in the
1800s, along with the last of the harpers. At the time, the new
gut-strung harp slowly stole the place – and the name – of the
old wire-strung Gaelic harp.
However, since the 1970s there has been a revival of the true
Gaelic harp, and Gaelic harps strung with brass, silver, and gold
are once again being played.
That’s what makes this CD from acclaimed harpist Siobhán
Armstrong so special. Armstrong’s music and scholarship are
an ongoing part of the Gaelic harp revival. Armstrong is one of
only a handful of harpists around the world who studies and
plays early harps.
For this CD, Armstrong plays a copy of the 14th/15th century
Trinity College harp, Ireland's only surviving medieval harp.
Out of it Armstrong brings music meant for the soul, melodies
rich and bright. The CD focuses on music of Irish composers of
the 16th to 18th centuries, but also has some Renaissance English pieces, like those that played by Irish harpers at the Elizabethan and Stuart courts.
The CD booklet is a world in itself, with information on
Siobhán Armstrong, guest singer Bríd Ní Mhaoilchiaráin, the
Gaelic harp and its history, and the tunes themselves.
Tune sets like The Merry Blacksmith / The Boyne Hunt, or Fermoy Lasses / First House in Connaught, reveal his talents well.
Singer Bríd Ní Mhaoilchiaráin is among the many pleasures of
As McAloon’s fingers find their way through these stunning
this CD. A sean-nós singer from Conamara, Bríd sings three
tunes, his playing seems impossibly wild and intricate, and yet
Dec.05/Jan
06
9
Irish
American
Post
perfectly complete. Like a page from the Book of Kells, where
the intricate spirals, knots, and swirls are all part of a larger
lovely songs in Irish. This is the first recording of Bríd Ní
Mhaoilchiaráin, who has won several awards for her singing in
Irish Gaelic. Her Gaelic voice is a perfect match for the Gaelic
harp: soulful and clear. Her last song is Seoíthín Seó, a beautiful lullaby.
— Paul Carr
Paul Carr’s reviews are available at:
http://home.comcast.net/~eile.
Afro Celt Sound System
Anatomic
RealWorld Records 094633180024
Running Time 61.15 9 Tracks
Anatomic is Afro Celt Sound System's (Simon Emmerson, Martin Russell, Iarla O’Lionard, and James McNally) newest work,
the fifth in their 10-year history. This disc has the usual number
of highly paced rhythmic numbers and ethereal compositions. It
encompasses the world music mode as well as the pan-Celtic.
Iarla O’Lionard’s vocals are outstanding. He soars on
"Beautiful Rain," hauntingly filling the spaces around the music. With the backing vocals of vocalist Dorothee Munyaneza,
(whose voice was on the soundtrack of the critically acclaimed
film, Hotel Rwanda), "When I Still Needed You" gives a powerful punch. Their voices also cross over on "Mother" in a
strange and eerie blending.
The liveliest of the bunch is the title track, "Anatomic," which
builds on the rhythms and sounds which made ACSS famous as
innovators. It jumps out immediately in dance club beat and
then proceeds to a spirited set of reels, powered by Emer
Mayock, Eileen Ivers and McNally. "Dhol Dogs" is wildly frenetic, starting with synthesizers and the drums of the title.
"Mojave" begins with O’Lionard’s plaintive singing and proceeds into a multi-hued, multilayered work, accented by
Mayock’s piping.
This is a work that takes a while to warm up to, with the feeling
that you have heard it all before at first blush. That may be, but
you get caught up in the mix after a point. Even if your cuppa’
isn’t synthesizers and African beats, this is still an album that
merits a listen or two.
Cherish the Ladies
Woman of the House
Rounder 11661-7063-2
Running Time 52 minutes 11 Tracks
After 20 years of touring and recording, Cherish the Ladies still
have a lot of steam left in their engines. On their new recording,
Woman of the House, it seems as though they could power a
city with what they have in store. It is a strong work from start
to finish, with a good blend of tunes and songs. Founders Joanie
Madden and Mary Coogan have surrounded themselves again
with outstanding musicians, with Mirella Murray on accordion,
Roisin Dillon on fiddle and Heidi Talbot on vocals.
The opening tracks were composed by Madden, "The Jolly
Seven / The Rascal on the Haystack / Bonkers in Yonkers," and
are a happy romp of whistle and flute. Joanie’s "The Hills of
New Zealand" is about a lost digital camera’s trip around the
world. The Chieftans’- influenced works, "Carolan’s Favorite
Jig / The Rakes of Cashel / Highland March in Oscar &
Malvina" will take you back decades and have you checking to
see who was playing. "The Old Maids of Galway / The Sunny
Banks / The Flooded Road to Glenties / Free & Easy" round off
the album in convincing form.
The song selection and singing is high caliber. Kildare-born
Talbot provides a stirring version of Ewan MacColl’s "Sweet
Thames Flow Softly." Later, she is joined by Kate Rusby in a
duet on the Scot’s song, "Bogie’s Bonnie Belle," with the two
voices working well together on this song of lost love. Karen
Matheson of Capercaile and Eddi Reader join Heidi on "Fair
and Tender Ladies." Her rendition of the immigration song,
"Green Fields of Canada" is plaintive and thoughtful.
Phil Cunningham deftly produced this album, and his sound,
touch and influence are all over it, and his playing is on it. Occasionally, it seems there is too much Phil, but his use of the
talent of the women, as well as the guest artists, Rusby, Matheson and Reader, as well as Sharon Shannon, Liz Kane and Laoise Kelly make the album sparkle. It is arguably one of the best
albums ever by Cherish. The Women really do own the house.
Reviewer Brian Witt can be reached at [email protected]
— Brian Witt
Minister Forges Economic Links with Tar Heel State
What Do the "Tar Heel" State and Northern Ireland Have in Common?
place.
The answer is that Northern Ireland has been benchmarking its workforce development policies against best practices in North Carolina
because of their similar economic climates.
Employment and Learning Minister Angela Smith said: "Skills and
workforce development are key issues globally and I am keen to share
experiences with the visitors as we develop a skills strategy for Northern Ireland. As well as sharing best practice on these policies, we are
together exploring the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to forecast future labor needs between Northern Ireland
and North Carolina."
After arriving in Belfast at the start of a week’s fact-finding tour, a
group of five high-level delegates from the United States examined
Northern Ireland’s treatment of essential skills, further education,
workforce development, biotechnology and long-term unemployment.
Included in the party were two senior representatives from North Carolina’s Employment Securities Commission, which seeks to promote
and sustain the economic well-being of their state in the world market-
10
Their program during the week included visits to Universities, Further
Education Colleges, Jobs and Benefits Offices, employers and the Careers Service.
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Ahern at Ease in Author's Role
By Kaitlan Murphy Tauber
At first sight, she looks like any other young woman
her age. Her blonde hair is swept off her face in a
loose ponytail. She is wearing dark blue jeans and a
thin black sweater, with a long necklace doubled
around her neck. And although the 24-year-old has
been traveling extensively on a book tour for six
days, her blue eyes hardly show she's tired. Instead,
her smile lights up her face and her Irish accent becomes her - enchanting whoever her audience may
be.
never question the issue because "that's what they
know is right for their market." But because of the
different titles for one novel, she says people are
sometimes confused about how many novels she's
written. It's three, by the way.
Ahern has toured after the release of each book
and says she's learned she has to eat well on the
road to keep up her energy. She doesn't exercise
while touring because "when you have a few
hours, you just want to plunk down on the bed."
Since Ahern's tours last about two weeks, she's in
hotels for only one night. With little time to do
laundry on the road, she packs just enough clothes
to get by.
Perhaps it's the atmosphere in which she was raised her father is Bertie Ahern, Ireland's Taoiseach. Even
though she has been in the public eye a lot in Ireland, she says, "The attention has always been on
Dad." Or maybe on her flamboyant older sister,
Cecilia Ahern
Ahern's next tour will be in early February when
Georgina, who married wealthy pop star Nicky
she'll travel to Australia and New Zealand for a
Byrne of the band Westlife in 2003. Or maybe it's
couple of weeks.
simply reflective of how comfortable she is with the success of
her novels. But Cecelia Ahern looks at home among the grand
"I love going away (on tour)," she says. "But I also love going
Victorian furnishings of the century-plus Pfister
home."
Hotel in Milwaukee.
Ahern says she usually meets a "nice mix" of Irish Americans
She was on a 10-city tour of the United States to promote her
and non-Irish at her Stateside readings. Laughing, she says
third novel, If You Could See Me Now (Hyperion Books, ISBN:
many Americans tell her of their Irish heritage.
1401301878, $22.95 ), released in November in Ireland and
She adds with a smile, "It's really amazing how there are more
January in the United States. Ahern also toured the United
Irish outside of Ireland than there are in Ireland."
States for the release of her first novel PS, I Love You. That
book topped the Irish and UK charts in 2004 and the rights
In Dublin, Ahern lives with her boyfriend of five years: Irish
were sold to Warner Brothers.
hurdler and one-time Olympic track hopeful David Keoghan.
But she keeps mum about the relationship. She simply smiles
In Yankeeland, she says San Francisco and Chicago are two of
when asked.
her favorite cities. Ahern favors the Windy City for its architecture and skyline and likes San Francisco for its scenery and climate.
Ahern says her first book got a lot of attention when it was
released at home. The name recognition was there, because of
her father, before people had read the book. "A lot of people
deliberately didn't want to read it because they thought I got the
deal for all of the wrong reasons," Ahern reports. "I think it
pretty much balanced itself out though; some people went out
and bought it and some people didn't."
Somebody must be buying the novels. Irish media have reported her book earnings at more than Euro $3 million. Last
November, she was even quoted in The Sunday Mirror as saying she would take care of her dad, the Prime Minister, in his
old age because she earns more money than he does.
Besides Ireland, Ahern says Germany has been one of the most
successful markets for her novels. In Germany, If You Could
See Me Now is known as Zwischen Himmel und Liebe (Between
Heaven and Love). Her P.S, I Love You was on the German best
seller list for 52 weeks, according to her website.
Ahern explains that the title of her novels is her own. Yet if distributors in another country want to change a title, she would
Dec.05/Jan 06
She says she does most of her writing at the kitchen table or in
the dining room. When writing her first novel she would often
write from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and then sleep all day. She writes
longhand and will type chapters on a computer after she's completed them.
"I actually like physically writing," Ahern says. "Typing feels
kind of
mechanical and, when I write, I can see the scene, colors and
characters."
She says she's been writing nearly her whole life, beginning
with scribbling in diaries when she was 7- or 8-years-old. At
14, she wrote her first "book," Beans on Toast and a Bottle of
Beer (in true Irish fashion), due in part to her mother's (Miriam
Ahern) constant encouragement. Ahern says that's when she
knew she'd be a writer but never thought about it as a career.
At 21, she graduated from Griffith College in Dublin with a
degree in
journalism and media communication. She said she knew she
never wanted to be a print journalist but after taking a film class
for her media communication degree, thought she may want to
work in film production. Two of her favorite movies are Side-
Irish American Post
11
ways and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She was about
to return to school for her master's degree in film, but instead
starting writing PS, I Love You.
Ahern says the ideas for her novels "happen without me really
noticing it." She says, "I look at one thing and I begin to daydream and suddenly I have an idea." She adds, "I always know
the last paragraph and last sentence of a story before I begin
writing it."
She is already "about three-fourths of the way through" writing
her fourth novel. Ahern says she can remember the moment she
got the idea for the novel (in an airport), but says she doesn't
know where it came from.
"I write about emotions," Ahern says. "No matter how old you
are, you experience emotions."
For her recently released third novel, Ahern wanted to write
about "what life would be like if some people saw you and
some didn't." One of the main characters she has created in If
You Could See Me Now is Ivan, the invisible friend of a young
boy.
"Ivan is like us all," Ahern says. "Sometimes people see you
and believe in you and sometimes you are just invisible." Walt
Disney Pictures has bought the rights to this latest book, with
Australian Hugh Jackman as the lead. The feature is supposed
to be released in 2007 but she has no say in the production.
Each of Ahern's novels is set in Ireland, but she said she tries to
write so that the story could be taking place anywhere in the
world. She says the setting "is like another character in the
book."
Ahern, who has held jobs such as selling bananas at a fruit
stand, washing dishes at a café and as a salesperson at a clothing store, says the only aspect of being a writer that feels like a
job is the book promotion. Ahern describes the actual writing as
"so enjoyable."
In Milwaukee on a snowy January night, Ahern read from her
most recent novel to a crowd of about 40 people. She then
wisely returned to her hotel, saying she was going to have dinner and go to bed. Dad and mom should be pleased.
So much for the exotic life on a book tour.
Kaitlan Murphy Tauber can be reached at kaitlan.
[email protected]. For more about Cecelia Ahern, check
her web site at http://www.cecelia-ahern.com.
Massive $1.76 Billion Plan to Transform Docks
Courtesy of The Belfast Telegraph
Belfast project will create 20,000 jobs. An ambitious vision of
the $1.76 billion Titanic Quarter scheme, the biggest property
development ever undertaken in Northern Ireland was unveiled
in December in Belfast.
The multi-million pound development is expected to create at
least 20,000 new jobs over the next 15 years. Construction on
the massive maritime project, which will transform the city’s
former shipyard area, is due to start early next year and is expected to take up to 20 years to complete. Work to clear the 185
acre docklands site has been underway since the proposals were
announced in March.
The scheme’s leading architect, internationally famous American Eric Kuhne, made a special presentation to launch phase
one. Mr. Kuhne’s practice has been involved in impressive projects across the globe including Darling Park, Sydney and the
Island Gardens yacht marina in Miami.
Around 300 guests attended the celebratory event at Titanic
Quarter including Secretary of State Peter Hain, Lord Mayor of
Belfast Wallace Browne, Chairman of the Belfast Harbour
Commissioners Frank Cushnahan, politicians and representatives of industry, business and the arts.
The Titanic Quarter development will boast the mixed uses of
housing, business, leisure and education combined to create a
new community for Belfast.
The proposals include 2,000 homes along with office and commercial developments. Building is expected to start on the first
12
phase at Abercorn Basin next spring with the construction of a
hotel, apartments and offices.
It is hoped the attraction will be open by 2012, the 100th anniversary of the ship’s launch. Speaking at the launch at the historic drawing office where the Titanic was designed, the Lord
Mayor commented: "The history of Queen’s Island is a vital
part of Belfast’s industrial heritage and Belfast city council is
extremely interested in and excited about the future development of Titanic Quarter.
"We are happy to co-operate and work with all of the interested
parties to ensure that this site becomes a genuine landmark in
the regeneration of our city. The vision that has been put forward is just a vital first setup towards achieving an exciting attraction that will capture the imagination of people in Northern
Ireland and across the world.
"The planned rolling out of the vision is grounded in reality and
we will be working actively in the coming months and years to
ensure we build a world class attraction that will further cement
Belfast’s growing reputation as a major city for tourism."
An ambitious $177 million visitor attraction at the site where
the Titanic was built is also planned. It will include a full-scale
model of the liner, exhibition galleries and a hotel and conference center. The Titanic Signature Project envisages a center
piece building, three times the size of Belfast City Hall, based
on the slipway where Titanic was built.
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
With Library, IAHC Opens New Chapter
By Sheila Burt
The Irish America Post Chicago Bureau
In one of the window displays at the new library in Chicago’s Irish American Heritage
Center, a porcelain doll dressed like an Irish
fairy greets guest with her fiery red hair and
delicate blue-green eyes. With a wand, she
points to the books all around her. There’s one
on Irish legends, plus Finn and the Wicked
Fairy of Tara, A Celtic Christmas Tale and Ron
Powers’ biography of Mark Twain, among
Ambrose Kelly and librarian Peg Reid
many others.
cut the ribbon at the dedication of Chi-
the Irish language along with several audiovisual materials to teach Celtic languages.
"Isn’t this fantastic?" asked Martin Healy, Jr.,
chairman of the library fund. "I think we’ll all
look at this in wonder, especially those who
started it a decade ago. It’s been a 10-year
dream to build the library collection of the past
for future generations. The library was a longtime coming but when we look at it today, it
cago’s Irish American Heritage Center was worthwhile."
Beyond this case, the facility holds abut 35,000
John McGrath, president of the Shamrock
volumes, chronicling the history of Irish and
American Club, joked that he "hated coming here but I came
Irish Americans through plays, poetry and even historic novels.
sometimes." He recalled the thick dust filling the air. If someThe library celebrated its grand opening for heritage center
one placed a beam a half-inch off place, Ambrose Kelly, supermembers on Dec. 11, and officially opened to the public on Jan.
intendent of construction, would notice it right way, McGrath
3. In a packed hallway during the December debut, officials
said. "He’d say, ‘Who put that there?‚’" McGrath said, laughrecalled the library’s journey from being a vacant second floor
ing. "He’s a perfectionist."
in the former school building to becoming a rich academic cenOnce the doors to the library opened, visitors filed in to look
ter, one created entirely by volunteer help.
over the collection and listen to live Irish music. "Oh, I love the
Speaking at a podium against the backdrop of both American
artwork," some said upon entering.
and Irish flags, members recognized volunteers who made the
Chicago resident Laura Schaeffer, 41, stood in an aisle while
library’s completion possible. Through several fundraising dinadmiring the Irish cookbooks. "I love cookbooks and I’ve been
ners, members raised $450,000 for the library.
looking for Irish cookbooks," she emphasized. "They’re really
"Everything here was done strictly by volunteer labor," Tom
hard to find at Borders and Barnes & Noble."
Boyle, center vice president, said to the crowd. "It’s a great tribWith clean white walls decorated with names of Irish authors,
ute to the Irish community. It’s just such a tremendous achievethe library features shelf upon shelf of books, a special chilment." Quoting famed Irish poet William Butler Yeats, chief
dren’s center and a copy of the Book of Kells on display.
librarian Peg Reid said the library’s mission is to "make the
Gaelic-style script illuminates the entrance archway where a
green come out again, to be the garden’s pride."
long phrase begins, "The world of books is the most remarkable
"While an in-depth collection for adults is important, the focus
creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts."
on children’s services is essential in that it ensures that this
Artist Edward Cox designed the decorative bordering, starting
heritage center will continue to exist and fulfill its mission,"
in March. Cox cut out the alphabet with a razor and then handReid said.
painted each of the letters. He finished the project early in De"When taking people on a tour of this beautiful library, I often
cember but plans to paint more in the spring.
find myself responding like Michelangelo, who when compli"I have two grandkids," ages 3 and 9-months," said Clair Calmented on his statue of David, replied that David was already
lan, on the board of directors for the center’s strategic planning
in the marble and he, Michelangelo, had only to find him."
task force. "I have visions of them sitting on the table learning
Reid noted that a day before the library’s opening, a man introto read Irish," she went on, adding that many guest lectures and
duced himself and told her that a library used to be on that parliterary functions will be held there.
ticular floor when he was a pupil in the building nearly 50 years
"Newberry, eat your heart out, let me tell you," librarian Reid
ago.
laughed, referring to Chicago’s famed Newberry Library.
Some of the unique collections in the 4,500 square-foot library
Heritage center members and non-members can visit the liinclude the Dennis and Catherine Watson collection of sheet
brary, yet only members can check out material. The library
music from the mid- 1850s to the 1950s, as well as the Liam
hours are 4-8 p.m., Mondays-Thursdays; 1-4 p.m., Fridays; 9 a.
MacGabhann Celtic Language Collection. MacGabhann, born
m.-3 p.m., Saturdays; and 1-4 p.m., Sundays. The Irish Ameriin Chicago in 1926, spoke Gaelic as a schoolboy and later becan Heritage Center is located at 4626 N. Knox Ave. For more
came a diocesan priest. He often performed mass in Irish and
information, call 773-282-7035 or visit www.irishamhc.com.
formed a Gaelic choir. His collection consists of 5,000 books in
Dec.05/Jan 06
Irish American Post
13
Dad Knew
A Montana Town Celebrates its Irish Roots
By Sean G Conneely
click on photos to enlargeThe western Montana town of
Butte, which was once considered the copper capital of the world, celebrates its Irish
history with a new cultural center, a gift
shop and a festival.
used to house various government offices.
Then, in 1950, in an odd twist of fate, considering the building's origin, the Silver
Bow Club became the home of the Miner's
Union. By the 1980s, the building had
fallen into disrepair, until a local architect,
William Merriam, bought it, and turned
some of the building into office space.
Then Harrington entered the picture.
Sometimes, Father Really Does Know
Best.
In June, 2003, Walter Harrington and his
wife, Erishka, embarked on a road trip from
their home in greater San Francisco. Their
itinerary included Las Vegas, Salt Lake
Harrington had found the means to realize
City and a few of the glorious national
one of his dreams. "For years, I had this
parks in between. As they were preparing
The Silver Bow Club stand tall at the corner of idea rattling around in my head," he exAlaska and Granite streets in Butte.
to leave Salt Lake City, where Harrington
plains, "to build a Celtic Irish Historical
Photo by Sean G. Conneely
had spent a great deal of time researching
Center." He had long considered locations
his family's history — a passionate
in San Francisco, or even perhaps western
hobby— they abruptly changed their plans, and instead of goIreland. But with the Silver Bow Club, he had the perfect building west, they headed north on Interstate 15.
ing in the perfect place: Butte, Mont.
Why the sudden change in plans? At his wife's urging, Harrington finally decided to follow advice his father had first given
him some 50 years earlier. "Walt," his father told him, "you
have to get to Butte, Montana." Naturally, the son asked why.
To which came the somewhat enigmatic reply, "You'll know
why when you get there."
Harrington's father could not have been more right.
Within days of this impromptu visit, Harrington, 73, a builder
and developer by trade, found himself meeting with a few of
the town's locals and touring some of Butte's historic buildings.
That's when he first saw the Silver Bow Club, a striking edifice
built in 1906 as an elite men's club. He was smitten; he wanted
to buy the building. In spite of the fact that it was not even for
sale and the negotiations were, as Harrington describes them,
"tough sledding" (a favorite expression of his), he closed on the
building just four months later.
Harrington's father had understood the close ties between Butte
and Ireland, especially Co. Cork (in fact he had emigrated from
Co. Cork, though he found his way to California, not Montana).
In the late 1800s, Butte was quickly becoming the copper mining capital of the world. Immigrants of all backgrounds, particularly Irish, flocked to the gritty, rugged town in search of
work. Many had worked in the coal mines on the Beara peninsula, in the west of Ireland. As those copper veins dried up,
Irish men with copper mining skills, and even those without,
began to immigrate to Butte in ever increasing numbers.
Butte's Irish heritage has certainly been well documented, notably by David M. Emmons, in his extensively researched work
The Butte Irish. Emmons points out that in terms of the percentage of the population, Butte was the most Irish city in the U.S.,
according to the 1900 census. More recently, Pete McCarthy, in
detailing his search for his roots in his humorous The Road to
McCarthy, even spent some time in Butte.
In a city that boasts many classic turn-ofthe-century buildings, the Silver Bow Club
was a gem. In the early 20th century, Butte's
wealthiest men — many of them power brokers in the copper industry — sought refuge
from the town's notoriously polluted air
within the Silver Bow's well-appointed confines. The building sported rich, textured
hardwoods, a grand oak staircase, and emerald Belgian marble fireplaces. To complete
the scene, oil paintings depicting various
hunting scenes adorn the walls. In a town
where copper was king, the Silver Bow was
its castle.
Harrington was excited to have a home for
his Celtic Historical Center. Still, the Silver
Bow Club, for all of its storied past, was not
without its problems. For example, the roof
needed to be replaced; the fourth floor had
deteriorated badly; and the elevator had not
functioned in more than 20 years.
While Harrington respects history, he is not a
slave to it. This is a man of inspiration and
vision. Within a month of taking ownership
The original backbar at the Club reads: If
of the building (and with the help of the
this be true as I do think, There are five
reasons we should drink, Good friends, Butte's Urban Revitalization Agency), the
good wine, and being dry, or lest we shall Silver Bow had a new roof. The next project
be bye and bye, Or any other reason why. was the elevator. Harrington was committed
When Butte's economy began to decline durPhoto by Sean G. Conneely
to keeping the elevator's original cab and
ing the Great Depression, the building was
14
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
dome for their historical value. He achieved
this, despite the fact that it would have been
much less expensive to simply replace the
100-year old device. The building's fourth
floor, Harrington concedes, still needs a
great deal of work, but he is confident that
with the continued support of the community, that area will eventually be restored, as
well.
knew she needed a larger store and decided
to find a more suitable location in uptown
Butte. By February the following year, she
opened the expanded Cavanaugh's County
Celtic and Beyond.
With many years of retail experience, Cavanaugh understands the importance of keeping
her inventory fresh and different from that
carried by many traditional Irish stores. She
is especially proud of her wide musical selecWalter Harrington sits in the conference
room, with the plans for his historical cen- tion, which appears to be a particular favorite
of her customers.
ter.
Currently, Harrington's main focus is the
third floor, where the Historical Center and
Club will be. When the Silver Bow Club ofPhoto by Sean G. Conneely
ficially opened in the spring of 1907, the
Cavanaugh is also a strong supporter of the
third floor housed (among other things) a
Montana Gaelic Cultural Society, which, in
bar, a grand pool hall, a large poker room,
2003, moved its Irish Festival, An Ri Ra, from Missoula,
and a more secretive high stakes room — complete with a peepMont., to Butte, in recognition of the increasing interest in
hole. In short, the third floor was where all the action took
Butte's Irish history. The festival is held in August.
place. Harrington hopes to make it so again.
Musical headliners have included Solas, Searson and Butte's
His Irish Celtic Historical Center and Club will consist of a
own Irish band, Dublin Gulch (named after an old Irish
theatre; an extensive library; a gallery named in honor of Donal
neighborhood in Butte). The festival also included a golf tourCam (Harrington holds a deep admiration for the chieftain of
nament, a 5K run, and handball demonstrations by some
the O'Sullivan Bere Clan, especially for his epic march from
world championship handball players from Ireland.
Cork to Leitrim in 1603). In addition, the Club will sport the
John P. Harrington 100 Club Historical Bar (named after both
Interestingly, Harrington and his wife attended the first An Ri
Harrington's father and John "the Yank" Harrington, who was a
Ra Festival in Butte, during the negotiations to buy the Silver
beloved fixture in Butte up until his death in 2004); and a cozy
Bow Club. The couple was so impressed by how warmly they
dining room named after Harrington's maternal grandmother.
were received that Harrington became even more determined
to complete the sale.
Even with all of the excitement surrounding the Irish Cultural
Center at the Silver Bow Club, it is not the only recent manifesHarrington hopes to have the major renovations completed for
tation of Butte's Irish roots.
a Grand Opening in spring 2007, which coincides nicely with
the building's 100th anniversary, as well as his 75th birthday.
For years, locals had told Monica Cavanaugh that there was
enough demand in Butte for a store specializing in Irish souvenirs. In November, 2001, she finally took the plunge, and
Author Sean G. Conneely can be reached at sconopened up a small Celtic shop. In just a matter of weeks, she
[email protected].
Irish Film Personnel to be Honored in LA
Award-winning writers/directors Neil Jordan and Jim Sheridan, and
music producer David Holmes will be honored at an event entitled:
"Oscar Wilde: Honoring Irish Writing in Film." Hosted by the USIreland Alliance, the event will be held in Los Angeles in March, just
days before the Academy Awards. Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto starring
Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson, and Sheridan’s Get Rich or Die
Tryin,’ starring rapper 50 Cent, are currently in theaters. It was recently announced that Jordan’s next project is a film about the Borgias,
starring Colin Farrell and Scartlett Johansson. Holmes most recently
produced the soundtrack for the independent film, The War Within.
In addition to honoring Irish writing, the event will serve as a networking opportunity for members of the Irish and US film communities.
Hollywood heavyweights are supporting what is envisioned as an annual event. Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook, Sony Pictures
Vice Chairman Amy Pascal, and Kathleen Kennedy & Frank Marshall
of Kennedy/Marshall make up the event’s host committee.
Some of those planning to attend include Peter Rice, President of Fox
Searchlight; producer John Calley, director John Moore; actors Cillian
Murphy, Anjelica Huston; casting agents Jane Jenkins, Janet Hirshenson and Jeanne McCarthy; indie film-makers, agents, financiers and
numerous studio executives.
Dec.05/Jan 06
It is also shaping up to be a fun party. Jean Butler, of Riverdance fame,
will emcee. There will be an auction of the paintings of Dublin-based
artist Charlie Whisker. David Holmes will deejay and Darren Holden,
currently playing the role of Billy Joel in the national touring production of the Tony Award-winning musical Movin’ Out, will perform.
Tiffany & Co. will provide the awards for the honorees. River Films,
the film production arm of Moya Doherty and John McColgan’s Tyrone Productions, will produce the video for the night.
Leading sponsors of the evening are American Airlines, The Irish Film
Board, Tourism Ireland and Enterprise Ireland. The night will also
provide an opportunity to showcase Irish companies and products.
Irish food products to be served include Lily O’Briens Chocolates, Hot
Irishman, Boru Vodka, Taytos, Ballygowan, Magners, Club Orange
and Club Lemon. Sustainable Seafoods, an organic seafood company
headed up by an Irishman, will provide organic seafood. IAWS-owned
Le Brea bakeries will provide the breads. The Irish Dairy board will
provide cheeses and Food America cocktail sausages.
The event is shaping up to be one of the hot tickets during a week of
parties surrounding the Academy Awards.
For more information, contact the Alliance at
www.us-irelandalliance.org.
Irish American Post
15
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16
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Commentary
Fraction of a Vision: Political
Documentaries vs. Mundane Reality
By Christopher J. Falvey
It is as if my online video rental service likes to play tricks on
me. This last week, they sent me two of the same documentary
DVD's. Now, they didn't each have the same title- one was entitled Michael Moore Hates America and the other was entitled
Faces of Death: Fact or Fiction.
After a few hours wading through "real life" situations calculated to the point of dramatization, quotes spliced far beyond
their context, and edits that read like a script, I realized that for
all intents and purposes both of these "documentaries about
documentaries" were really the same damn movie.
In the Moore movie, director Michael Wilson attempts to debunk a few of Michael Moore's documentaries through his own
supposedly straightforward and truthful investigative filmmaking. In the Faces of Death expose, the original Faces director
somehow attempts to scrutinize the legitimacy of his own movies through supposedly straightforward and truthful investigative filmmaking.
When examining these two films (and the hundreds of others
like them) relative to our culture as a whole, we begin to see a
perilous condition that may help explain a lot about the way the
modern masses digest and shape our political and socioeconomic landscape. Life in our culture is generally good- or, at
the most pessimistic, just normal. Fine. Manageable.
However, that's not exciting enough. Fact-based reality has become far too mundane to hold most people's interest in politics
and social issues. Thus, we'd rather policy be based on a mix of
sensationalism and an edited version of reality, focused only the
worst or best effects of any issue.
Okay, so documentaries are often journalistically corrupt and
blinded by agenda. Big deal. Well, it does become a big deal
when you look at the reasons why, realizing that these reasons
apply — acceleratedly so — to most forms of media, which in
turn is almost always the initial impetus for political action.
You see, real life is boring. Or, better put: real life is, in actuality, rather sparse on disastrous social problems, downward
trends and all of the various issues that "make good stories."
This is not to say issues don't exist- of course they do. This is
also not to say that the incidents of socio-economic problems
which are rare have no place in the national debate merely because of their rarity.
The missing piece of nearly every socio-political documentary
or media exposé is disclosure of or information on the relative
rarity of the underlying issue. Documentaries are supposed to
show a slice of real life. While viewers expect to see only a
slice, that does not absolve the filmmaker from explaining ex-
Dec.05/Jan 06
actly how big the slice is relative to the proverbial whole pie.
Take, for example, the city of Flint, Mich. Michael Moore's
Roger and Me focuses on the areas of economic devastation
supposedly caused by flaws in the free market exploited GM.
Wilson's film makes an attempt at "balancing out" Moore's vision by showing the complete opposite: a safe city on the upswing where opportunity abounds because of policies like tax
breaks. The reality is, however, that even by combining these
two distinct angles one does not get anywhere near the complete picture. This is because the complete picture is, well, unremarkable.
Flint, is like the sheer majority of towns (I may even go as far
as saying every town) in America. Crime is present, but few
people actually feel the effects of it. There is a small percentage
of debilitating poverty, a small percentage of wealthy people,
and the sheer majority are doing just well enough and will continue to do so forever. Things are okay, and slowly getting even
better. If a filmmaker did take a camera around Flint with no
agenda in mind, the end result would inspire as much political
action as the average family's vacation movies.
While a complete picture of real life may not make for good
media, voters and thus politicians are supposed to enact policy
according to real life and real issues — most importantly, the
factual rarity or frequency of issues. Unfortunately, our culture
has increasingly tasked the very media, documentary filmmakers, and activists —- who inherently must focus on the most
extreme and narrow evidence of issues- with both inspiring and
laying down the entire framework for change.
To the masses, life keeps getting worse, something has to
change, and thus laws are written. The flaw here is that life
doesn't keep getting worse. By nearly every social and economic indicator, life keeps getting better. Exponentially so. At
the same time (ironically, often because of this), media becomes more omnipresent. More news channels, more blogs,
more documentaries. With that, we're tricked into thinking that
the underlying negative issues which the media focuses on are
also increasing.
Culture often ignores this somewhat complex yet subtle dichotomy. When it comes to socio-political documentaries, we tend
to absorb them in one of only two ways: viewers either wholeheartedly agree with the underlying agenda and thus believe
every word of it, or they don't and this critique the work for its
purely factual errors and falsehoods.
This, however, misses the issue. Michael Moore and Michael
Wilson may or may not shade the truth here and there. The
Irish American Post
(Continued on page 35)
17
Short Story
The Intruder
By Kristin King Stapleton
Surely you can understand my fear. I prayed for protection
when I heard heavy breathing outside of my bedroom window.
The year 1978 held a particularly warm September in the Emerald Isle. I’d only just moved into the tiny flat. The single, downthe-lane residence was secreted behind my landlord’s paper
shop.
His business was #33 on the main road in a small- town suburb
outside of Ireland’s major city. My official address was "The
Mews, 33 Church Road, Ballybrack, Co. Dublin, Eire." The
Random House Dictionary details the chiefly British definition
of "mews" as "stables, carriage garages, and living quarters
built around a yard, court, or street."
My place was not nearly as grand as all of that sounds. But
from my doorstep I could see the Wicklow Mountains in the
distance. The vast expanse of hills serves as a good weather
predictor:
When you can see the mountains, it’s going to rain.
When you can’t see the mountains, it’s raining.
That saying is very "Irish," and it serves as a most accurate accounting of local weather forecasting.
When not assembling Chinese eggrolls in Co. Wicklow, (Irish
American Post, June/July/August 2004,) I secured a friendship
that still stands today. But when Catherine and I were not together, and I was not at work, I was quite comfortable with my
contemplative privacy back behind the shop. Undeniably, as an
American Lutheran amongst Ireland’s majority Catholic population, I was an outsider.
The ladies who ran the grocer’s at #31 followed my activities,
watching as I traveled on the double-decker bus that stopped in
front of their shop. They made it their business to find out what
sort of person I was. The first time I stopped in to buy creamy
milk, (sold in the traditional glass bottle,) their questions began.
"Sure, aren’t you afraid? Living there all by yourself, a girl like
you, tucked away from your neighbors? And with no phone?"
The "Installation [waiting] List" for that modern convenience
was kilometers long. As a part-time recluse, I was happy there.
Their curiosity made me love it even more.
Danny drove me home after a late night at his Chinese TakeAway. Waving goodbye, I walked around the corner and entered my flat. While water filled the tub, I checked that the double windows in my tiny bedroom were fully closed. The windows swing outward, so there were no screens. But I guess that
screening is not so necessary in a country where mosquitoes do
not exist. "A few odd flies never hurt ‘yeh," locals said.
In the bath, I reflected on last night’s news: I had settled into
bed for my insomniac’s ritual. My choice in late night radio
revolved around hip "underground" music sessions that played
on Radio Luxembourg, "after hours." A misguided substitute
DJ was on duty last night— the fellow was keen on Abba. I
18
quickly grabbed the radio control. Dialing over to Radio Telefis
Éireann, I thought, "Whatever it is that you Irish are playing
tonight, it’s got to be better than that Swedish pop rubbish!"
Suddenly, RTÉ Radio’s announcer interrupted: Albino Luciani,
the Italian who led a gentle and humble pontificate, died after
just 32 days as papal leader.
I was correct in my prediction, that this was the main topic at
the grocer’s today. (His eventual successor, the 58-year-old
Polish Karol Wojtyla, honored the man by choosing "John Paul
II" for his own title. From that point on, the newly deceased
Italian-in-command was irreverently dubbed as "JP One.")
So tonight— no matter what my faith— in my prayers I begged
for protection. As I snuggled up to a pillow, BANG! went the 6
1/2 foot gate that enclosed my wee garden. While the gasps of
my intruder could not compare with the panic in my own
breathing, his throaty and horrendous guttural noises sounded
like lecherous deep breathing. He staggered through my padlocked wooden gate and was now within my garden amongst a
few straggly tomatoes plants. I was petrified.
What’s he doing back there? I wondered. There’s nothing between us but window glass. He sounds big. And drunk, too.
Frozen to my spot, I heard every inhalation. And why is he
rooting around in my galvanized garbage can, anyway? The
windows shuddered with vibration. After an eternity of his
wheezing, there was silence. I lay still until I felt safe enough to
crawl across the floor. I pulled back on my work clothes. They
reeked of garlic and grease, but that did not matter. I buttoned
the fly on my jeans in the dark, and gave myself a pep talk.
Right. You’ve got to be prepared. You might have to escape at
any moment. I settled myself on top of my duvet, waiting. I
waited either for dawn, or for the return of The Intruder. Which
would come for me, I did not know.
I must have drifted off. A bird sang a cheerful and repeated sixnote song. Stiff and uncomfortable, I cautiously rolled out of
bed at daybreak. Clutching a raincoat over my wrinkled clothes,
I passed right by my landlord as he unlocked his shop. Instead,
I went ‘round to the grocer’s. (The gossip was better there. And
more thoroughly discussed.)
My fantasy was that local villagers waved flaming torches, and
pursued the Frankenstein monster. They called out for the creature to "Stop!"
I arrived in time to learn that after dealing with the assailant’s
body, Shankill’s Garda Síochána had just left the village. The
true story of his demise entailed a wild chase down Church
Road. The guilty party fell and broke his neck. As an elder from
the itinerant family stood watch, the local butcher quickly put
The Intruder out of his misery.
Sorrowfully, the man negotiated over final arrangements for
their elusive family goat.
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
How a Donegal Rebel Died in Wicklow
By Mattie Lennon
Neil O’Boyle was born on a small farm, at Leac
Eineach near Burtonport, Co. Donegal, in 1898. It was
here in the Breac Ghaeltact area of the Rosses that the
young Boyle’s character was formed and his determination strengthened. According to his schoolmates, he
was tall for his age, being lanky and silent.
Commenting on the incident 25 years afterwards, his
mother remarked, "I didn’t think he had paid so much
attention to my words, because I didn’t mean all I
said. I was greatly surprised when I heard what he
did."
O’Boyle was aged 18 when his father died and, in
1917, he became an assistant guard with the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway Company.
Not overly particular about his appearance, he always
appeared to have something on his mind. He had a look
in his eye, "as if he was going to do something."
During some obscure incident, he expressed admiration
for Joseph Mary Plunkett and, schoolboys being
Joseph Mary Plunkett
schoolboys, he was nicknamed "Plunkett." The tag
stuck.
In 1919, police interest in O’Boyle led to his resignation from the railway company. He went to work as a
miner in the New Mains Colliery, in Scotland and
joined B Company, 2nd Battalion, Scottish Brigade,
IRA.
As he grew up, he didn’t develop any interest in sartorial matters but became more talkative. O’Boyle was interested in national affairs, sang Irish ballads and advocated the revival of the
Irish language.
When Ireland called forth her true sons of the heather,
O’Boyle was the foremost to answer the call,
The sons of the Rosses, he banded together,
To drive the oppressor from dark Donegal.
He did not, however, push his views or beliefs on other people.
"Because I believe these things I will always stick to them; but I
do not want to force any other person to believe as I do. Let
everyone be honest with himself and do what he thinks right. It
is my duty to tell
you what I believe
should be done," he
wrote.
With B Company, he was engaged on the special work of sending arms to Ireland and was arrested in December, 1920, and
sentenced to five years penal servitude for possession of arms
and ammunition. During his time in Peterhead Prison, he received harsh treatment and periods of solitary confinement.
O’Boyle became a
dedicated supporter
of Sinn Féin and I
am indebted to
Donegal historian
Patrick Bonner for
the following story;
He was released in February, 1922, under the Treaty Amnesty
and returned to Donegal immediately.
Boys gathered in the
Plunkett's family home
evenings outside
Johnny Ruadh’s shop in Burtonport to discuss the policy of
Sinn Féin. Eventually, the police decided to disperse the meetings as a precautionary measure. One night ,Plunkett came
home in an angry mood. He told his mother that the police had
moved the boys away from the shop corner, where they had
only been talking among themselves.
"What kind of men are you?" said his mother. "You allow the
police to order you about in your own country. If I were a man,
no policeman would move me from a place where I was doing
no harm."
But what could we do, mother? The police had batons?"
"And Johnny Ruadh has spades."
O’Boyle said no more that night, but at the next meeting he procured a spade and held back the police attack
Dec.05/Jan 06
O’Boyle developed an intense dislike of warders but despite
this and a ban on books in the prison he procured a copy of Pitman’s Shorthand Manual, which he studied.
His companions noticed a change in O’Boyle, said to "have become smart in appearance, was quiet in manner and gave the
impression of a man who had acquired a settled purpose." In the
months preceding the General Election of June, 1922, he remained firmly anti-Treaty.
On July 1, 1922, O’Boyle was arrested at Crolly and detained
for a short time at Dungloe before being brought to Drumboe
and later to Finner
Camp. At the end of
August, he was
taken, with other
prisoners, from Buncrana to Dublin on
the Lady Wicklow.
Fellow-prisoners remembered Plunkett
as a man bent on escape. He planned to
get away at
Plunkett's family
Doochary, from the
lorry carrying them
to Drumboe. But a prisoner jumped too soon and the rest of the
men were unable to scamble out. He set to work on a tunnel at
Irish American Post
19
Finner and this was discovered. At Buncrana, he
attempted to organize a group of prisoners to
seize the tug, which conveyed them to the Lady
Wicklow and later he tried to arrange the seizure
of the vessel itself.
From Dublin, they were conveyed to Newbridge
where O’Boyle lost no time in starting work on a
tunnel from G Block. This "project" was abandoned when one of the group found a handy map
of the sewerage system, which had been used by
the Board of Works. With the help of another
Donegal man who was an experienced miner,
O’Boyleconstructed a tunnel from R Block into
the sewerage drain.
quickly across the hills. The column was all very
tired and was glad to rest that night.
Around this time, Plunkett was after getting a shipment of arms from Belfast. That night in Kylebeg ,
they had two Thompson guns and seven rifles. The
soldiers had Lewis guns and rifles and there were
about 80 soldiers. .Plunkett was a good leader, he
was hot-headed but you couldn’tfrighten him. He
had a sharp mind, knew what time to attack and
what time to retreat. And when they were escaping,
Plunkett's Column, 1923 Wicklow men could guide him to safe houses and
over the hills.
On Oct. 14, 1922, the young man who had held the police at
bay with Johnny Ruadh’s spade walked with 160 other prisoners into the River Liffey and freedom.
O’Boyle made his way to Dublin where he was appointed Commandant of the 3rd Battalion, Dublin Number 2 Brigade and he
took up duty in Northwest Wicklow early in November, 1922.
He immediately went to work reorganizing the battalion column. Before the escape from Newbridge, he had told a comrade, "In three weeks time, I will have a rifle in my hands on
the Wicklow Hills."
He acquired a lorry which was known as "Rory of the Hills"
and for six months operated in the mountainous area between
Tallagh and Glenmalure. The months of hardship and hunger
took its toll and by the spring of 1923, he was close to physical
exhaustion. But his determination had not diminished. In a letter to his mother, he wrote, "I am still in Michael Dwyer’s
country and I will stick it out to the end."
In Valleymount, he said that the British element was "again becoming entrenched in its position of ascendancy in Wicklow
while the common people resumed their futile position of
mountainy men."
According to Republican sources, Plunkett obeyed the ceasefire Order of April 30, 1923, and merely stayed on the run
awaiting further instructions. Troops stationed at Naas, Blessington and Tallagh intensified the search for him.
On the morning of May 8, 1923, an attacking party numbering
engaged with O’Boyle’s column at Kylebeg.
Here is an account of hiss time in Kylebeg and Lacken, given to
me by Michelle Boyle, an O’Boyle relative.
Around 5 a.m ., Rosie Kelly was out with sheep
when she seen Free State soldiers in the vicinity. She told the volunteers. They went into the
woods and hid behind a wall. As soon as Free
State Soldiers came looking, Plunkett and the
column opened fire. The Free State Soldiers
sheltered behind Kelly’s house. It wasn’t long
until another band of Free State soldiers came
from Moin a Bhealaigh and they shot into the
woods. They hit their own men but none was
hurt seriously. Some volunteers were in Free
State soldier’s clothes and managed to escape
20
Plunkett spent many nights in Lamberts and Christopher and
Mary Lambert accompanied his body to Donegal. She used to
write to his mother later until she died. Over the river from
Knocknadruce there‚s a road across from the national school
on the road .In the 1920‚s here were 2 teachers here Dolan and
Kenneth who volunteers visited often. Dr. Purseal moved to this
area then and treated volunteers. He saved Vol. Barry from Kilbride who was once hurt. Often volunteers went to Glendaloch
and Glenmalure.
The column consisted of Séamas Ó Cáinte, Mícheál Ó Coileáin,
Criostóir de Barra, Pádraig Raghallaigh, Bearnárd Corcáin, Dan
Mac aoidh, F. Plléimeann, Pádraig Ó Seanáin, Séamas Mac
Murchú, Pádraig Ó Feargaill, Séamas Ó Maoilaoidh, Séan Mac
Reámoinn agus Seán Treasaigh.
On the night preceding May 15, 1922, Plunkett billeted his column in a three-roomed house owned by the Norton family at
Knocknadruce. About 4 a.m., the house was surrounded by Free
State soldiers led by Belfastman Felix Mc Corley.
In Pádraig Ó Baoighill‚s book Oglach na Rossan, the following
account given by Tom Heavey, a member of the column, is
quoted;
Plunkett wanted the mother and daughter to be let out of the
house. The Staters wouldn’t hear of that and threatened to
bomb them out. That was a favorite trick, throwing grenades
through the window. This put Plunkett in a spot as he couldn’ t
let the women be injured. So he said, "Let me come out." Out he
came with his hands up and walked slowly towards a stone
stile, then at the right hand corner of the house.
When he got there he spoke a few words with this Free State
officer named McCorley, a Belfast man perched on a stone
ditch above him. Suddenly McCorley raised his revolver and
shot Plunkett in the eye, the bullet passing through his upraised
hands. For good measure, he shot him again
through the head.. He just shot him. I saw it
all. It was cold-blooded murder. The others in
the house were rounded up and taken away.
He was a tall fellow with a strong face, upright
and handsome and a good leader.
Tir Chonaill Flying Column
Another account quoted states that, Neither
spiritual nor medical aid was summoned for
the dying soldier although a priest could have
been got inside 15 minutes,.
(Continued on page 30)
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Advertisement
400 Years Of Wicklow Songs And Music
By Mattie Lennon
County Wicklow inspired John Millington Synge, gave refuge to freedom fighters, welcomed lovers to it's hills and valleys and continues to provide tranquility, peace and relaxation for its many visitors.
The loves, battles, disputes and matches of the Garden County have been commemorated in songs (some almost forgotten), which have long been part of the oral tradition of mountain men and mountain women.
Yes, yes, I know. You knew that already. Well, about a year ago I came up with a mad idea. You knew that as well because you know that I'm always coming up with mad ideas. As smart as you are I'll bet you don't know what the mad
idea was. Well I'll tell you. Wicklow was the last county in Ireland to be instituted. And on the four-hundredth anniversary of the
foundation of our beautiful County I hit on the idea of making a DVD to preserve some of its precious stories and legends as told
through its ballads.
SUNRISE ON THE WICKLOW HILLS; This is a classical song,
which combines "drawing-room splendour" with the feelings of everyday life.
THE WICKLOW ROVER; Cork had The Bould Thady Quill, its
neighbouring county boasted of "The Limerick Rake" and Roundwood
songwriter, Pat Molloy, felt compelled to immortalise our very own
colourful Wicklow character.
THE VALES AROUND CLOUGHLEA; A thumbnail sketch of
West Wicklow life in the early days of the last century drawn, in
words, by local songwriter Frank Farrelly. Priest, patriotism and
pranks, they are all there.
DERRYBAWN; This beautiful ballad indicates that Wicklow men are
still as capable of love, loyalty and valour as were their ancestors.
THE BLACKBIRD OF SWEET AVONDALE; The sad and moving
tale of "the uncrowned king of Ireland" is given a new lease of life by
award-winning singer Peggy Sweeney.
THE FLOWER OF LUGNAQUILLA; One of our highest mountains is immortalised by this slow jig composed and played, on fiddle,
by gold-medallist musician Rachel Conlan.
MY WICKLOW HILLS SO GAY; An emigrant story from our own
time told by a Ballyknockan songwriter.
THE BANKS OF AVONMORE; The story of death on an alien battlefield and broken hearts in Wicklow, written by the late Peter Cunningham-Grattan (The Roving Bard)
THE ROSE IN THE HEATHER/PAIDIN O'RAFFERTY (JIGS);
Played by Fuinneamh, under the direction of John McNamara.
DOWN BY THE TANYARD SIDE; Composed by celebrated songwriter Ned Lysaght to console his friend Hugh Byrne who was the
victim of his sweetheart's cruel father.
THE WICKLOW MOUNTAINS HIGH; An old sentimental ballad,
which has been rescued from the jaws of obscurity.
ANN DEVLIN; Pete St. John composed this lively yet tragic song,
thereby ensuring that a brave Wicklow woman would not be airbrushed from history.
THE WICKLOW VALES FOR ME; Even the Creator, it has been
said, couldn't make two hills without a valley. Perhaps that is why
man-of-God, Father Butler, a Donard curate, in the last century gave
our mountains a rest (in a literary sense) and penned this tribute to the
hollows in between.
PROVIDENCE/GRAVEL WALKS (REELS); Played by Fuinneamh under the direction of John McNamara.
The artists featured include Celtic Mist, Shay Eustace, Fifth-generation tenor Denis Molloy, Pianist Bill
Kearney, Billy Meade, Fiddle-player Rachel Conlan, Songwriter/singers Patsy McEvoy and Mick Brady
and a nine-piece band Fuinneamh. Fuinneamh is the Irish for "energy" and when you hear them play
you'll agree with the choice of name.
Also featured are a number of interviewees who know anything that's worth knowing about County
Wicklow, its songs and songwriters. These include 94-year-old Mona Power recalls her memories of
Peter Cunningham-Grattan (The Roving Bard) an enigmatic songwriter and musician who travelled the
roads of Wicklow until his death in 1956. Father Padraig McCarthy tells us about the fruits of his research into this prolific man-of-the-roads who kept his cards close to his chest as far as his origins were
concerned.
Senator Labras O 'Murchu, Director General of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, gives us the benefit of his
knowledge of songs and song-writing in Wicklow and beyond.
Seamus MacMathuna, a great authority on the Irish ballad regales the viewer, from a cheery fireside,
with stories of composers past and present.
Mick Brady, reveals where he got the inspiration for an emigration song and singer, writer and historian Shay Eustace tells some
lesser-known facts about Ann Devlin.
Dec.05/Jan 06
"Sunrise On The Wicklow Hills" is available from:
Mattie Lennon, 15 Weston Heights, Weston Park, Lucan, Co.Dublin, Ireland.
[email protected]
http://www.westwicklowfilms.com/
Irish American Post
21
Pubs of the Month
New York’s Grace Has Blessin’s in the Drink
By J. Herbert Silverman
Few nations have a signature holiday that generates more than a
usual interest in spirits, lager and ale than St. Patrick’s Day. It
has become a hallmark for all drinks Irish. Traditional pubs
such as Kennedy’s and Jimmy Neary’s in New York do a
smashing business on this saintly day to no one’s surprise.
There’s even a contemporary albeit sad patriotic note to this
year’s holiday. One of America’s most famous military organizations, The Fighting 69th, recently returned from serving in
Iraq. Members marked the day at their massive Manhattan armory raising a toast to fallen comrades with their Cup of Valor,
the Regimental Cocktail – two parts Champagne and one part
Jameson Irish whiskey. The recipe dates to the American Civil
War when the regiment was founded by Irish immigrants.
In contrast, there’s the Grace, a restaurant in the city’s financial
district owned by a fourth generation Irishman, Fred McKibbin,
37, an urbane, university schooled bartender. His list contains a
noble Irish collection of Clontarf, Knappogue, Jameson 12,
Jameson 18, Redbreast, Midleton Rare, Powers, Bushmills (in
its three permutations), and Tullamore Dew.
Here, there are no shillelaghs or tin whistles on March 17, no
special Irish themes at this highly regarded restaurant whose
assets include a 40-foot-bar manned by the owner with another
resident Irishman, Michael Tipps
"Our custom kind of ignores the holiday," says McKibbin.
"Perhaps it is more cosmopolitan in its tastes. To these drinkers,
Irish whiskey is simply a super premium spirit be enjoyed yearround."
In deference to his Celtic connection, however, Irish coffee is a
year-round specialty with Powers the base. And so is a concoction oddly named "Blue Grass" with perhaps Knappogue Irish
whiskey, Peychaud bitters and a dash of Chartreuse, "the expensive green variety." McKibbin will also serve up a dry martini
made with Boru Vodka made in Ireland and named for an early
High King of Erin.
Grace martinis are served in 8-oz. glasses at $10 a pop. Companion drinks include such exotic interpretations as "The Apple
Richard," (Bombay gin, Berentzen Apfel Korn, fresh lemon
juice, shaken and strained and served straight up with a Champagne float). Partially from out of the past there’s also a
Pimm’s Cup (Pimm’s No. 1 Cup, fresh mint, cucumber, strawberries and orange served shaken over ice and topped with
Seven Up).
Indeed, the bar list at the Grace contains 26 bourbons, 23 top
line vodkas, 14 gins, 30 rums, 25 tequilas, a smaller representation of 10 blended scotches and reflecting the sophistry of its
drinkers, 26 single malts. If all that doesn’t suffice, there are 75
aperitifs, cordials and eau de vies on convenient display behind
the bar.
Not to be overlooked are 14 lager and ale taps including that
22
mandatory Irish standard, Guinness. "We keep our lagers at
38ºF so that they maintain their nice, crisp flavors and the ales
at 48ºF so they will open up with their hops and flower accent,"
McKibbin comments.
"During the day, we are crowded with Wall Street executives
and bankers from the area who are interested in good food and
a glass of wine at lunch. Our menu features Prince Edward
mussels in Belgian beer, pulled duck with grilled red onion,
sliced steak sandwiches or a marinated hanger steak with onion
rings and roasted red peppers which do well. Wines by the glass
are popular with selections ranging from a Friuli Pinot Grigio,
2003 and a Rhone La Vielle Ferme 2002 to a Languedoc Luc
Pirlet Merlot 2001 and Villa Mt. Eden Tall Trees Cabernet
2001 from Napa."
"But after 5 p.m., we are a chameleon when we become a
neighborhood bar and dining room. We are full to the hilt with
local residents often three deep at the bar," McKibbin says with
some pride.
"Our kitchen, under the aegis of chef Carlos Bautista, stays
open until 4 a.m., later than many of the top restaurants surrounding us such as Nobu and Tribeca Grill and many of their
chefs and bartenders come here to relax after a long day."
Why the name Grace? "I grew up in Catholic schools where
saying grace was a standard and I thought the name would connote enjoying food and drink. Of course, if you have enough
Irish whiskey, you do enter a state of grace," a mischievous
McKibbin notes. "Besides, the name is short and easy to remember."
The restaurant was created from the foundation of a ship chandler’s store, owned by one Thomas Mongelli. The walls are
brick, the ceiling is stenciled steel and the rear dining room is
protected by the original iron shutters.
"Mongelli was an officer in the Italian navy and with his crew
sailed to the United States at the beginning of WWII and said in
effect to the authorities, ‘Here we are, take us.’"
In line with the eclectic cultural interests of his clientele which
includes many artists and writers, Grace’s rear dining room also
serves as an art gallery complete with tapestry upholstered banquettes and artwork by the celebrated New York artist, Alan
Saalberg. Showcased are his "Food and Drink" series of silk
screen on glass prints inspired by Delmonico Restaurant’s
cookbook, The Epicurean: "A complete treatise of Analytical
and Practical Studies on the Culinary Art."
For more information: The Grace Pub, 114 Franklin St, New
York, N.Y. 10013, 212-343-4200
Pub reviewer Herb Silverman can be reached at
[email protected]
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Pubs of the Month
Milwaukee’s Harp Plays a Favorite Irish Tune
By Mario Raspanti
Water Street, one of the more popular strips of nightspots
around Milwaukee, is home to a number of bars, taverns, and
restaurants. Just a pooka’s hair north of downtown, the boulevard has become known for the large, sometimes rowdy,
crowds it can attract. For someone looking to get a drink or
catch a ballgame in a relatively tranquil setting, they might be
disappointed.
The Harp, an Irish pub generally associated with Water Street's
lineup of bars, offers an alternative respite. The snug watering
hole sits west of Water Street, on the corner of Juneau Avenue
and Edison Street overlooking the Milwaukee River.
Above the large wooden entrance, a sign, "The Harp," glows a
light green, along with a golden harp. To the left of the door, a
stained glass window belies a light-hearted atmosphere bubbling inside. A series of vaguely medieval-style lanterns ushers
light abstractly on the surrounding cream wall, which rests atop
a traditional countrylike row of stones and mortar.
Just inside the door, a fireplace looks upon a couple tables and
the front bar. A smaller bar sits a step down from the front, offering patrons a view of the river. A large deck is attached to
the rear of the building, leading to a dock where boaters can tie
up and join the crowd.
Lunch is busy for the Harp since it attracts a sizable crowd from
nearby downtown Milwaukee offices. The kitchen serves typical pub food: hamburgers, chicken wings, brats, fries, and an
assortment of appetizers. Aside from the lunch hour, the pub
has largely been a night establishment for more than 50 years.
"After Rosie’s, I'm pretty sure we're the longest standing bar on
or around Water Street," said owner and manager Mitch Wakefield. "My mom and dad bought the pub from an Irish couple in
the 1950s, so we've been here."
To celebrate the business and remember years past, Wakefield
began holding an annual anniversary buffet in 1979. Every
year, around the first weekend of November, he invites his purveyors, suppliers and regular customers to join him for a party.
To Wakefield, it is no small accomplishment to have remained
successful for so long.
"It's an opportunity to come out. We put out a complimentary
buffet. We give out prizes. It's mostly a de-facto celebration. It
is a reason to celebrate why are here. We're grateful for that.
Most bars only make it two or three years. Especially in this
day and age where competition is so rampant," he explained.
To him, unlike other cities, Milwaukee and its bar crowd are
part of a different dynamic. In his eyes, people here have a lot
of nostalgia. They are pretty rooted in what they want to do,
and where they want to drink, he said. Water Street had its heyday in the mid-to-late 1990s. At the time, it was the crown
jewel of the bar scene. Regardless, he feels that people tend to
Dec.05/Jan 06
revert to the places where they originally became comfortable
drinking. Water Street being one of them.
When put to it, he avoided labeling crowds. Students from Marquette University, UW-Milwaukee, the Milwaukee School of
Engineering and the after-work crowd, in addition to loyal visitors from all over the city, are among those who call the Harp
their home-away-from-home. For Wakefield, the Harp, like
other Irish bars, is more peaceful and serene than the pugilistic
images that some might hold about Irish bars.
"Nobody's a stranger for too long here. I try to instill that in all
the
customers," he added.
For many the Harp, serves as a gathering place. During the
summer, the pub receives a healthy overflow of customers from
Summerfest, Irish Fest, and the city’s other ethnic festivals.
Over the winter, guests often stop by before or after sporting
events or concerts since the Bradley Center and other sources of
entertainment are close by.
"We're kind of lucky to be between Water Street and Old World
Third Street. It gives us a lot of exposure, with all the traffic,
and businesses like Usinger's (sausage company) on the other
side of the river," he pointed out.
Wakefield took over as owner and manager from his parents in
1994. However, while growing up, he didn't have a lot of interest in the pub or working there. On occasion, he put in a few
hours working there, but not on a steady basis. Wakefield attended the University of Minnesota where he received a degree
in accounting. Yet, he developed an appreciation for the Harp
after he returned to Milwaukee and began working there more
often.
"I was always a numbers guy. That's kind of tooting my own
horn, but that's what I was good at. Then one summer, I came
home and started working. Just the fact that anyone can walk in
and sit down at the bar, and the fabric of the people that could
be there hooked me. This as opposed to the cubicle I might be
sitting as an accountant," he quipped. "Bar business is one of
the few jobs where you can see your friends every day, and
make new friends."
Wakefield also owns Tess, an Italian restaurant on the corner of
Bartlett Avenue and Bradford Avenue, on Milwaukee's East
Side. He divides his time between the two places, but always
finds his way back to the Harp.
For more information: The Harp Irish Pub, 113 E Juneau Ave,
Milwaukee, Wis, 53202, 414-289-0700
Pub reviewer Mario Raspanti can be reached at
[email protected]
Irish American Post
23
Murph’s Original Sauce Making the Rounds
By Mario Raspanti
Looking at the long list of committees, clubs and foundations
that Murph Burke is involved in leads one to wonder how she
ever manages to find the time. Chairing the Milwaukee Public
Art Committee is just one of the tasks keeping her busy. She
also serves on the boards of the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Pier Wisconsin, and the Milwaukee County Cultural,
Artistic, and Musical Programming Advisory Council. These
are only a few of her causes.
As a mother of five and grandmother of eight, she has long held
a place as a chef. Burke has also put in a good deal of time in
the kitchen. Earlier this year, the title became more official
when a sauce that she spent years tweaking, finally received the
approval necessary to be marketed.
"It took years to get it through the FDA and the government.
Seven or eight years ago, I seriously considered making it for
the market. I had to get it okayed and get state licensing," she
related.
She originally came upon the idea for the sauce in 1975 on a
visit to Memphis. She spent time there with her cousins who
were experimenting with an old sauce recipe. From this formula, she turned out what was initially referred to as her "Old
Irish Steak Sauce."
"They were making this narrative sauce, meaning that it wasn't
just a list. They were making little batches at a time. They gave
me the recipe and I began making gallons at a time, giving out
little bits, like Christmas gifts or just things to take home," she
recalled.
The "Old Irish Steak Sauce" was first used primarily as a condiment. Over time, the use and popularity of the sauce among
family and friends grew. Eventually the number of uses for her
sauce evolved to where she thought she might want to sell it to
the public. Her narrative recipe presented a unique challenge.
To retain the original flavor called for patience and trial and
error.
"That was a challenge. First, I had to get the old-story recipe.
And then I made gallons. Then I made 20 gallons and you don't
just double the amount of ingredients there, so there was a lot of
educated guessing," she explained. "We've had a very favorable
response, where people were tasting and my partners and I were
passing out samples."
The sauce being marketed as "Murph's Original Sauce," appeared on select shelves in early October, 2005. With the help
of friends and business partners Julie Tofel, Jill Jaekels, and her
daughter, Rory, she has been able to introduce the sauce to a
large number of shoppers.
Thus far, they have conducted demos at the Sentry store in
Delafield, the Sendik's in Grafton, and at V.Richard's on
Bluemound Road in Brookfield. In addition to these outlets,
"Murph's Original Sauce" is also on shelves at the Milwaukee
Public Market in the Old Third Ward.
The sauce is produced at Create-a-Pak Foods, a small factory in
Ixonia, Wis., and promoted through KFM Marketing. "Murph's
Original Sauce" is also the name of her company. If all goes
well, the sauce will eventually be peddled throughout Wisconsin.
"I plan to do demos for some time and in as many stores that
request them, because that seems to be the best way to make the
product familiar to stores and shoppers," she added, pointing
out that the sauce is perfect for shoppers wishing to zip up their
holiday recipes.
In the past, she and her husband, developer John Burke, have
served as sponsors for Milwaukee Irish Fest. While they did not
sponsor this year, they still contributed to the festival’s 25th
anniversary celebration in 2005. They also donated money to
the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wis., to help restore an
old Irish circus wagon that was part of this year's cultural display at Irish Fest.
"Chappy Fox was the man that found all those 200-plus circus
wagons and brought them back to Wisconsin. He had known
about them for 30 or 40 years. He had told us about the Irish
wagon, so we were just happy to help," Burke said.
Aside from traveling and spending time with her family, Burke
finds a good deal of joy in juggling her time between her
causes. Even with the time crunch, she gladly tackled creating
the sauce and establishing her company.
"I wanted to do it carefully to save money. I also wanted to do it
hopefully in a smart way. I wouldn't have had the same sense of
accomplishment had I gone through someone else. And now
I've made it work on a shoestring, so I get to see how it works
on the shelf," she said happily.
Pub reviewer Mario Raspanti can be reached at
[email protected]
Advertise with the
Irish American Post
Phone: 414-540-6636
24
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
ADVERTISEMENT
There’s Love and There’s Sex
and There’s the 46a
"There's Love and There's Sex and There's the
46A" is a collection of short-stories, essays, articles, ballads and poems all written by bus workers and ex-busworkers.
of short stories. I think that masters of the
short story, such as Frank O'Conner and
Sean O'Faolain, would have really enjoyed
these stories. I certainly did.
Some were produced recently on state-of-the-art
word processors while others had been, evidently, written on the backs of waybills and Defect Dockets at termini many years ago.
A good short story gives the reader permission to enter a new world. The form demands that the writer should have an energetic sense of narrative, an ear for revealing
dialogue, a controlled sense of drama, a
feeling for the sometimes contradictory
subtleties of character, and an ability to allow narrative, character and dialogue to
create a special atmosphere that completely
fits the world evoked, worked and sustained by the writer.
There's something for (almost) everybody in this
collection. It contains sentiments, philosophy,
history and humor. There's even advice there; if
you are a budding Alice Taylor or John McGahern The Finished Novel by acclaimed novelist/
bus-driver Ciaran McCann, is for you.
Here's what Prof. Brendan Kennelly says about
it in the foreword:
"Having these delightful stories led me to think how we, the
traveling public, tend to take bus drivers for granted. Buses are
like mobile mountains of help and comfort: they take you to
your destination and they allow you to think, observe, relish
conversation or silence, and feel perfectly safe.
And there's that man or woman up front, guiding the mobile
mountain along with patience, courtesy and pleasant, easygoing style. How often do we thank our pleasant guides? They
certainly deserve our warm gratitude.
When I had finished these short stories,
culminating in the delightful There's Love
And There's Sex And There's The 46A. I was grateful for
the special insights, the sympathies, the humor, the quiet
feelings of these talented bus people.
As writers, they are keen listeners, sharp observers, constantly in touch with the foibles of humanity and, most
striking of all they are gifted storytellers. Readers will, I
believe, love this collection. In fact, I think we may find
that, thanks to these talented storytellers, buses will be
even more crowded in the future."
And now these bus angels have given us a charming collection
Here's a sample from the "Poets Corner" of the collection:
Post From Parnassus
(after Patrick Kavanagh)
by Paddy Finnegan
Here by my seat the old ghosts meet.
Here, the place where the old menagerie
Relentlessly soldiers on
Remembering the old green dragon, me,
On the feast of the Apostle of Ireland.
Ye greeny, greying catechumens
Will cease to stage this ceremony
Only on the command of Sergeant Death.
Then break not the heart of poet past
Nor that of preening poet present:
But know, ye prodigies of prosody
That multitudes in times to be
Will listen to my lays
And look askance
While cods forever fake
Their own importance.
There's Love and There's Sex and There's the 46A is available from:
Dec.05/Jan 06
Irish American Post
Bus Books
P.O.Box 9963
Lucan
Co.Dublin
IRELAND
Price: 11 Euro (including P&P)
25
Short Story
Christmas at Sharpeshill
Animals Find Holiday Love
By Ted Crowley
In the cold dark forests of County Wicklow, snow whitened the Christmas trees.
Sport, Pet and Pal, three poor stray doggies, recalled past Christmases of cuddles
and kisses and fires of blazing logs. They
could not forget the cold goodbyes of receding tail-lights.
"I’ll do my circus tricks," said Snowy.
"We’ll chase the wolves away," said
Sport, Pet and Pal.
"We’ll sing," said the three wise donkeys.
Three ancient horses sheltered from the
cold in the same lonely forests. Baloo was
huge, Seamus was nicely sized and
Snowy, the circus pony, was tiny. To the
east, Baloo noticed a warm, welcoming light on a hilltop. He
whispered, "Sharpeshill is open again."
"We’ll dress as milkmaids," said the
three wise goats.
"We’ll lay jingle eggs," said the three
wise ducks.
"Jingle eggs?" mused Pal.
They met Sport, Pet and Pal.
"Jingle eggs, jingle eggs, jingle all the way..." sang the three
wise ducks.
"Seamus," said Baloo, "help Sport onto my back." "Snowy,"
said Seamus, "give Pet a leg up."
"We’ll keep them warm as wool," baaaaaaed three wise sheep,
baaaaaaing behind the quacking ducks.
"Pal," said Snowy, "I’m tiny, hop on my back."
At Barnbawn, three wise singing donkeys joined them. At a
frozen waterfall, three wise goats fell into line. Glenealy is famous for its wise ducks. Sport heard them quack, quack, quacking along behind the donkeys.
"We have no gold, frankincense and myrrh," worried Pet.
"I’ll sing," said Baloo.
"I’ll dance," said Seamus.
According to the author, Ted Crowley, The Crib is a compilation of nine different pictures set in the Church at Glenealy,
Co. Wicklow. Of course no such Crib ever existed except on
the screen of his wife Anne's computer. The horses are all rescued animals at Sharpeshill Animal Sanctuary, of which the
Crowleys are keen supporters. From time to time, Ted writes
pieces for The Wicklow Times in support of the Sanctuary. This
is his Christmas offering. Crowley can be reached at [email protected]
The Irish American Cultural Institute Announces New Chairman
The Irish American Cultural Institute (IACI) Board of Directors
announced that Gerald P. McBride was appointed Chairman of the
organization at the organization’s board meeting, November 19th,
2005. The statement comes after Chairman and CEO John P.
Walsh announced his retirement.
IACI, 18 of which he served as chairman. Initially joining IACI as
a volunteer with the North New Jersey Chapter, Walsh became
Director of the local chapter and joined the Board in 1975. Under
Mr. Walsh's guidance, the IACI entered a new era of achievement
and growth.
Chairman-elect McBride most recently served as Vice Chairman of
the IACI and in the past has held various roles for the Irish American Partnership. He retired after more than 30 years on Wall Street.
He is currently principal owner of a real estate investment and
management company located in Morristown. Kathleen Fee, a
member of the Board of Directors, will replace McBride as Vice
Chairman.
During Walsh’s tenure, the IACI expanded its role and contributions to Irish America, overseeing the development of the institute’s Irish Research Funds, O’Malley Art Award, Irish Artist in
Residence and Fellowship in Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Additional highlights include the opening
of the IACI O’Malley Art Gallery in Limerick and the placement
of the Annie Moore statues at Ellis Island and Cobh, Co. Cork.
Upon accepting his new role, McBride said, "John [Walsh] has
been instrumental in bringing the IACI to the respected position it
holds in the United States, Ireland, and around the world. I look
forward to continuing his work and expanding the Institute’s role
and influence in the Irish cultural community."
Upon the board announcement, Walsh stated, "It has been a pleasure serving as chairman of the IACI for the last 18 years. I think
the IACI will continue to grow with the election of Gerry McBride
as my successor. I look forward to continuing my association with
the IACI as a board member. I offer my congratulations and sincere best wishes."
Walsh is stepping down after 35 years of association with the
26
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Eye on Ireland
In the Tank, Shoulda Stuck With Guinness
By Ted Crowley
In the backward lands of the Celt and the Sassenach, tanks of
dirty water are stored in attics. People keep strange things for
religious reasons. For all I know, our neighbors, the French and
the Spaniards, are similarly inclined to dice with death. Our attic tanks feed the upstairs taps — the faucets, the bath and the
toilet flushes — with dicey, dirty, cold water. More advanced
peoples place their trust in the public water supply taken directly from the rising main. That way, they avoid the ravages of
various plagues. In 1990, I almost died of legionnaire’s disease
in Spain.
Then, I knew! I knew it! At last I knew that I’d got to the bottom of her dastardly scheming and her devious need for attic
lighting.
Releasing my verbal grip, I demanded, firmly, manfully, in utter astonishment, "Why? Why? Oh why? My little dark-eyed
Senorita, why do we need such clean water to flush the upstairs
toilet?"
"Because," she replied, while regaining her composure, "the
inside of the toilet cistern is jet black, the bath is impossible to
keep clean, and should either of us take
but one sip of water from that tank, there
isn’t a physician living, nor a saintly physician dead, who could save us."
For five years, I’ve endured mounting
pressure to fit lights in our attic space.
Since I’d be the last man in the world to
fathom the devious mind of a woman, I
have scars prove it, and being told things
Picture me if you can, me, the only ardent
only on a need to know basis, all I knew
native Irish supporter of the heroes of La
for sure was that attic lighting had reached
Coruna, me, up to my oxters in filthy waher highest priority. In common with most
ter, me, having first strung-up the ballmere men, apart from tossing the odd
cock ball with twine, me, drenched in
empty suitcase up the manhole, left to mystinking water, with mop and pail and a
self, I’d never visit that dark, dismal, lofty
flexible purple plastic plum pudding
dungeon, poised as it is, between heaven
The sheer delights of Ted Crowley’s attic bowl, turning taps on and off, me, up and
and earth.
down the ladder, letting the ball-cock ball
tank.
down again, refilling the tank, once again
No longer could I risk being caught sharpstringing the ball-cock ball up, me, up
ening even a pencil, because she’d take it as a sign that I’d enand down that ladder, one yellow bucket-full after another of
tered a practical phase and she’d pounce on me again, woefully
putrid water, the color and the consistency of the stalest Guinnagging, "When are you going to wire the attic lights?"
ness, black as the PVC of the tank, 10 buckets full of the stinkSince there’s always a season in the affairs of men, for whating stuff, until after 90 minutes, I dropped the ball for the last
ever affairs men may or may not be inclined to get themselves
time, as AC Milan had so often done. Then, I was victorious
into, the close of my season of dire reluctance crashed down
and a free men again. Even she acknowledged that I’d done it,
upon me as the final whistle blew at the end of that fantastic
when clean water gushed from every tap and toilet flush.
Deportivo La Coruna v AC Milan match, just as Deportivo beat
Tearing off my victor’s jersey, I tossed it at her. She smiled and
the sweaty socks off the Italians. (Given the way they played,
cooed, "Ah my brave Senor Fran Gonzalez, while you’re at
I’d say the Italians have attic tanks.)
it..." Lately, she has learned to leave the next "little" job, until
There I was in the throes of unbridled pleasure, without even a
the previous one is done. She’s learning to be a very patient
pencil in my hand, let alone a sharp knife, when she struck with
woman.
renewed vigor and determination, screaming out, "Now that
Believe me, if your tank is as dirty as our tank was, and as dirty
you’re in such fine form, Senor, how about that little job in the
as some of our neighbors’ tanks are, have it cleaned out, just in
attic?"
case that on some sick night, taking that tablet maybe, when it’s
Taking her by the throat, verbally, for the want of a sharp knife,
too dark and lonely to go downstairs, when the cold kitchen and
I screamed out, "Why do we need lights in the attic?"
its cold tap are too far away, just in case you might be tempted
to take a sip from the attic’s dirty water tank.
As her eyes rolled, she gasped, "So that you’ll see what you’re
doing while you’re flooring it."
Please don’t ring me. Every job is too big!
Further tightening my verbal grip on her throat, the neighbors
heard my hysterical scream, "Why do we need to floor the attic?"
Faintly, she gasped, "So that you’ll clean the tank, without falling through the ceiling."
Dec.05/Jan 06
Readers wishing to lament about their attic water tanks can
sympathize with writer Ted Crowley via
[email protected]
Irish American Post
27
UWM Theater Goes Irish
By Mario Raspanti
The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee's Theater Department
has long been regarded as a good destination for graduate students looking to study theater. There has been an interest, but for
one reason or another, the major never materialized for undergraduate students. This year, for the first time, an undergraduate
bachelor of fine arts degree in acting, stage management, technical production, and costume production was offered.
In the past, the graduate program has gone to Sweden, China,
and Australia to perform, and at one point about 10 years ago,
there was an international festival and theater training program
at UWM, recalled Bill Watson, the new director of the university's theater program.
Last year, he was brought in to help start up this new undergraduate program. A major part of this program is of course an
undergraduate theater season. Nickel and Dime, On (Not)Making
it in America, a play Joan Holden adapted from Barbara Ehrenrich's New York Times bestseller is among the plays the students will be performing.
The program and the play is part of a city wide festival involving Marquette University, Alverno College, and UWM. The festival seeks to engage themes of art, faith, and social justice, issues with which Nickel and Dimed deals.
The play follows Barbara, as she pretends to struggle to survive,
to get a sense of what people go through working at low wage
jobs. Working at Wal-Mart, cleaning houses, cleaning hotels,
and serving at a restaurant are among the jobs she holds. Each
position illustrates the struggle people holding these jobs inevitably face as they try to make ends meet.
After performing Nickel and Dimed at UWM in December, the
troupe took the show to Dublin early in January. There they
studied Irish theater and performed the play at the Axis Arts
Center in Ballymun, a suburb in the north of Dublin, from Jan.
17 to Jan. 21.
"The programming aim of the Axis Center is to present arts material that has relevance to Ballymun, and to examine how other
societies and cultures deal with issues common to the Ballymun
community. In this case, low wage work in a bustling economy
and the attendant problems for those on the bottom of the economic pyramid," Watson said.
Nickel and Dimed was chosen for the way it speaks to social
and political issues, especially themes of art, faith, and social
justice, which are particularly relevant to Ballymun and Milwaukee. In the play, according to her supervisor at Wal-Mart, "the
numbers decide" what happens to people and the workplace.
"Rather than going as tourists, we're going to a community
where we might get a chance to make some connections, get to
know the people, and heart of the place. We're going to get a lot
of immersion and first hand research there in Irish dialects, playwrights, and culture, so I don't think it gets much better than
that," Watson added.
28
As part of the exchange, Dave O'Sullivan and Catherine Barry,
two regular performers at the Axis Center, joined UWM's production. Both have extensive experience performing on stages
around Dublin.
John Gleeson, co-director of the Celtic Studies Department at
UWM, came up with idea for the program exchange and initiated many of the conversations that led to the opportunity to perform in Ballymun. He spoke with Raeleen McMillion, a theater
professor at UWM, and Ray Yeats, the Axis Center's director,
about the possibility of collaborating. Watson then met with
Yeats twice over the past year to set it up.
"This is kind of a launching event. The students have been in the
program for three months now, so it is a new incarnation of the
program," Watson said.
The BFA training program will follow Nickel and Dimed with
four plays, two of which are by Irish playwrights and also deal
with issues that pertain to low wage workers. They will present
Brian Friel's play, Philadelphia, Here I Come, from March 9 to
18. On select dates from April 20 to May 6, they will present the
U.S. premiere of From These Green Heights, a Dermot Bulger
play nominated by The Irish Times as the best new Irish play in
2001.
"Nickel and Dimed' and From These Green Heights in particular
are plays that speak to social issues on the Irish side — they
speak to people that get left behind by financial success, trying
to raise a family," Watson continued. "What's gone with that
success, Ireland's Tiger economy, and in Dublin for example, is
that real estate prices have gone up, making it harder low wage
workers to survive and make a living. That is the power of theater and the show we are putting on. It is helping us open a dialog
with these people of Ballymun, where there are a lot of low
wage workers," he added.
There are about 35 students involved in any production. Ten
play roles on stage, while others work as stage managers, make
the props, construct the stage and costumes, or work with the
technical aspects of the production.
Twenty-six students are going over to Ireland, including the
technical and stage managers. Performing at the Axis Center
will likely be the highlight of the trip, but the first two weeks
ought to be equally inspiring. The students will spend this time
studying Irish theater through Synge, Yeats, Wilde, Beckett and
O'Casey, to name a few, and do a pilgrimage to various historic
sites. They return to Milwaukee in time for the start of the spring
semester.
"I hope this opens students eyes to the power of theater and
where it can open people's eyes to a wider variety of situations.
And that is the goal of theater, to show that this is more than an
American issue and that people all over the world are dealing
with these issues," Watson replied, when asked what he hoped
students got out of the experience.
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
2006 Mitchell Scholars Announced:
A Profile of the California Contingent
By Steve Hintz
The Irish American Post West Coast Bureau
California is lucky to be home to three of the 12 winners of the
US-Ireland Alliance’s Mitchell scholarship this year. This national scholarship for graduate study in Ireland is named after
the former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell, and his pivotal contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process. These scholarships support one year of graduate study in any discipline offered by an institution of higher learning in Ireland or Northern
Ireland.
Mitchell scholars must exhibit superior records of academic
excellence, leadership and public service, and this year’s winners have tipped the scales in their favor with their outstanding
word play and keen interviewing skills...not to mention an exemplary list of prior accomplishments. They will enjoy a leisurely educational vacation in sunny/not so sunny, Ireland.
Daniel Preysman is a 2004 graduate of Dartmouth College
where he studied government and philosophy. While at Dartmouth, he was president of the school’s Mock Trial program
and a senior editor of the Journal of Law. Daniel also was a codirector of the Outdoor Leadership Experience, a non-profit
working with at-risk youth, and helped to double the number of
middle-school students in the program. He was in a public library not far from home when he received the call from Dell
Pendergrast, the director of the Mitchell Scholarship.
"It had been less than 24 hours since my interview, and I didn’t
expect him to be calling so soon. When I saw his number flash
on my cell phone, I ran outside the library to pick up the
phone," said Preysman. "He started telling me about how stiff
the competition had been and I was nearly sure that he was
about to say that I had not gotten the scholarship. When he
eventually did tell me, I was excited and relieved."
Preysman, a native of Sunnyvale, Calif., will study journalism
as a Mitchell scholar at Dublin City University.
His parents are immigrants from Russia who came to the
United States in 1976, which may contribute to his desire to
pursue a career as a foreign correspondent. When asked why
Ireland, he explained that "an opportunity to study journalism in
a country when (he) would be a foreigner was too neat an opportunity to pass up."
Preysman was an intern at the San Francisco bureau of the New
York Times when two of his articles — including one on loopholes in the U.S. immigrant visa regime — were published in
the newspaper. He worked as a research assistant for the New
York Times reporter Katie Hafner’s biography of legendary
pianist Glenn Gould’s favorite piano, CD318, which will be
published next year.
"I’m particularly excited to live in and study in Ireland. The
country combines a lot of the things I’m passionate about –
close families, beautiful nature and great literature. I’m also
Dec.05/Jan 06
hoping that I’ll get the chance to work with an Irish newspaper
while I’m in the country."
Having studied in Paris his sophomore year in college and
worked in the countries of Georgia and Armenia, he’s banking
on his travel experiences to help him adjust to life in Ireland.
"I think I’m luckier than all the other Mitchell scholars because
my studies will allow me to explore many different aspects of
Irish life today. It’s always been as a journalist, walking around
different neighborhoods and interviewing people that I’ve
learned the most about the communities in which I’m living."
John Velasco, of La Mesa, Calif., is a master’s degree student
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majoring in political science. He talked about discovering that he had won a
scholarship University of Limerick – International Studies.
"I will always remember the moment. it was a rainy November
afternoon and I had spent the greater part of the day locked up
in the library working on a final paper. When I heard the news,
I was ecstatic and speechless all at once. I spent the remainder
of the day and the days following, contacting my parents,
friends, colleagues and mentors to let them know the good
news. I also spent time researching Limerick and getting caught
up on the local happenings."
Velasco is a co-founder of Hibur, the MIT-Technion Link
which has inaugurated exchange and research initiatives between MIT and Israel’s own Institute of Technology. He also is
founder and coordinator of the I-MATH project connecting
MIT mentors with eighth grade students in Cambridge and received the Swearer Humanitarian Award for his community
activism.
"I come from a large, blue-collar, working class family which
prides itself on the values of truth, hard work and compassion. I
got indoctrinated into this tradition through working weekends
at my family’s restaurant in the sixth grade."
After a trip to Scotland during his junior year in a U.K. based
entrepreneurship conference in Scotland, Velasco befriended
several of his Irish conference mates and their pontifications on
the emergence of Ireland as a business center stuck with the
young American.
"From that week – I set as one of my goals to find my way to
Ireland whether through study or through work to create more
connections to Ireland, to befriend more Irish, and to learn more
about the cultural, economical and political factors which are
driving the Celtic Tiger."
Velasco has been an intern with the Chairman of the House of
Representatives Armed Services Committee and with the U.S.
Postal Inspection Service. He served as the MIT Student Campus Liaison for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
He wants to pursue a J.D. or doctorate in American politics.
Irish American Post
29
"After school, I hope to work in Washington for a government
agency or non-profit which will focus on promoting and developing the math/science capacities of the primary/secondary
education system in America. I want to work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and maybe even some day live there."
Matthew Haney attended Emory University and graduated in
2005 from the University of California in Berkeley with a degree in political science and interdisciplinary studies.
He discussed his reaction to finding out that he had won the
award.
"It’s such a long process, with so many qualified, dynamic and
accomplished young people applying, that you kind of just
throw your name in there, do your best on the application, and
just hope. Luckily, things ended up working out, and of course
after finding out the result, I was thrilled and relieved. I am incredibly honored to have been chosen," he enthused.
Haney successfully managed his mother’s campaign last November to win a place on the local school board. A former intern in the office of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California), Haney
now has a fellowship for work with the California State Senate
in Sacramento.
"I am hoping that the Mitchell Scholarship experience, along
with future educational pursuits, will help me clarify what it is
that I want to spend the rest of my life doing. Yet I do know
that whatever it is I do, it will be as a public servant in some
capacity working for and with the most vulnerable and disad-
vantaged among us," Haney said.
"My father is Irish-American and very proud of it. He is probably the person who is most responsible for instilling in me an
interest and a curiosity in Irish culture and it’s people. I’ve endured many a long night of my father belting Van Morrison
tunes as loud as he could. If that doesn’t give a man an interest
in Ireland, I don’t know what else would," he laughed.
Haney went on to say, "My dad is excited about the prospect of
me tracking down some of our long-lost relatives that neither he
nor I have met. Apparently, Haney is a fairly common last
name in Ireland, so it may be hard sorting out who is actually
related to me."
At Berkeley, Haney was the president and vice-president of the
Informed Voters Foundation and represented this group on the
New Voters Project, a nonpartisan coalition which registered
6,000 students to vote in 2004. He was also the founder and
president of the Informal Debate Society, the largest UC Berkeley debating organization devoted to discussion of social and
political issues. He also served as the philanthropy and social
chair of Beta Theta Pi fraternity and volunteered as a tutor and
counselor for Youth Impact, an after-school program.
As a Mitchell Scholar, Haney will be in a cross-border Human
Rights and Criminal Justice Program at Queen’s University
Belfast and the National University of Ireland in Galway. He
currently lives in South Pasadena, Calif.
Donegal Rebel
(Continued from page 20)
Pádraig Ó Baoighill also gives the Free State account which
appeared in the Wicklow Newsletter:
A party of troops from Naas operating in the hills about Valleymount district surrounded a house about 4.00 a.m. today were
proceeding to close in on a building when fire was opened on
the troops from within. The troops replied and a short engagement ensued in the course of which Plunkett, leader of the party
of Irregulars in the house, was shot dead. The Irregulars numbering 12 in all (in addition to their leader) surrendered and
were made prisoners. With the party, the following material
was captured- 10 rifles, two Thompson machine guns and a
quantity of ammunition.
According to a report in the Derry Journal (26/05/1923) the
following was found in Norton’s house; 10 rifles, 951
rounds .303 ammunition, 339 rounds Thompson gun ammunition, two Thompson guns and three magazines, one pair binoculars, three Sam Brown belts, six bandoliers four haversacks,
six ammunition pouches, one Colt revolver, one shorts Webley
30
revolver, one bicycle and some other military equipment.
Plunkett’s body was taken to Naas where an inquest was held.
He was waked for one night in Manor Kilbride Church before
being taken on the final journey to his beloved Rosses. He is
buried in Kincasslagh graveyard.
Now bravely he sleeps by the rim of the ocean,
No wind nor no tempest, his slumber can spoil.
Long, long we’ll remember with faith and devotion,
The fate of our chieftain, Neil Plunkett O ‘Boyle.
Mattie Lennon can be contacted at [email protected]. Lennon pointed out that he was indebted to Michelle Boyle,
Padraig Ó Baoighill and Patrick Bonner who provided him
with source material and pictures for this piece.
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Short Story
Passageway Through Time
By Wynne Crombie
Kathy swerved the steering wheel to the left as the lorry advanced upon her. The driver flashed his lights. Brakes shrieked.
Her memories of getting off the Aer Lingus flight, flashed before her...then nothing. A blinding white light came into her
vision and everything exploded.
Great-Grandpa John had come back to Belfast in 1919 when his
mother Anne had died. While he was putting her affairs into
order, he had succumbed to a bleeding ulcer. No one had ever
come over to visit his gravesite until now. Kathy's information,
gleaned out of the family Bible, had given her the name of
Edentrillick, a township outside of Belfast. She was almost
there; she had seen the signs.
She was aware of murmuring faces, fading in and floating
away.
"Och, Kathleen wha' yer doing here, lass?"
"Anne, light the candles please. Maeve, lit the fire under the
soup. The lass needs nourishment."
Anne took a taper and lit it in the fireplace. Then she turned and
lit the table candles. Maeve took the bellows and rekindled the
fire.
Ann heard herself voice, "Where am I?"
The older woman laughed, "Yer home. Anne run and get yer
John. He‚ll know what to do. He's in the way of doctoring. Och,
if only yer Da were still alive."
The accident, the lorry. Then the vision vanished.
She was in a different time, a different place.
Kathy pulled her eyes tight and then willed them to open.
He was kneeling before her, his face questioning.
"Mam and the family are half worried, they are. Did ya fall?
Why yer all scraped up?"
The lights and the noise were gone. Just a soft wind and mist.
Where was the lorry...and her car? Who was this person looking
at her with such concern?
She looked around. "I..," she tried to focus. "Who are you?"
"Who am I? Yer brother Colin, of course. Dun't be daft. C'mon,
I'll take yer home."
Everything hurt, but Kathy ached too much to argue. She let the
stranger help her to her feet. She swayed and he caught her.
"Whoa there! We're got to get ya home. Can ya talk, lass?"
Kathy shook her head.
A woman appeared and threw her hand to her chest, "Jesus,
Mary, Joseph!"
"I think she's all right Mam, I think she jus' fell. Her skirt is all
torn."
Jeans, I was wearing jeans, raced through her mind. She looked
down at what was indeed a ripped skirt.
A dark column of smoke drifted out of the stone chimney as
they approached. Kathy wrinkled her nostrils and coughed at
the irritation. Two young women chorused, "Kathleen!" Then
turning to the older woman, "What's wrong with her, Mam?"
"Dun't know, but she's had a wee fall" Wha' were ya doing out
on the road?
Colin continued to hold her hand while he gently put her into a
chair. The chair was hard and hurt her back. It was starting to
get dark. Why doesn't someone turn on the lights?
Dec.05/Jan 06
A large light appeared, then murmuring faces peering down at
her. Only this time they were serious and silent. Beep?beep?
beep?in rhythmic staccato.
Anne threw a shawl around her shoulders and slipped out the
door.
Kathy leaned back and closed her eyes. A far-off sound presented itself... From Belfast...RTE presents...and the voice
trailed off. And the faces moved in again peering, looking...
The wooden door creaked. Anne came in followed by a young
man in farm clothes.
"If you think, I'll marry you," Anne hissed. She turned away,
embarrassed at being overheard.
"Doctor John is here, lass."
They think I'm their daughter Kathleen.
John's knowledgeable fingers examined Kathy. "I think she is
just concussed and will be as right as rain in the morning. Did
you fall lass?"
"I don't remember. No, I wasn't used to driving on the left
and.." But, after a look at their confused faces. It must be...no
electricity, horses, no cars, no pavement, and no running water.
Mentally, Kathy tried to remember the information her dad had
given her. John Graham's parents had been John and Anne Graham. Anne had died in 1919 at the age of 80. This Anne appeared to be around 20, so this must be 1840? Anne and John.
Could she be back in time, in her great-great grandparents
time?
They must get married.
John took Anne over to a corner. "I love you, lass."
Anne replied, "Do ya love Mary O'Brien, too?"
"Of course not."
"Then why were ya kissing her?"
"It meant nothing. It's you I love."
Irish American Post
31
Anne began to sob and ran out the cottage door.
The family was up before dawn the next day. The banked fire
had already been reawakened. Colin was helping Mam hoist a
copper pot over the turf fire.
Kathy had dozed in fits and starts. She tried to get up, but everything hurt too much and she fell back against the bedding.
Her nostrils wrinkled against the peat smell. The wind blew in
through the window covering. There was no glass.
Anne brought in a pan of water, so she could wash her face.
"Och, look at yer arm now." Kathy glanced down where Anne
was touching her arm and did a quick intake. Her arm was
bruised. It looked almost like a needle had punctured a vein.
"Och, look at the sooty thumbprint I left on yer arm!"
"John," she croaked, "you must marry him."
"I'll not have a philandering husband, Kathleen." She said as
she carefully tried to lessen the thumbprint.
Thunder and lightening bolted from the sky. The horse whinnied and rose up on its hind legs.
She heard Anne scream, " John, my love!"
"I think she's coming to,"came a far-off voice.
The faces peering at her. The sounds of RTE Radio Belfast were
in the background. She turned to the radio on the nightstand.
The nurse was replacing the IV solution to the hookup in her
right arm.
"That's interesting. I don't remember seeing this before." She
turned to Kathy. "You have a little smudge of something black
here."
Anne's sooty thumbprint...
"You've had a nasty accident young lady." Your mom and dad
are here from Chicago, they've been so worried. But, you are
going to be fine."
"Honest he won't be," Kathy struggled to voice her opinion, but
nothing came out.
It was three weeks before Kathy could leave the hospital. Balancing herself on crutches, she stood with her parents in the
Edentrillick graveyard besides the granite marker that simply
stated:
Anne helped her dress in a homespun skirt and blouse. "Can ya
walk into the room?"
John Graham
Died May 4, 1919.
Kathy nodded.
Next to his grave were those of his parents...John, Sr., and his
wife, Anne. Everything had indeed come about; history had not
been changed.
When John came by, Anne looked straight past him and
marched outside.
"Kathleen, ya know yer sister best," he sighed. "Wha' am I ta
do? Mary O'Brien means nothing."
Kathy started to speak, but a rolling sensation and a wave of
dizziness came over her. Her mother's face flashed down at her
and then nothing.
They turned to go.
Author Wynne Crombie can be reached at
[email protected].
Kathy heard John get on his horse and bid farewell to Colin.
ICHC to Host Celtic Irish Cosmos Symposia
What have the Irish contributed to America?
That question and more will be answered at The Celtic Irish Cosmos Symposia at the Irish American Heritage Center in the winter
of 2006. This 3-part series will take place on the last Sunday of January, February and March 2006.
The Celtic Irish Cosmos will explore several aspects of Irish-American identity. The lectures will examine the past, present and future of Irish Americans and their roles in politics, the arts, business, literature and the media. It will look at how the Irish as a group
succeeded or faltered in the past, what can be learned from the present that will influence the future of Irish America.
The backbone of the symposia will be in-depth presentations by well-known Irish-American leaders and trendsetters with an audience feedback session. There will be exhibits tied to the day’s topic and each session will feature live Irish music, dance, displays of
artwork and authors discussing, selling and signing their work.
Tickets for the Celtic Irish Cosmos can be purchased by calling the Irish American Heritage Center at 773-282-7035, ext. 10. Prices
for the events are: IAHC members $15 per ticket or $40 per series, non members, $20 per ticket or $50 per series or $80, which includes a membership to the IAHC and tickets to all three events.
The Celtic Irish Cosmos is supported by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council and the Illinois Arts Council.
32
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Poetry/Writing
Irish Andy Sails to Hilo and Other Poetic Ports o’ Call
By Mario Raspanti
Today, people enjoy an incredible number of career and learning opportunities. For young students, it is sometimes too easy
to remember that our teachers, parents and grandparents did not
have the technology, programs and options available now.
However, our "elders" have the privilege of being able to contrast their experiences from the past and the present. At first
glance, it might be undeniable that writing as an activity has not
changed much in the past 50 years or so.
In fact, students and professionals have a wide variety of tools
at their
disposal, making the writing process more than just the labors
of an ink-stained wretch holed away in a garret. Computer,
email, spell checkers and expanding educational programs
make writing today a far more elective activity.
For Milwaukee-based poet and author Andrew Clarke, writing
has always been a joy. He attended Spring College in Mobile,
Ala., where he received a degree in English in 1959. Clarke
later attended Indiana University and Marquette University as a
graduate student to study comparative literature.
"At the time there was no writing degree, no writing program. It
wasn't really an option then," he pointed out.
Attempting to make a living as a writer was more of a risk then,
since the opportunities were few and the competition made the
endeavor more difficult. Yet this didn't stop Clarke from following his desire to write.
As a grad student at Marquette, he served as an editor for half a
year with the American School Board Journal in 1960. Over
the course of his academic career, he subsequently held other
positions which called for him to use his writing skills, including writing ads. But ultimately, he ended up leaving grad school
to pursue writing full time.
"It took me a little while to realize it, but I was always a writer.
I was a
sports writer in high school, in college and I also published poetry in
college," he recalled. "The reason I left grad school was that I
knew I wanted to do my own writing. I decided to devote my
writing energy to myself."
Travel has always been a major part of his life, and since grad
school he has moved around quite a bit. He lived in California
for 21 years, spending 18 of those years in Big Sur, a landmark
made famous by poet Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums. For three
years, he lived in San Francisco.
In addition to working a lot of odd jobs to help pay bills, Clarke
continued writing and later became involved in a film that dealt
with nuclear testing in Tahiti in 1973. The project took him to
Hawaii, where he then sailed to Tahiti with 11 others to protest
and document the nuclear testing there. At the time, he was a
freelancer, although getting published was not the ultimate goal
Dec.05/Jan 06
for him at the time.
"The first thing I published on a scale bigger than school or
something like that, I published it under a different name, "Tom
Tu," in the San Francisco Oracle. At the time, people were using names like that for every reason under the sun," Clarke said.
"I never got into trying to publish a lot of my stuff. But every so
often, I would publish in the local newspapers. Monterey was
the nearest town to Big Sur, so I published there in The Herald
Weekly Magazine on occasion."
He returned to Milwaukee in 1989 to be with his family. Once
back in Milwaukee, he enrolled in an editing course at UWMilwaukee to refresh he skills. Clarke also took some courses
in computer science and library technology to keep up to date.
While at UWM, he worked on the Chinese-American Journal
for a year and a half, and later served as the associate editor for
the Digest of Middle East Studies where he worked from 1991
to 1994. After leaving UWM, he was again able to focus his
writing energy on himself.
"I have been self-employed for the last 10, 11 years. I've the
financial
means where I don't have to try to market my writing. It feels
great. It's a little scary though. Writing, as you now, is a very
competitive job. But if you have a calling to be a writer it doesn't matter," he said.
Like any good writer, he spends much of his idle time reading.
In the past couple of years, he spent a good amount of time
reading nothing but Irish novelists. He mentioned as good reads
Liam Clancy's Mountain of the Women and The Village by Alice Taylor, in addition to Nuala O'Faolain's first memoirs.
"One thing you learn from eclectic reading is that you can write
anything. There's no 'It's too this' or 'too that.' It might not be
published, or read if it is. But you can write anything. That encouragement allows us to follow our own vision, however far
out."
In 2005, two of his poems were recognized in separate writing
contest. He won honorable mention from the Art in Poetry contest of the Milwaukee Art Museum for his poem, Women in the
Wind. He read his piece, along with the other honorees at the art
museum last summer. In the poetry competition of the Pirate's
Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans, his poem, Salt Silver,
was a semifinalist.
"I don't go around calling myself a poet. It's sort of a title that
other people call me. A little too high of an exalting for myself.
I mainly consider myself a storyteller or a novelist. Poetry just
pops up every once in a while," Clarke said.
This month's issue of The Irish American Post features his
poem, Carrick Michael. The ode was written in honor of his
late brother, Michael Clarke, a noted Milwaukee civil rights
attorney and longtime Milwaukee Irish Fest beer co-ordinator
Irish American Post
33
who died in early 2002. The piece follows Michael through all
of the places he visited the last time he went to Ireland in late
1999. For a time there, the brothers traveled together.
delics, anti-war protest and culminates in the sailboat protest in
Tahiti. "It's not a plot-structured story, but more singing the
song of life like Whitman or Henry Miller," Clark asserted.
These days, he is busy writing the third draft of a novel,
Johnny's Gone to Hilo. "Hilo is an old whaling port in Hawaii.
It's an old sea shanty, an old Irish folk song. It's about whalers
and sailors. ‘My Johnny's Gone to Hilo,’ to another port, its
probably sung by a girlfriend."
"My novel is an accumulation of stories. In a nutshell, I've written my whole life, and the last couple of years, I've started harvesting it," Clarke concluded happily.
The novel follows Clarke's own experiences through the early
‘60s and late ‘70s, including somewhat in succession, psyche-
Writer Mario Raspanti can be reached at [email protected]
Machete Song
Sword sing, sing in this sun. Dance, whistle
in the swelter, stroking time. Fan my face.
Boss Grandfather’s white hairs stand silent in the ranchhouse window, having to watch. They say he
used to work like two. The hot thorns
of thistles and roses among the lemon trees sting.
But under these stars the sword of my own green
island heritage of harps and pipes and quills
hovers. Sword of my nights, sing of the sword
in the sun, wand the sweat of my brow to sweet
rain. Sing of the machete in the hired hand.
"I never work for nobody else," Grandfather proud
said one of the first days. (His years, his trees
make him Grandfather to me.) "I come from Greece
when I am fourteen years old, and I work hard
all my life, but I never work for nobody else."
Over the weeks and months, over the summer
the tale unfurled. "I have my own restaurant.
Then I come here. I buy this land. I build
this place." The hacienda, high above the laughing
crystal sea; the hillside looks like Greece.
"You see these trees? I take from down
the canyon when they are little things, like this."
Eucalyptus, redwood. And the lemon trees
in the down-swirling grove. "People come
from all over to buy my lemons." But now
the yellow fruits gasp above the vines
and weeds on the tangled slope. Things grow
and men work in the sun. I take the machete.
"Fifty years I have this machete," Grandfather said
shuffling over one day as I keened it behind the garage.
"Fifty years!" He took it out of my hand and slashed
the air. "Ayah! Ayah!" Handing it back he said,
"How many times have I sharpened it?" His arms
and eyes beseeched the sky. "How many times?"
"I like it," I said. "The handle feels good."
La donna said to him, "He keeps it sharp."
Sword whir, sword whistle. I worked some days
with only the machete, no other tool.
Back and forth, striking, fencing, back,
attacking. It was hot combat in that jungle,
too sheltered for sea breezes to cool. Back
and forth. Whir. Slice, whir. I’d feel the blade
grow dull, hourly; I could tell the time by it.
I’d stop and have a drink of water, get the oil
and stone and set the knife up
where I’d found a place and way to hold it,
where we killed a rattlesnake another day.
(I shooed the curious cat softly away and raised
the machete, poised, and paused, transfixed
with the reality of the rattler, my first.
34
"Kill him! Kill him right now!" Grandfather
called, watching from the screen door. I struck
and saw the red blood spurt. "With the rattlesnake
you don’t wait!" he said.)
And sooner or later her voice would call: "Lunch time!"
My arms fell to my side. "I’ll take it."
Grandfather came in one day as I was sitting down.
"Worr-r-rking in the fields today?" he said, his hands
going up to the sun, beyond, his accumulated time
under the hot blaze feeling for all, a song
in his words. "Yes," I said. "It’s coming along."
And sitting down to his crackers and beer he’d say,
"You don’t want a beer?"
"I love it," I said, "in the evening."
Back to cutting, back and forth. Whistle, whir.
The thorned thistles, taller than men, confronted me
like phalanxes of spears from epic times. I had
to fight them. Slice low
and quickly slice again, or be stung. Ayah!
Ayah! It was good work, in spite of prickle
wounds and poison oak. And finally my name
floating over from the orchard’s edge: "It’s five
o’clock. If you want to stop." Ayah! Work
is done, my time my own again. My throat will not
be dry for long. My sword of night can sing.
Strike for good, quill. Parry the poignant riddle,
slash the truth clean, cry it out: How come,
how come the hours under the sun go by
so cotton-picking slow and the years
so sadly fast? Summer is gone now.
The hills will soon be green as Ireland.
Grandfather’s nine decades’ odyssey goes
into the tenth. And I work here
and there, from need to want, from story to song,
and ply my ancestors’ proud moonlit penny craft.
As Zorba says, "In work I am your man, but in playing
and singing, Boss, my own." I remember the fine worn
handle of the sword, and how the graceful terraced
paths of the orchard, raised on that steep ridge
through many seasons under many suns, day by our day
reappeared and the trees stood, free
and fruitful, above the slain intruders. These
are the funeral rites of thistles and time
in summer’s sun. Ayah! Ayah! They say who plants
a tree thinks not only of himself. Machete,
I salute you with my higher hand.
— Andrew Clarke, 1979
This poem was originally published in The Big Sur (Calif.) Gazette in May,
1980, and dedicated to the Pias Paradise Ranch, Big Sur.
Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
Niall Gives High Five to Irish Guys
One in five men in Donegal are descendants of Niall of the Nine
Hostages, the Irish High King who according to legend brought
St. Patrick to Ireland as a slave, a genetic study has found.
The study, by scientists in Trinity College Dublin, discovered
that as many as one in 12 Irish men could be descended from the
fifth century warlord who was head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland. But in the northwest, the number rises
to 21%.
Doctoral student Laoise Moore at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity. Moore made the discovery when she tested the Y
chromosome of more than 800 men from across Ireland. The
chromosome is passed down from father to son.
Prof. Dan Bradley, who supervised the research, said the results
reminded the team of a similar study in central Asia, where scientists found 8% of men with the same Y chromosome. Subsequent studies found they shared the same chromosome as the
dynasty linked to Genghis Khan.
"It made us wonder if there could be some sort of Genghis Khan
effect in Ireland and the best candidate for it was Niall," Bradley
said. They calculated that the most recent common ancestor
lived about 1,700 years ago. Combined with the strong concentration of the gene in the northwest, this pointed to the Ua Niall
dynasty.
The team then checked with genealogical experts who gave
them a list of people with surnames that are genealogically
linked to the Ua Niall dynasty, the descendants of Niall. The
results showed these people had the same chromosome, proving
a link between them and Niall's descendants.
"Before I would have said that characters like Niall were almost
mythological, like King Arthur, but this actually puts flesh on
the bones," Bradley said.
Among Niall Noígiallach's sons were Conall, Eoghan and Enda.
These would in turn become "the Northern Ua Niall." After his
death, Niall's kingdom was divided between them into Tír Chonaill, Tír Eoghan and Tír Enda (roughly equivalent to the modern counties of Donegal, Tyrone and Derry).
The Southern Ua Niall claim descent from Niall's other sons:
Coirpre, Loegaire, Fiachu, Maine and Conal Cremthainne. Between them, the various Ua Niall dynasties would at their peak
control half of Ireland, called Leth Conn (Conn's Half).
It is not known exactly how many sons and daughters Niall
sired. The first three (Northern Ua Niall) seem pretty secure,
since they're mentioned in some of the earliest surviving Irish
writings. According to his bigrapher Adomnán, Colm Cille is a
great-great-grandson of Niall, descended from Conal Gulban.
Adomnán (himself a nephew of Colm Cille) was writing in the
late 600s, around 100 years after Colm Cille died. This places
him 200 years or so removed from Niall Noígiallach, who modern historians calculate died around 450.
Over time, as the Ua Niall dynasties consolidated their power
and repeatedly pressed their claim for the kingship of Tara, it
Dec.05/Jan 06
became politically important to be a descendant of Niall. Irish
kings and their genealogists therefore "discovered" new sons
of Niall, and with it their own claims to the high kingship of
Ireland. For instance, its doubtful if Maine son of Niall ever
existed. One Irish historian called the inclusion of the Uí
Maine among the Ua Niall "a polite fiction."
The Ua Niall dynasties are sometimes confused with modern
O'Neills, but they in fact are a much larger group. There were
no surnames in Niall's day, and the O'Neills (part of the Cenel
Eoghan of Tír Eoghan) took their surname from Niall Glundubh, a high king who died in 917. The first person to use the
surname was his grandson, Domhnall Ó Niall. The O'Donnells
are descended from Domhnall, a king of the Cenel Conaill
who died in 901.
Among the septs tracing or claiming descent from Niall are the
following: Ó Domhnaill (O'Donnell), Mac Domhnaill
(McDonnell, McDonald), Ó Niall (O'Neill), Mac Niall
(McNeill), Ó Luinigh (Lunny, Loony), Ó Dubhagáin (Doogan,
Dougan, Dugan), Ó Conchobhair (O'Connor), Mac Lochlainn
(McLoughlin, McLoughlan), Ó Gallchobhair (Gallagher), Ó
Dochartaigh (Doherty, Docherty, Ó Canann (Cannon), Ó
Catháin (Kane, Cain, Caine), Ó Flaithbheartaigh (Flaherty,
Laverty), Ó hAOacute;dhmaill (Hamill), Ó Cearbhalláin
(Carolan, Carlin), Ó Baoighill (Boyle), Mac Suibhne
(Sweeney, Swiney), and Ó Brolcháin (Bradley).
Gerard Cunningham can be reached at [email protected].
Other essays by Cunningham are available at www.faduda. net/
articles.
Fraction of a Vision
(Continued from page 17)
more important flaw is that while most of their issues probably
do exist somewhere, in some small form — they don't exist
nearly to the magnitude that one is led to believe.
Just as the Faces of Death series forgot to tell you that death
isn't often as gruesome as their picture portrays it, political
documentaries often forget to tell you that the issues within often will never affect you or the country to any significant level.
In the end, though, people do vote, make decisions, and demand
action based off of the fractional vision of the world you see in
documentaries and the media. Thus, the real unheard voices in
our culture are minority of people who have relegated themselves to the mundane and boring universe of cause and effect,
facts, and a reality that's rarely great nor treacherous.
Christopher J. Falvey is the editor of the online magazine THE
VN/VO. He can be contacted at http://www.vnvo.com.
Irish American Post
35
To Your Health
Guinness Might Just Be What the Doctor Ordered
By Dr. Bob Gleeson
Guinness. The very name reminds everyone around the world
of Ireland and their own Irish roots. But does Guinness sound
like a health drink to you? It should.
Guinness, brewed since 1756 in Dublin by Arthur Guinness and
now brewed internationally, was introduced to the United States
in 1967. Today, some 100 million liters are served annually
around the world. Let’s see, 100 million liters is roughly 200
million pints. That means that six pints of Guinness are poured
somewhere in the world every second, 24 hours a day, 365 days
a year. Arthur would be proud that his brew has done so well.
Today’s question is what would Arthur’s doctor think?
Arthur’s doctor, or at least Dr. Bob, the modern version of Arthur’s doctor, would think that a Guinness was a fine thing to
drink—in moderation—for most, but not all people. Numerous
studies show that alcohol in moderation lowers mortality and
improves over-all health. Moderate alcohol is associated with a
reduced risk of atherosclerosis, the leading cause of the leading
cause of death in the western world.
And, a 2003 study from Dr. John Folts of the University of
Wisconsin found that Guinness was more heart-protective than
Heineken, the other type of beer tested in the study. He ascribed
the greater health benefits to higher levels of flavinoids and
anti-oxidant compounds in Guinness than in the more pale lagers. Flavinoids in Guinness, like the flavinoids in vegetables,
tea, red wine, and chocolate, help prevent the oxidation of cholesterol, they dilate blood vessels, and the help decrease blood
stickiness, just like an aspirin.
So a Guinness or two a day is actually good for you—although
the Guinness company is no longer permitted to say so.
But, what is moderate? Moderate means a Guinness or two a
day for men and one a day for women (sorry, ladies, but you
have lower levels of enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase than men).
Moderate does not mean four Guinesses a day. Moderate does
mean you can not drink a week’s worth of Guinness on Saturday night. Moderate does not mean two Guinness and two
whiskeys and two glasses of wine per day. Moderate also
means that you do not have more than two drinks and drive
anywhere—more than two and someone else drives.
And, health benefits or no, even Guinness is not recommended
for some people who are sensitive to
alcohol, those who have already
drunk their lifetime quotient, and
those with some diseases or medications—and those who are pregnant.
These people, and Guinness drinkers, can get their flavinoids from
fruits and vegetables, tea and dark
chocolate.
Guinness Draught is lower in alcohol at 4.1% by volume than all beers
and about the same as most American light beers. This means
that a pint (16 ounces) of Guinness has 19 cc of ethanol. By
comparison, a 12-ounce bottle of Budweiser is 5% alcohol has
18 cc of ethanol. In other words, a pint of Guinness has the
same alcohol as a 12-ounce Budweiser—and much better taste.
As a note of caution, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is 7.5% alcohol by volume, or nearly twice as much alcohol as Guinness
Draught.
Further, that pint of Guinness only has 198 calories, the same as
a pint of orange juice (200 calories) and about the same calories
as a pint of 1% milk (204 calories). In the pub, it may be difficult to find 1% milk, so stick with the OJ if you are not drinking
Guinness.
If you want your Guinness to be part of a heart-healthy lifestyle, as I am certain you do, then make the whole day healthy.
Walk, do not drive to the pub, because you want the exercise.
At the pub, drink a Guinness with some heart -healthy almonds.
For dinner and, if you want, a second Guinness, order a spinach
salad, a heart-healthy serving of salmon and colorful vegetables. Have tea for dessert and walk home. Nothing could be better for your heart, or more Irish, than this wonderful evening
meal.
Dr. Bob Gleeson, a specialist in internal medicine, is medical
director of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and author of
What Every Healthy Person Needs to Know. He can be reached
at Drbobgleeson.com or check his website at http://www.
drbobgleeson.com. On occasion, he will be writing on health
issues for The Irish American Post.
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Irish American Post
Dec.05/Jan 06
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Spy Issue Keeps Popping Up ... Cops, Robbers and Spies Roil the North ... Sinn Féin Rejects OTR Legislation ... Reiss Remains
Optimistic for Peace Process ... Somme Memorial Visit Stirs Controversy
These stories, and other news items can be found on the
Irish American Post
web site
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Dec.05/Jan 06
Irish American Post
37
Images of America
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Irish American Post
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