Sealed with a Dropkick! Irish punk rockers Dropkick Murphy’s new album “Signed and Sealed in Blood”

The Dropkick Murphys

The Dropkick Murphys have plans to shake, rattle and roll our St. Patrick’s Day experience with their new disc Signed and Sealed in Blood and a national tour.

The album is their second with producer Ted Hutt (Gaslight Anthem, Old Crow Medicine Show), a partnership that raised the band’s profile with a hit holiday song, "The Season's Upon Us."

They’ve adopted a musical godfather in Bruce Springsteen, who jammed with the band and incorporated some Celtic fury into his own album Wrecking Ball. Lead singer Ken Casey has been invited by Springsteen to sing a song in his MusiCares tribute concert during Grammy Awards week.

The disc opens with the take-no-prisoners, made-for-the-sports-arena anthem "The Boys Are Back." It’s the caffeinated cousin of the stadium-shaking “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” with a fist-pumping chorus of “the boys are back and they’re looking for trouble/and we’re coming for you” that screams over hand claps and loud bagpipes.

One (minor) complaint I’ve had this band is that their melody making was almost too good for punk rock. The notes were so well constructed in their songs that it seemed a shame to waste them in the requisite fast and furious punk rock beats.

On tracks like “Prisoner’s Song” and “Rose Tattoo,” the band savors the arrangement by slowing things down a bit and adding the sweet strum of a banjo or acoustic guitar without losing that essential rebellious snarl of this musical genre.

But please don’t think the lads have softened! On “The Season’s Upon Us,” the band sings a glorious Christmas tune so dysfunctional it makes “Fairytale of New York” feel like a Bing Crosby classic.

“My sisters are whack jobs I wish I had none/their husbands are losers and so are their sons,” Al Burr sings. “With family like this I would have to confess/I’d be better off lonely, distraught and depressed.”

Dropkick Murphys will be supporting the new album with their 2013 "St. Patrick's Day Tour," which will begin on February 21 in Cleveland and conclude with three dates in their hometown of Boston, including the fulfillment of the band's career-long dream of headlining the Boston Garden, now known as TD Garden, on March 15.

The show will be billed as "Dropkick Murphys Irish Festival," with bands and attractions on two stages. The entire tour will have an epic finale on St. Patrick's Day (March 17) at the House of Blues on Boston's famed Lansdowne Street.

Other dates include the Electric Factory in Philly on March 9, and Terminal 5 in New York on March 12 and 13.

Evoking warm and wooly memories - the itchy embrace of an Aran sweater

In the cultural whirlpool that swirls in the Farragher household, my Jewish wife picked up a package of corned beef in the kosher section of our Costco a few days ago and plopped it in a pot with some cabbage to produce a sumptuous feast for my Irish-born parents.

It was a casual, rare midweek dinner punctuated by easy conversation. My two daughters were typically enmeshed in a tangle of homework, texts and wardrobe considerations for the following school day. They were so busy that they had swooped down the stairs, eaten their dinners in a nanosecond, and disappeared again before I could ask one of them to pass the mustard.

That was a shame, because they missed a great little pop culture history lesson from their Athenry grandfather as the water in the kettle rolled to a boil on the stovetop after dinner.

He was telling us about the origins of those wooly white Aran sweaters that you see stuffed into the cubbyholes of every decent Irish shop, and how they were a mere caricature of plastic paddy-ness.

"Yerra, sure I never saw one of those things until I came over to this country," he said with a dismissive wave. "Once the Clancy Brothers went on the Ed Sullivan Show and played Carnegie Hall wearing the sweaters, it became all the rage over here with the Yanks!"

As the nights grow longer and the days grow colder, the mind gets introspective and you wonder if your girls will regret neglecting this precious gift of their grandparents' stories.  My folks are fit as fiddles in their seventies, yet we all know that nothing lasts forever.

Dad's yarn made me think of yarn in the color of purple. There was a mass of it that was woven into a wooly sweater, and I can recall vividly the day that it came in the mail.

It was a gift from Granny Cleary, who had taken to knitting in an attempt to make the ends meet in rural Ballylanders. My mother squealed with delight as she opened it. The school uniforms were roughly yanked off my brother and I before I could even utter the words, "But purple is a girly color."

Whoever coined the Catholic term "hair shirt," that goat's hair garment worn around the loins that was used for penance and mortification, probably was Irish and had a grandmother who knit.

Every move in the sweater was torture as the rough wool raked your pale skin. My mother's eyes moistened, her arms aching to hug the mother that knitted by herself in a cold house 3,000 miles away.

The sentimentality of the moment evaporated as soon as my brother complained about the garment's maddening itchiness. She would glare over us as he and I wrote out thank-you notes at knife point (okay, it was a butter knife, but still!) each stroke of the pen producing a wooly jag on our elbows.

The arms were too long and the material wasn't enough to cover my pot belly, but that didn't stop my mother from throwing it over my head as we went to Mass that Sunday.

"Too poor to buy clothes from an actual store?" whispered a classmate in the pew behind me.

That was it!

I did what anyone stuck between my mother's love for her mother and the judgments of my classmates would do -- I took a scissors to the elbow of the sweater and blamed the hole on a fall in the playground.

The momentary tide of screams and name calling (“yeh bleeding eejit!”) would subside in time, but my preteen dignity would no longer be in tatters.

The temples are grey now and I can only imagine how well the wooly purple sweater would both complement this salt ‘n' pepper middle-aged vibe I'm sporting and bring out my baby blues at the same time.

Now, I'd give anything to feel that itchy embrace of a grandmother's love on my skin, and I say a prayer that my girls savor each hug they get from their grandparents while they have the chance.

Mike Farragher’s book of essays can be found on www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com. His new book, 50 Shades o’ Green, will be released next month.

Ceol na nGael needs green - New York Irish radio show holds fund drive

Open your ears and wallets this Sunday for the Ceol na nGael fund drive on WFUV!

The most popular Irish radio program in New York, Ceol na nGael (Music of the Irish) began as the brainchild of two Fordham students, Gerry Murphy and Mary Maguire, back in 1974. Over the years it has continued to be hosted by students who have kept the tradition alive.

Tune in to 90.7 FM every Sunday between noon and 4 p.m. to hear all kinds of Irish music, often accompanied by dedications, and to stay connected through the community bulletin boards.

Two of the program's highlights are the weekly news from Ireland, reported by Declan O'Byrne in Dublin at 2 p.m., and sports from Ireland, with Brendan Tier, immediately following.

The current hosts of Ceol na nGael, Tara Cuzzi and Megan Scully, exude enthusiasm about continuing the show's tradition of celebrating Irish music and culture.

This is indeed a treasure in New York Irish American culture that deserves your support. Tune in to
http://www.wfuv.org/programs/ceolnangael

Mourning the great Ray Kelly - County Clare frontman of the Mickey Finns - VIDEO

The Mickey Finns

The Irish American rock and roll community was gutted to its core this week with the news of the sudden death of Ray Kelly, 46, former singer and guitarist on some of the best Prodigals albums and lead singer of the Mickey Finns. Kelly, a carpenter in the construction industry, was injured while at work and passed away suddenly.

Kelly had that one-of-a-kind rocker voice that sounded like broken glass wrapped in velvet. It rang with a rebellious energy over the furious noise of the Prodigals jig punk sound and in recent years, and had that creaky croak of a last call at closing time at a honky tonk country bar that suited the Mickey Finns southern-fried soulful Irish music so perfectly.

“We cannot say how much our hearts go out to Brian, Mattie (from Mickey Finns) and all the musicians who have had the joy of playing with mad, wonderful Ray,” said the Prodigals in an official statement.

“Our hearts go out to his beautiful family and our hearts, prayers and thoughts are with Ray himself.”

“We'd like to thank you from the bottom of our broken hearts for all the kind words, thoughts, and prayers that you have sent our way,” his heartbroken bandmates in the Mickey Finns said in a statement.

“We're not just missing our singer and guitarist, we're missing our best friend. Ray Kelly was a man with a giant heart and a giant laugh. He brought light into the lives of everyone he touched.

“He leaves behind two sons, Robert and Jude, a daughter, Rachel, his wife, Liz, his mother, Alma, a grandson, Luke, and two brothers, Marcus and Barry. He also leaves behind so many people that loved him more than he'll ever know. Ray was and is a legend. We love him dearly and we miss him with all of our hearts. Please keep the love, prayers, and thoughts coming. We all need it at this time.”

“There’s an indestructible bond between bandmates that the rest of the world only glimpses so I’ll leave it to Ray’s brothers and sisters to tell us about their friend,” said Black 47’s Larry Kirwan.

“For me one word summed him up – soul.  He had a heart full of it, both as a person and a musician.  He was a beautiful person -- kind, charismatic and very much his own man.  Makes you wonder why so many of the good ones are taken from us before their time.”

I caught up with Brian Tracey, leader of the Mickey Finns and his drummer during Kelly’s time in The Prodigals, over the phone this past weekend. The conversation was punctuated with momentary bouts of silence as the emotion caught our throats on both sides of the phone line.

Tracy described his feeling of sadness and shock as the worst hangover ever. “I have that dehydrated, achy feeling of a hangover,” he said.

“Only this time, I dehydrated myself because literally every drop of water in my body has come out of my tear ducts.”

“I was his only drummer for 15 years,” Tracey said. “Whenever I stayed in Ireland, I stayed at his family’s house. I was there he met his wife Liz for the first time. He was just so much more than a bandmate.

“We did so much driving together to so many gigs -- we were like two little eight year old kids laughing with one another and making up song bits. I just can’t believe we’ll never have that laugh again.”

The Prodigals was a launching pad for many successful solo acts, including singer/songwriter Colm O’Brien, who replaced Kelly after he departed the band. He has fond memories of the succession plan.

“I first met Ray around March 2000 at a festival in Fort Lauderdale,” O’Brien recalls. “It was my first time seeing the Prodigals and I was blown away. The band put in a terrific performance and I remember, as a singer/guitarist myself, paying particular attention to Ray's performance. 

“I quickly realized that I was going to have to radically improve my own performances if I was ever going to come close to what Ray was capable of on a stage, particularly when it came to the energy he exuded. I was a fan from then on, and went from fan to friend very quickly as we all went for a few pints afterwards and a close friendship with all the lads grew from there. He had a fabulous sense of humor and I recall laughing an awful lot in his presence.”

Tracy, raw with emotion, teemed with great memories of his fallen friend.

Ray Kelly

“When you come offstage from a great show, there were always beautiful girls trying to chat you up or a ton of guys at the bar waiting to buy a pint,” he explained.

“But if there was a child in the audience who wanted his autograph, Ray would wave everyone else off and would give the child all the time in the world. He loved children in particular and loved talking with people after the gig.”

Like all the good musicians taken from their fans too soon, Kelly was cut down in the prime of his artistic life. Readers of this column will recall that just a few weeks ago, I had named the Mickey Finns’ latest disc, Prayers and Idle Chatter, as the best thing I heard in all of 2012.

I consider myself fortunate to have had one more pint and a chat with my old friend Ray during our interview for that “best of” column; we left the noisiness of the bar and conducted our interview out on the sidewalk while he blew cigarette smoke into the cold night air.

What struck me was how he recoiled at the praise I was heaping on him. He preferred to heap the credit of the album’s success on his buddy Brian than toot his own horn about his own contributions.

A musician without a trace of ego is a rare bird indeed.

“The fan reaction is amazing,” said Kelly of Prayers and Idle Chatter. “It was so great to see Brian come into his own with the writing. Just hearing some of the rough tracks he came up with, you knew we had something.

“After some hard work, we really found our sound. I am so proud of this album!”
There was an overwhelming outpouring of grief on the Mickey Finn’s website and Facebook profiles over the weekend.

“The Mickey Finns are the reason a Mexican like me loves Irish music!” enthused Victor Jaimes on the band’s page. “

Tracey chuckles as I read him that post during our phone call and he quickly reminisces about this particular fan.

“That Mexican gentleman works at a hotel in Missouri, where we played an Irish festival,” he recalls.

“We only went there once a year, yet these folks connected with us and Ray in that kind of chance encounter. That was the kind of guy Ray was. You didn’t have to know him long before you felt like you knew him forever.”

Tracy intends to get the Irish American community together in the near term for a proper Irish wake for Kelly that will raise funds for his widow and family. Keep your eyes peeled here for more details on when that will take place.

Kelly sang the lines, “As I wonder in the night/I’ll sit and watch the pale moonlight and dream of ‘Paddy’s Heaven,’” on the Prodigals’ album Dreaming in Hell’s Kitchen.

As his family scrambles to make funeral arrangements, I pray that dear old Ray saves me a seat on the barstool next to his in Paddy’s Heaven (though not too soon) and if he’s not there, I’ll take my drink somewhere else. May he rest in peace.

Key Tracks of Kelly for download from the Prodigals are “Weile Waile” and “Green Card” from Go On and from the album Dreaming in Hell’s Kitchen, “Lord Randall,” and “Paddy’s Heaven.”

His best Mickey Finns work includes “Return of the Prodigal Son,” “Tanks and Barbed Wire” and “Sweet Clare Girl.”

Check out the video for 'Sweet Clare Girl' here:

Find this Lost Tribe of Donegal - Chris Byrne a legend of the Irish American music scene in New York

The Lost Tribe of Donegal – Rachel Fitzgerald, Chris Byrne and Andrew Harkin.

Chris Byrne became a legend in the Irish American music scene in New York for always being one step ahead of the trend.  Sensing the energy brought on by a new wave of Irish immigrants in the early nineties, he gave up his day gig as a New York City cop in the Times Square precinct to form Black '47 and assumed the role of chief rapper and pipe player. 

Ireland's 1994 advance to the World Cup inspired him to release the single "C'mon Ya Boyz n' Green" under the name Seanchaí. His teaming with Pat McGuire (of Spéir Mor) and acclaimed fiddle player Eileen Ivers formed Paddy-A-Go-Go, a legendary band whose album Keep it Reel is the most sought-after out-of-print disc on the island of Manhattan.

With this reputation in mind, it was no surprise when the crowd of 900 quieted down during the recent Sandy Seisiuns benefit at Connolly’s to hear what Byrne had up his sleeve now.

He was accompanied by former Prodigals bassist Andrew Harkin, who traded his bass for a Greek bouzouki, and Byrne’s wife, the Dublin singer Rachel Fitzgerald, and he captivated the rowdy crowd with an acoustic trad set.

In an evening crammed with sizzling Celtic rock, the simple acoustic trad set punctuated by squeals from both the crowd and Byrne’s uilleann pipes threw us all for a right turn no one was expecting.
That was the point of Byrne’s new project, Lost Tribe of Donegal.

“ I’ve been playing in clubs for over 30 years now,” he explains during our chat over the weekend.

“When I started out, Larry Kirwan and I would make this noise with a drum machine, guitar and pipes and it was so radical at the time. Now, everyone is on a Celtic rock bandwagon.

“Some of it is good, some of it is real good, and a lot of it is not real or good. So, it’s interesting to be playing trad now in a sea of Celtic rockers. In a way, it feels like Black 47 when we started out, and it has been a lot of fun.”

The sheer fun of making music is all over Lost Tribe of Donegal’s debut album, which is chock full of nimble playing. Promises to “drink the Hudson dry” on original soulful ballads are sandwiched between beautiful reels and trad jams, makes for a new genre of music that this writer is crowning “City Ceol.”

“Gillespie is back from Afghanistan/been looking for months for work/playing hide and seek with the Taliban/we’re in dire need of his expertise as soon as it gets dark/there’s a beef going on with some Latin kings/we’re heading to Sunset Park/it fell by the wayside/now it’s do or die,” Byrne sings on
the title track, his Irish brogue doing a jig with his New Yawk accent as he paints this urban picture.

The tough prose is in stark contrast to the lush strings of Harkin’s bouzouki.

On “Five Times Jackie,” a Seanchai staple, Byrne strips the reggae tune down to acoustic strumming without losing the Jamaican soul of the original.

“Being Irish means knowing this world will tear your heart/that’s what the senator said/you can let it tear your soul apart/me? I’ll have a drink instead,” he sings on the sweet closing time ballad “Let’s All Have a Drink Instead.”

These songs are meant to be enjoyed in the snug of a pub, with a dark pint in hand, as you listen to this rich music.

Byrne and Harkin have been playing a trad session a few nights a week for a few years at Rocky Sullivan’s of Red Hook, the pub that Byrne owns.

“He and I came from the same area of Donegal,” Byrne explains. “The trad music up there is different. What makes their music distinctive, the sort of music they play has a Highlands vibe to it.

“The reason behind that is because a lot of those people would go to Scotland to pick potatoes or work half the year there and they would have brought the vibe back with them. That being said, it wouldn’t be Scottish music there--they put their own.”

Byrne jokes that Red Hook, the furthest outpost of Brooklyn, has a lot in common with the remote border county of their ancestry.

“We are in the Donegal of Brooklyn, being in the hinterlands and on our own from Brooklyn,” he says with a laugh. “Andrew and I are playing in Brooklyn a lot. We’re like The Nets, only Irish.”

During the Sandy Seisiuns benefit, Byrne and Fitzgerald shared with me the devastation their beloved Red Hook suffered.

“We lost every piece of musical and restaurant equipment in the place with five feet of water in the bar,” he explains.

“With help of family and friends we got this up and running. A lot of our regulars have left the area and our business is down by a high percentage. A lot of people have moved to adjoining neighborhoods for the time being.

“All this being said, there are people that have suffered so much more than us -- Breezy Point, Long Beach. At least I have a home I can go home to.  Many of those folks lost everything.”

Byrne has been playing his Lost Tribes music on both sides of the Atlantic, with regular gigs around Brooklyn picking up steam and a successful theater tour of Ireland with old friend (and former Rocky Sullivan’s bartender) Damien Dempsey.

“The last time I did a theater gig was my school Christmas pageant,” he says with a dry laugh. “All eyes were on our playing.

“The reception in Ireland was really good. There is so much noise out there at the moment with all the electronics we all carry on us now that I think people like that earthy feel of the traditional vibe we have. If people get a sense you are real and sincere, they will pay attention.

“A lot of the sincerity is questionable in rock right now and there is very little perception in trad music,” he continues. “We are mobile: makes no difference if there is a sound system or not. If you want to hear, come closer; if not, stay toward the back of the bar. 

“But if you listen, people get real close and there is no hiding behind the drummer, no shining spotlights. It’s either there or it’s not. No pyro will save you and that is exciting.”

Harkin, easily the best bass player walking around New York, has enjoyed a creative rebirth on his new instrument. Byrne is enjoying the experience of “locking in with one another” as their organic gigs blossom. 

“When we play a set of jigs and reels, it’s all instinct between us. Like being married, only better. Then you add Rachel’s great voice. She is our token member. Our token Dub,” Byrne says.

Byrne credits the expert knob twiddling of legendary trad player Ivan Goff , who he says was a great teacher as a producer.

“He is piper and flute player and one of the best in the world in my opinion,” Byrne gushes. “More importantly, he taught us so much and it was invaluable to have him produce this.”

Byrne’s acoustic turn has also been borne from necessity, as Rocky Sullivan’s lost its sound system in the storm. He hopes to have that restored by St. Patrick’s Day.

To help the process, drop by the bar for a pint and pick up a copy of this fantastic CD. The more pints we drink, the sooner the electric City Ceol can resume!  Log onto the Lost Tribe of Donegal  Facebook page for more information.

You can find Lost Tribe of Donegal on Thursdays at 8 p.m. at The Harp (77th Street and 3rd Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn), Saturdays at 9 p.m. at Rocky Sullivan’s of Red Hook (34 Van Dyke Street), and the last Sunday of every month The Irish Haven (58th Street and 4th Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn.)

A reason to believe in Santa Claus - kids affected by Hurricane Sandy give hope

Santa Mike, flanked by his two daughters Annie and Maura.

I remember the day I no longer believed in Santa.

The cheapness of the suit probably had something to do with it -- not so much a Santa suit but more like a red plastic garbage bag that ol' St. Nick might wear to an Occupy Wall Street rally.  

He tried gamely at a jolly laugh, but after I smelled his favorite Velamints that wafted from the gauzy white beard and looked into those familiar, kind, rheumy eyes, I knew then and there that I was staring my dear old Uncle Buddy in the face.

I was heartbroken. I just stared at the feet in my Batman pajamas, scarcely able to play along for the sake of my toddler brother.

Buddy shrugged his shoulders, winked, and hobbled down the stairs. The whole experience left me putting two and two together.

So, what else had my parents lied about? Easter Bunny? Tooth Fairy? Farrah Fawcett Majors was waiting to be Farrah Farragher if only I did my homework?

The holiday was curdling like buttermilk into the Christmas of contempt.

That moment probably gave birth to the Super Santa that I am today, and I say a prayer for the kind soul of Uncle Buddy as I fit the elastic straps of the white beard around my ears for a photo shoot with the newest member of my family.

You gonna stop believing in something because you saw a faux St. Nick phoning it in? Not on my watch!

This is my favorite season because it's a time when being happy and fat like me work to your full advantage. And let me tell you, I put my back into being Santa, people!

I need less and less padding nowadays to fill the big red suit, which, by the way, cost me hundreds of dollars. My red cheeks match the cottony beard perfectly, though I pack rouge just in case.

I won't work a room until I've cased it first, looking for the most dramatic entry and exit points. Naughty and nice lists along with the present request form should be sent to my secretary no less than a week in advance so that I can speak to Juniors Mints highlights and low-lights for the year. Heck, I even pack Snickers and Raisinets that get spread on the front step to simulate reindeer poop.

My Ho Ho Hos shake the walls! If your kid gets freaked out by the volume, tough luck! Santa tones it down for no one!

For every kid that loses it on my lap, there are a dozen that look at me with that dewey-eyed holiday wonderment that only a child can do. It melts my heart every time.

Those are the ones that make it all worthwhile. They believe in the myth.

They believe in Santa, and I owe it to them to be a full frontal Santa. When a child is cocooned on your red velvet lap and pulling on your pillowy beard, they reveal themselves in new ways.

Sure, they ask for the hot toy of the year. But now, they ask you for some other things ever since Hurricane Sandy hit.

They ask to be moved out of the hotel room they've been calling home for the last few weeks, ever since the storm claimed their home.

They ask for a replacement of the comic book collection that got washed out to sea.

They ask for your help to stop the arguing between Mom and Dad, whose nerves are frayed by the pressures of their newfound homelessness.

They ask for simple things -- hats, coats, gloves, shoes, a roof, access to their first floor, blankets, sanity, normalcy, hope.

This Santa just nods and assures the child that things will get better. Santa doesn't BS the child, mind you.

Santa knows that he has a column in the Irish Voice and on our sister website Irish Central, and can appeal to our generous readers to donate their prayers and pennies to the folks that lost so much.

Let's give those kids a reason to believe in Santa. God bless.

The Sandy Seisuin’s take shape - The Mickey Finns, Jameson’s Revenge and more

Mickey Finns

One of the things I still remember to this day was how the Irish American music community came to help their beloved city after the September 11 attacks 11 years ago. Not a day went by that some pipe and drum band or a group of rock and rollers would assemble to run a benefit show for the families of first responders or to defray funeral expenses for families of victim.

Once again, the community is coming together in a big way in the face of disaster.  Hurricane Sandy impacted families from the tip of Long Island to the Jersey Shore and beyond, and these shore communities were populated by many Irish families that staked their corner of the sand to build their dream home by the sea.

A benefit concert organized by the lads in Jameson’s Revenge and the Mickey Finns is scheduled for Saturday, December 1. It has now taken on a life of it's own.

“We were in contact with Jameson’s Revenge, who are friends of ours, to play something together,” explains Brian Tracey of Mickey Finns.

“So we had booked Connolly’s to do something and when the hurricane hit, both bands at the same time made the suggestion to turn it into the benefit. This is our audience. These are our friends. Denny McCarthy (of Jameson’s Revenge) is a fireman and those guys have been seeing amazing destruction.”

What began as just an idea between two New York-based Irish bands to help so many in some small way the best way they know how is now quickly turning into something much bigger, with other bands signing on each day.

Plans to mushroom the concerts to other dates are in full swing as part of a series known as the Sandy Seisiun Relief Fund that targets people most in need throughout all the Irish communities in the New York area hit hardest by the storm.

GIRSA, Celtic Cross, Broken Banjo Strings, Seanchai are all part of the first concerts.

“The one thing this Irish community does well is come together and rally behind someone or an important cause when they need support,” says Kathleen Fee of Celtic Cross.

“We are all super excited to put on a great show for everyone and we are planning to jam together and sit in with each other’s bands for a good ol’ Irish seisiun! There will be lots of laughs, we will raise some spirits and money for our own here in New York and New Jersey.”

Jameson's Revenge

“I can’t speak on behalf of other bands but I think it's safe to say that we all feel an obligation to show our collective support to the people and Irish communities that have supported the music and musicians over the years,” says James McCarthy of Jameson’s Revenge. “This is a collective effort to raise as much money as possible for all affected neighborhoods, not just one or two.  Hopefully these first two shows at Connolly’s on December 1 and 21 will be launching point for more shows where every musician can be a part over time, because it is going to take years to rebuild.”

For Celtic Cross, the hurricane hit especially close to home. Guitarist Walter Ensor lives in Rockaway which was devastated from the storm.

“He watched his hometown get swept away, along with his two cars,” reports Fee. “When you cross the bridge to Rockaway, it's like entering into a third world country. They have seen the best and worst in people from the volunteers to all the armed forces.

“It will be months before power is restored there, and they are relying on FEMA trucks to charge up cell phones or use their Internet. Five days went by before Walter was able to contact us to let us know he was safe!”

Across the river in Hoboken, the band had been logging studio time to finish their upcoming CD, but Hoboken Recorders was flooded and is still closed.

The band hopes to finish their CD by Christmas. 

Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon for this good cause. Tracey says there are restaurants and businesses coming out of the woodwork to donate, which has been humbling.

“There has been so many bands interested in helping that we can’t fit them onto the bill on December 1, so we are doing another one on the 21st,” Tracey says.

“We are hoping to do more shows in places like Breezy Point, the Jersey Shore and Long Beach. Many people don’t care about music, but I’m sure many people could just use a carefree night of good craic.”

Tracey reveals that a Sandy Seisiun charity is being established through the Emerald Isle Immigration Center, which is helping the bands organize these efforts to make sure all of the money raised goes to the right people, and there’s good accountancy on the back end.

“Denny says that we’re out to re-build this city one tune at a time, and that’s really what this feels like,” says Tracey.

Yours truly will be doing a read from This Is Your Brain on Shamrocks, with all profits from the book going to the evening’s efforts. Many of the bands will be selling their CDs that evening as well, so you could get a lot of Christmas shopping complete for those special Irish music and literature fans in your life!

The first Sandy Seisiun benefit concert will take place Saturday, December 1 at 7 p.m. at Connolly’s Klub 45, located in their Times Square location at 121 West 45th Street.  If you’re on Facebook, you can “like” the Sandy Seisiun page.

If you want to rock for a good cause sooner than that, join A Band of Rogues when they pull into Karl's Klipper (Bay Street near the Staten Island Ferry) on Sunday, November for a fundraiser in Staten Island.

The event is sponsored by two NYFD charities, the Stephen Siller/Tunnel to Towers and the William Mooney Foundation.

There will be t-shirts, gift baskets and fun music from A Band of Rogues, Tommy O'Callaghan, Richmond Co. Pipes and Drums, the Recruders and Schlitzie and the Pool Boys.

Patrick Clifford will be joining the Narrowbacks and other guests for a benefit at Ulysses Folk House (95 Pearl Street, New York) this Saturday night. These Irish American rock and rollers are working with Viking Love NYC, a local charity, to deliver resources to those most in need.

Whether your tastes lie in tear-jerking pipes and drums or no-nonsense rock and roll, your palette will be quenched by the great music offered at these benefit gigs! Keep your eyes peeled to this space over the coming weeks, as more bands announce charitable events.

Restaurants United for Sandy Help hosts fundraiser in Sunnyside

A group of Sunnyside Cares Volunteers helped them
clean our their elderly parent's home in Breezy Point 

On Sunday, November 18 from 4-8 p.m., R.U.S.H. (Restaurants Unite for Sandy Help) will host a fundraiser at the Sunnyside Community Center, (43-31 39th Street between Queens Boulevard and 43rd Avenue) to support neighbors affected by Sandy.

Wristbands purchased on-site for $10 and $15 will give attendees access to local restaurants such as Bar 43, Quaint, Dog & Duck, Café Marlene, Claret, Molly Blooms and Aubergine Café, among others, who will dish out local favorites to the musical backdrop of neighborhood-native bands.  Raffles, trivia and other activities will offer ways for adults and children to get involved.  

All proceeds will be donated directly to licensed nonprofit organizations in the hardest-hit areas.

R.U.S.H. started (in a “rush”) as a conversation between event organizer Ty Sullivan and now entertainment committee member Trevor Bowen as a way to make money for the relief.  Within 12 hours of their initial conversation, Sullivan and Bowen had organized a full-fledged concert and community happening with the help of Gina Rattan of the Sunnyside Cares group and the owners of Bar 43 in Sunnyside. 

“The impact of the hurricane is being felt in our community, and we felt the need to give everyone a chance to be involved in helping.  Through the R.U.S.H. concert, we aim to raise $50,000 to ensure that there is an immediate result in needed items,” said Sullivan. 

R.U.S.H will simultaneously be conducting a social media campaign, to include a Tweetathon beginning a few days before the event through the event handle #Sunnysidecares.

Meanwhile, www.facebook.com/sunnysidecares remains the main online resource for the event.

Jersey’s Irish Riviera stays strong after Hurricane Sandy -- Irish flags still licking the salty air as community Jersey Shore assesses the devastating damage

Sand now covers homes and streets along the Jersey Shore after Hurricane Sandy

I consider myself ridiculously fortunate to live in a section of the Jersey Shore known as the Irish Riviera. This section of Monmouth County has one of the highest Irish American populations per capita in the nation, as evidenced by the number of Irish flags licking the salty air as it blows through the expansive porches of the vast Victorian homes that dot the shoreline.

Of course, that shoreline has changed forever with the relentless onslaught of Hurricane Sandy last week.  I just came in after riding my bicycle (the National Guard closed off the area to car traffic) through my broken and battered town.

There was not one board on the boardwalk here in Spring Lake. The boards, benches and rails that used to sit perched atop the concrete pilings were now in mangled piles two blocks from the beach. Bulldozers pushed shrouds of sand back out to sea from the blacktop on Ocean Avenue.

Further down the shoreline, boardwalk amusements hang like broken limbs on buckled piers. These spots you will likely know, as they have gained a certain infamy on MTV’s Jersey Shore.
For me and millions of Jerseyans, this is the sacred carpet of sand you raked with your fingers as the dawn ushered in the morning after your high school prom.  Those memories are now washed out to sea, and while it is our way here in the Garden State to come back stronger after adversity, it is both heartbreaking and difficult for myself and many others to comprehend that the unique landscape immortalized in those Bruce Springsteen songs is now gone forever.

The winds surely spat and hissed at the Irish flags that flew in the skies above our town during this terrifying storm, but like the motherland they represent they remain defiant and strong in the face of such adversity.

I also saw plenty of examples of Irish resiliency closer to the ground.

As my family sat in the dark, huddled closely to the lone fireplace emitting any warmth in the house, I reflected on how similar these living conditions were to the rural life of my parents before they moved from remote outposts like Ballyglunin (Co. Galway) and Ballylanders (Co. Limerick). Uncluttered by the distractions of electronic gadgetry zapping our attention span everywhere you looked, the family had random conversations and easy laughter that forged new pathways with my wife and daughters. Fortunately my relationship with all of them was excellent before the storm, yet I found myself falling in love with each one of them all over again.

No wonder the Irish race of the previous generation have either strong bonds or deep-seeded resentments with their siblings; one can only imagine how intimately you would come to know one another if you found yourself huddled in a pack with the same people over a turf fire night after night!

The street lights were snuffed out with these electrical outages and the inky blackness outside reminded me of the evening windows at my Uncle Mattie’s house on the margins of the bog land. It’s the same view that WB Yeats had from Thoor Baylee, the castle he occupied in nearby Gort. What a gift a night sky uncluttered by modern electrical grids is to the creative spirit!

In the absence of color you can imagine an active’s writer’s mind filling the void with vivid words, sonnets, songs and stories. As the street lamps return, I find myself missing the velvety darkness.

When I attended my cousins’ weddings in Ireland, it always amazed me to watch neighbors from miles around wave in front of the bonfires they set in their driveways as the newlyweds drove past them. It provided a stark contrast to the insular way we live in our American neighborhoods, where being related to one another is not much more than nodding the head and smiling politely as you scoot into your house with the groceries before the neighbor decides to strike up a chat in your driveway.

The storm brought us together with the good people on our block, Irish style! I found myself happily dismantling the elaborate awnings of my elderly Italian neighbors prior to the storm, and I was rewarded that night with a container of “Sunday gravy” with meatballs bobbing in the succulent tomato sauce. I drank so much whiskey and beer with the folks in my cul de sac over the last few nights that my liver took out flood insurance!

Hurricane Sandy toppled many trees on the lawns of homes here in the Irish Riviera, revealing deep and long-buried roots. Despite the waves of grief that crash into your soul amidst the devastation at every turn, I feel fortunate to have connected with the traditions of family time by the hearth and a sense of community within one’s village that are such an essential part of our Irish roots.

My 'tail' of manly heroism - dealing with nature with the family as audience

A Chihuahua

You just know your day isn’t going to get off to a great start when you are awoken by your spouse shouting, “OHMYGODGETDOWNHERERIGHTNOWOHMYGOD!” at the top of her lungs.

You run past the full coffee pot that contains the elixir so desperately needed to face the world so that you can address the unfolding emergency in the back yard.

Your Chihuahuas, those pint sized dogs with the courage and attitude of Rottweilers, have their yipping little barks drowned out by the most blood-curdling clicks and screeches imaginable. You try rubbing the sleep from your eyes, squinting hard to see what has their attention at the fence.

Sophie, the brown dog, boldly approaches the edge of your property and bites into the bushy tail wedged in between two tight slats of your wooden fence. She flails her head from side to side violently, her eyes overcome with bloodlust, determined to remove the tail from the skeleton of whatever the hell is on the other side of the fence.

This begins a  more vigorous stream of clicks and protests from the animal, who is understandably upset and annoyed that another four legged creature is devouring the base of its spine.

Our hero hastily hopscotches over the piles of dog excrement that his girls swore up and down that they were going to pick up this weekend to get to the action. The dogs are shooed away and then snatched up and unceremoniously dumped.

I’m now left alone, not only with the back end of a battered and bloodied wounded animal of unknown species, but with my own inadequacies as well.

My Athenry-born father married a gal from Limerick, both good farming stock that combined have probably killed more chickens and pigs for their own survival than there are stars in the sky. Heck, they have also slaughtered enough predatory foxes in the family henhouses to make coats for the entire Lakers basketball team!

Here I am, the flaming Yank Narrowback, so far removed from that murderous lineage that I find myself getting lightheaded with each step toward the tail.

In all likelihood, the dogs chased this thing through the fence and the tail got snagged. As the dogs tussled with it, the animal pulled harder, hopelessly wedging it farther up the slats between the wooden fence posts.

I looked over the fence, first to see what species I was dealing with, and then to catch the eye of the state trooper next door who might be running out the door on his way to work.

I’m so disgusted with myself, desperately seeking a real man to help this damsel in distress with his shamrock pajama bottoms and matching t-shirt. No, it was time to pull on the big-boy pants and take care of this like a man! 


I dashed into the shed, unhooked the handle of the spade from the nail that it hung on, and approached the tail one more time. Like lancing a boil, I charged at it, bringing my full weight down on the tail and freeing it from its wooden wedge.

The animal, dazed from the shock of it all, slowly slithered under the fence and clawed toward freedom in the neighbor’s yard. I still don’t know what manner of creature it was and I’m not sure if it survived, but I was clear that it wasn’t my problem any longer.

My bravery took my wife and daughters by surprise.

“You took care of it yourself?”

“You didn’t have to call Pop-Pop (editor’s note: that’s my dad) down for this? Really?”

News of the adventure made it over to the fence of the state trooper, an avid hunter, who calls me “Squirrel Killa” every time he has met me on the lawn ever since.

They can say what they want. I know I grabbed the situation by the tail when I needed to . Sorry, couldn’t resist.

(Mike Farragher’s collection of funny essays can be found on www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com)

Bruce Springsteen wrecks the Meadowlands - 'The Boss' wows ecstatic crowds back home - VIDEO

Bruce Springsteen

No discussion about Irish Americans making music in New Jersey would be complete without mentioning the mack-daddy of them all, Bruce Springsteen.

I took in one of the epic shows he did at the MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands over the weekend, and it was one for the record books!

There’s an interesting dynamic at the Boss’s shows nowadays -- you have a bunch of middle-aged fans tailgating in the parking lot wondering how the heck we were going to keep up with the 63-year-old legend inside the venue.

Rumors of four hour shows and visions of traffic clogs had us all fretting about how much the babysitter was going to cost and how we would manage to get up with the kids the next morning.

With the first power chords of the obscure rocker “Living on the Edge of the World” from Tracks, thoughts of everyday parental dreariness were replaced with dreams of joining the rock and roll circus on E. Street and putting those pesky kids up for adoption!

The set clocked in at a little over three hours and was crammed with the hits and the kind of rare tracks that makes die-hard fans pinch themselves in disbelief.

The slick radio sheen of “Dancing in the Dark” sat alongside the stark beauty of “My City in Ruins” from his 17th and newest album, Wrecking Ball. The title track, written in honor of the old Giants Stadium that once stood here, was played on this night with gusto.

“I was raised outta steel here in the swamps of Jersey/some misty years ago. Through the mud and the beer/the blood and the cheers I’ve seen champions come and go,” he sang defiantly, encouraging the agents of change to “bring on yer wreckin’ ball.”

The gospel flourishes of songs like “Shackled and Drawn” and “Rocky Ground” has brought new cast members to E. Street; the trio of backup singers brought out the innate soul music the Boss created with his old pal Gary US Bonds, who guested on a few songs.

Speaking of old friends, the ghost of Clarence “The Big Man” Clemons was acknowledged with moving video tributes and heartfelt stories in between songs. His nephew Jake Clemons let the horns rip and the band didn’t miss a beat as they looked backward on their fallen comrade.  

You can hear Springsteen’s Irish roots shine through in “Death to My Hometown,” a fiddle-infused ditty about hard economic times from the new album. It has become a set highlight on this tour.

The Boss unleashed the paint-peeling Celtic rock blast of “American Land” to end the show. Violinist Soozie Tyrell flirted with her fiddle as Charles Giordano prowled the drum kit with a squeezebox.

“The McNicholas, the Posalskis, the Smiths, Zerillis, too/the blacks, the Irish, the Germans, and the Jews/come across the water a thousand miles from home/with nothin’ in their bellies but the fire down below/” growled Springsteen. The rafters shook and girls danced the jig in the steep section of nosebleed seats all around me.

New Jersey has gotten a bad rap for its portrayal on reality shows airing on MTV and Bravo lately, but seeing Springsteen whip a crowd into a frenzy in the Meadowlands made you feel kinda sorry for everyone born outside of the Garden State on this magical night.

If you’re not from Jersey that’s okay. We’re willing to share him, and you are advised to see the Boss at his best when he comes to Hartford, Rochester, and State College, Pennsylvania in the coming weeks!

Share your art with Time Banks NYC - connecting individuals and organizations

Mary Tierney

You run around the artistic circles enough in this town and you run into the most fascinating people.

I first met Mary Tierney at a reading with the Irish American Writer’s and Artists Salon at the Cell in Chelsea recently on one balmy summer night. She had just done a riveting dramatic read of a play that was being workshopped in front of the audience’s eyes.

In getting to know her, I discovered that she was putting time “into a bank” in an effort to help a fellow actor. When she’s not doing that she is giving free acting classes to aspiring thespians.

This is all part of Time Banks NYC, an innovative TimeBanksNYC is a free resource for connecting individuals and organizations that recognize that each person has talents to share, and that the overall community is strengthened when neighbors help one another with a wide range of services.

For every hour that a TimeBanksNYC member provides a service or shares a skill with another member, they earn a time credit for the exchange. This time credit can then be redeemed for a service from someone else, and so on.

“After I finished graduate school in the seventies, I went over to Dublin for two weeks and stayed five years,” Tierney says.

“I got a part at the Peacock and for five years, I was an actor that was paid and that was so much fun.
So I came back here and worked with the Irish Arts Center and then started Lunchtime Theater. Before long, I started my own theater on the East Side because a lot of old ladies wouldn’t go over to 11th Avenue and 51st Street.”

Tierney diverted to work on the Ed Koch campaign for 10 years and got a birds-eye view of the visceral power that courses through the city, and has since returned to her first love. She is committed to making a difference in the lives of aspiring actors and playwrights.

According to the website, the goals of TimeBanksNYC are to identify and build on the assets that neighborhood residents have to offer one another, foster a sense of togetherness within and between New York City neighborhoods, and promote skill sharing as a way of accessing services and support, especially in hard financial times.

So, if you have talent to share or something to teach, you can join the TimeBanksNYC program. Who knows? You might get some loving back your way as you’re trying to write some lyrics to that tune or get an editor to look at that manuscript that’s been rattling around your desk.

To get plugged into Tierney’s acting classes, log onto Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue at 10th Street).  You must be a member in the TimeBanksNYC program to participate. For more information, log onto https://www.timebanksnyc.org.

Super Irish Mammies - sacrifice, hard work and immense guilt

Brenda Fricker in 'My Left Foot'

Our Irish-based correspondent Paddy Clancy recently reported that a study carried out at the department of psychology at the University of Limerick by lead researcher Elaine Kinsella said parents, particularly mothers, were regularly cited as heroes.

Batman, Superman, and the entire Justice League were also mentioned on the list, but were no match for the Irish mammy at the end of the day!

Kinsella said, “Traditional descriptions referred to heroes in masculine terms and often described those who risk their own lives to help others. But we found that although many types of heroes exist, the most frequently mentioned hero is one’s mother.”

When the research participants were asked to define heroic characteristics, they emphasized the need for evidence of self-sacrifice and moral integrity, qualities found in parents and mothers.

Had I been asked to partake in the survey, the definition of hero as described above would have probably led me to pick my Limerick-born mother as well.

My mother has made sacrifices too numerous to mention in this limited space for the sake of her sons.
Though we had an excellent school system in our town, my mother took extra shifts as a waitress to make sure there was enough to send us to the premier Catholic high school in the county.

We didn’t go out for many meals or have maids clean our house.  Mom did all of that herself so that we could save money and see our way to Ireland every few years so that we didn’t lose touch with our culture and the family we had there.

I’ve never met a more honest woman and to be sure, you have the best fighting chance in life when you have my mother in your corner.

Though you don’t always want to hear her advice (and quite often you got it even when you didn’t ask for it), her judgment is rock solid, and the direction she gives is from a moral compass steeped in her deep Catholic faith.

Even after she leaves this earth, it will be her voice inside my head that will keep me on the straight and narrow with a mixture of no nonsense common sense and a pinch of Irish guilt for good measure!

Speaking of that little voice inside your head and the pinch of Irish guilt, I’m wondering if that was behind the overwhelming number of Irish sons that picked their mammy as their top hero over Batman.

You can almost hear that voice go to work on the poor fella as he filled in the circles of the survey with his number two pencil.

“Batman is a fine choice for a hero I suppose. He’s a bit dark, though, isn’t he? I remember ye being afraid of the dark and sure, I don’t remember Batman or Robin signing up to strip the sheets when yeh wet yer bed when I shut out the lights...”

The pencil would drift away from the Batman choice in favor of Superman instead. Not so fast!

“Jaysis, I coulda used a Superman around the house when ye were growing up! He could have flown to the supermarket before it closed at 11 when you sprung on me at bed time that you needed supplies for an art project that was due the next morning.

“He wasn’t flyin’ around the house when ye needed him most--that choice is almost as odd as yer man with the utility belt.”

I suppose an Irish mammy might be able to live with Batman or Superman, but God forbid you put another woman over her.

“Wonder Woman?! Funny, I don’t remember any girleen swooping in to rescue yeh with her invisible plane and lasso when Matthew McCabe was set to beat the stuffin’ outta yeh when we lived on Liberty Avenue, but if that floozy really is your choice, fair play to yeh.”

Batman had his gadgets, Wonder Woman had her lasso, and Superman had that strength and x-ray vision. But when the lead hit the paper on the survey, none of those super powers are a match for an Irish mother’s guilt!

(Mike Farragher’s book and blog can be found on www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com)

Exclusive interview with musician Larry Kirwan, author of “Hard Times”

Larry Kirwan

Hard Times, a musical drama written by Larry Kirwan, explores a particular day in the life of the American composer Stephen Foster and the clientele of a saloon/dance hall that he frequents.  The show deals with Foster’s successes and failures, sexuality and broken marriage, and the political and social climate of the times through re-imagining his songs. 

In July 1863 the Civil War was raging, Gettysburg had just been won, and yet there was major discontent in New York City over the recently enacted draft, particularly among the teeming Irish immigrant population.

This was compounded by President Lincoln’s perceived change in war policy from defense of the union to emancipation of the slaves, the fear being that thousands of newly freed African-Americans would flood the already saturated labor market.

The discontent boiled over on July 13 and forever changed the city, particularly the notorious Five Points area where up until then African Americans and Irish cohabited peacefully, sometimes in marital relationships.

Foster lived in the Five Points, famous for its tolerance, loose behavior, music and dancing (tap evolved there from the fusion of Irish step-dancing and African-American shuffle). 

When the smoke cleared from three days of rioting people retreated to the safety of their own ethnic groups, the U.S. set out on its 100 year path of segregation and racial divide, and Foster wrote some of his most heartfelt and personal songs before his penniless death six months later.

“Oddly enough, the theoretical beginning of Black 47 came out of that period too. Charles Dickens had written about his visit to the Five Points, noticing so many Irish and African American musicians playing together,” says Wexford native Kirwan during an interview with the Irish Voice. 

“Back in 1989 I wondered what that might have sounded like.  That type of speculation, a desire to be original and pressure from Bronx audiences led Chris Byrne and I to mix reels and hip-hop beats and come up with Black 47's sound.”

Hard Times stars Jed Peterson as Stephen Foster, Erin West as Jane Foster, Almeria Campbell as Nelly Blythe, Phillip Callen as Michael Jenkins, Stephane Duret as Thomas Jefferson and John Charles McLaughlin as Owen Duignan.

“The cast is amazing, all young people with great talent and a drive to bring Hard Times to life,” Kirwan says.  “I'm blessed with a wonderful director, Kira Simring, who directed my play, Blood, at the Cell six months ago. “Andrew Smithson is an amazing musical director and orchestrator, while choreographer, Joe Barros is creating tap out of Irish stepdancing. African-American shuffle as actually happened in the Five Points. 

“It's a huge task to create a musical and put it onstage for the first time, especially to the standard set by the 1st Irish Theatre Festival, but so far so good.”

Black 47 fans shouldn’t worry that Kirwan quit his day job. He is excited to play the Blackthorne in East Durham for the 20th time this year for Labor Day weekend, and he has a full roster of gigs this fall that include the Jersey City Irish Festival on September 29 (check out www.black47.com for the full list).

I spoke with Kirwan about staging a play and where the band is headed. Here’s how it went.   

How is crafting a musical different from creating/recording an album? What are the challenges for both?

“They're very different.  Even though Black 47 albums tend to have different themes -- for instance IRAQ and Green Suede Shoes are miles apart in content -- I'm still writing for a band with defined instruments and with myself as singer. 

“With musicals you're writing for characters and, in general, the songs are there to support the story.  Hard Times takes that a step further. 

“I wanted to use as many Stephen Foster songs as possible.  He wrote almost 300 so there were choices to be made.  Then there was the task of getting the songs to breathe again after 150 years of parlor/piano calcification.

“One of the devices I used was to write complementary and contrapuntal intros and musical bridges. Foster and songwriters of his era dealt only in verses and choruses.

“Still, to my surprise, when the songs were actually set free they veered towards gospel and Irish.  In the end I could only find a dozen Foster songs that fit the story, so I had to write a couple more in a Foster idiom and use the Black 47 song ‘Five Points.’”

What was it about the time, July 1863 and a lesser-known chapter of Irish American history (inter-racial co-mingling at Five Points, etc.) that inspired you to make a musical?

“Dickens was appalled at the familiarity between Irish women and black men.  It was so common in the Five Points that they were called amalgamationists. 

“However, that all ended on July 13, 1863 when the Colored Orphans Asylum was burned down in the Civil War Draft Riots. Overnight, New York City changed. 

“The ease and social flow among the races stopped.  It was a watershed moment in American history, ideal for drama. 

“Stephen Foster was living in the Five Points at the time writing some of his most heartfelt music.  Six months later he would die penniless. 

“What was he feeling that July?  Who did he meet that night?  That's what Hard Times is about.”

What are the highlights and low lights of this Hard Times experience for you?

“It's been all highs so far.  What we're doing is bringing Foster back to a new generation and validating the genius of the father of American songwriting and everyone is up for it.”

Band news -- I see a number of gigs coming up in the fall Irish festival scene. Any new music in the works, or will Hard Times music make its way into a set?

“Some of this music from Hard Times is made for Black 47, especially where I've added musical intros and bridges to Foster songs.  "The Choice Is Yours to Make," one of my own songs from Hard Times, would be equally suitable. 

“At the same time you have to question whether making CDs is economically feasible anymore.  The costs are high, and with downloads legal and otherwise so prevalent, the jury is still out. 

“We'll record again, but with 13 or 14 albums under our belt there's no particular rush. We've forgotten so many good Black 47 songs already.  I'm more in a mood to revisit and revive and find new ways to deliver some of them.”

You said some nice things about the Cell in New York City and how supportive they have been about you in general and Irish American artistry in particular. Can you describe the experience/impact of working with such a supportive theater group?

The Cell, in particular founding artistic director Nancy Manocherian and artistic director Kira Simring, have changed my attitude to theater.  There's such a can-do feeling there. While the space itself is very beautiful and fluid, it's like a second home to me. 

“They have a particular affinity for Irish theater and, indeed, all things Irish as you know from their sponsorship of the Irish American Writers and Artists salon nights. Hard Times would be just another file on my computer if it wasn't for the Cell.”

Do you look forward to the Blackthorn gig this weekend, and why?

“I'm a Catskills nationalist.  I've been going up there through good times and bad. There's a particular piece of Irish American history enshrined in the East Durham/Leeds/Hunter area. 

“The mountains go out of fashion from time to time but they always bounces back. Black 47 has been playing the Blackthorne on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends for almost 20 years.  It was inspiring to see how the Handel family rebuilt the resort after the fire. 

“They're important for Irish American music. They always hire top of the line musicians and give new bands a chance to strut their stuff. 

“In particular, I like the way the different generations and varying styles of music mix so well up there.  They'll have their Celtic Festival there on Labor Day Weekend. Andy Cooney will have the people waltzing through the afternoon and we'll knock their socks off in the midnight hour. 

“Do yourselves a favor and come on up. There's magic in them mountains.”

Hard Times will be performed at The Cell, 338 West 23rd Street, from September 13-30 as part of the 1st Irish Theatre Festival.  Visit www.thecelltheatre.org.

Why the Irish do well in the construction trade

Auld Irish common sense is hard to find these days.

Despite living a safe distance from the coast, my friend Peggie bore the brunt of the last hurricane that cut a path through the Garden State.

Right after trees crashed on top of her cars and house, the insurance company dispatched contractors to make the repairs. On one Saturday morning, her 89-year-old father Mick Madden from Portumna, Co.
Galway went to inspect the work of the Brazilian crew that buzzed around her property.

I’m told he shook his head in disgust as soon as he got out of the car.

“Ye nail two pieces of wood together in this country and they call him a carpenter,” he said.

This sounds a lot like my dad, who was born not far away from Madden in Athenry. He would always offer to “let the fellas in” while I was on the road and workers were doing something around my house.

That would put him in the catbird seat to be a contracting equivalent of an America’s Got Talent judge.

He’d never be more than a few paces away from the work at hand, making sure we got what we paid for and more.

“I didn’t think anyone was more useless than you are with a wrench, but I stand corrected,” he might say to me after a plumber left behind a shoddy job when he left it to me to supervise things.

Though they are too gentlemanly to boast, the fact is that guys like Mick Madden and my dad Mick Farragher (“no one was called Mike over at home,” Madden informed me) came from the lush farms of Ireland to either build this country and/or keep it running. Dad was a roofer for a while to keep the roof over our heads, while Madden kept the lights on and everything humming as a superintendent of his Jersey City apartment building.

These auld fellas are in their seventies and eighties now, and they just don’t build ‘em like them anymore. They have forgotten more about common sense approaches to broken things than most modern workers have learned and these workers know it, which makes the auld fella a contractor’s nightmare.

If God forbid a painter drips something on the carpet, the auld fella hovering nearby might suggest he places a rubber band around an open paint can to wipe your brush on -- it keeps paint off the side of the can as well.

On the rare event when this hopeless narrowback tried to build something, I might have been advised by my auld fella that a simple pocket comb was the secret weapon to keep that wobbly nail in place before you laid a hammer onto one of your fingers. 

My Uncle Tom was a master mason and all-around handyman in his day. He could make something out of nothing.

I remember how he would cut patterns from discarded plywood at a construction site he worked on, paint it white, and voila! You had life-size reindeer ornaments that he sold on his lawn by the truckloads for a small fortune during the holidays.

He also isn’t short of opinions and is a bit of a loud talker, two weapons I used to my advantage while I was shopping for houses a few years ago.

“Jaysis, did Stevie Wonder set this stone?” he might exclaim as he’d stare up the side of the brick facing on a potential house.

“’Tis a miracle that it stayed up as long as it has. And don’t get me started on the inside, with all those brown splotches on the ceiling. It tells me that there was a lot of water damage once, and yer man did a woeful job covering it up before he put it on the market, like.”

When we would submit a low bid for the property, Uncle Tom’s booming voice would echo in the heads of the real estate agents before any higher counter-proposal was suggested.

They may label themselves as an uneducated lot because they left school at the tender age of 15, yet the auld fellas have common sense smarts to burn that you just can’t hire nowadays.

(Mike Farragher will be reading passages from his book This Is Your Brain on Shamrocks this Sunday, July 29, at OurLand, an Irish gathering that is part of Lincoln Center’s free Out of Doors Festival. For more information, log onto http://www.lcoutofdoors.org)

Irish mother’s imminent arrival encourages a cleaning frenzy

A husband gets down and dirty with some cleaning

Thirty-eight miles separate my house from that of my mother’s.

It takes about 50 minutes for Eileen’s 77-year-old husband to drive her here, 63 if you count the pit stop at the pet store to get bully sticks for their grand dogs to chew on. When my mother calls to announce that she is running errands in the area and would like to drop by for tea, we know we have an hour, give or take, to get the house in tip-top shape.

Being married to an Irishman has its benefits. We’re usually the life of the party. We are proud, protective husbands and parents that go to extraordinary lengths to protect and love our family.

But every rose has its thorn, and an Irishman born of an Irish mother brings with it that mother’s judgment of how you’re keeping your house and looking after her son. My wife knows this drill and has gotten the pre-Eileen cleaning scene down to a science after 20 years of marriage.

In fact, we have a name for the whirling dervish of mops and feather dusting -- eil-ifying.

That means that floors must be swept, dishes are to be loaded into or out of the dishwasher, couches vacuumed, and piles of mail and magazines removed from the counter.

My wife even has a sense of humor about it at this stage. “Thank God for your mother in a weird way,” she says as she scrubs the sink. “If it wasn’t for her coming over once a week who knows if anyone around here would lift a finger to clean this place!”

There are times when my wife isn’t in the mood to run around the house with a mop, so she cagily suggests we meet my parents half way at a Perkins for a meal instead. I thought that was one crafty way of avoiding an Irish mother’s judgment on the state of one’s housekeeping skills, but after we had drinks with a few couples we’ve become close with, the stories I heard of how some women are handling their Irish mothers-in-law made me laugh out loud.

“I hire a cleaning lady once a week and I time it as close to the weekend visit as possible,” one said. “I have an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive on the DVR and I pretend to be watching it as she comes over. Her eyes move to the television at the very moment I say something like, ‘Jeez, can you imagine anyone living like this?’ It’s a cheap shot, but it works.”

“I couldn’t be bothered,” said another. “I sometimes spray Pledge around the house so it smells lemon-y and there is a hint that maybe I put some effort in. If she doesn’t love me for who I am that’s her problem.

“Besides, she’ll find something else to complain about, like how freezing it is in my house with all this air conditioning. It’s like she forgot what menopause is like or something.”

With that, she washed her resentment down with the rest of her margarita.

“Mine parks her ol’ broom on top of my house once or twice a year,” one Polish woman explained.

“Right before she comes over I go to the dollar store and pick up a selection of cheap get well cards and I have the kids sign them for display on the mantle over the fireplace.

“When she comes in and sees them and then eyes the mess around her, she hugs me sympathetically and offers to clean my house without any judgment. She’ll even throw a few Irish soda breads in the oven on her way out to make sure we have enough to eat!”

Irish women of a certain age are sharp ladies and it’s hard to pull any wool over their eyes, but this younger crowd seems well able for them.

It takes about an hour to whip a house into shape and when that won’t work, whipping up a line of malarkey will do just fine!

Mike Farragher will be reading passages from his book This Is Your Brain on Shamrocks at the OurLand festival on July 29, an Irish gathering that is part of Lincoln Center’s free Out of Doors Festival. For more information, log onto http://www.lcoutofdoors.org.

Remember golden deeds in golden years

My wife and I have been perusing brochures of assisted living facilities now that my mother-in-law has fallen harder and more often than the euro has this year.  It reminds me of this recurring daydream that flash-forwards everyone into the future.

My 15-year-old daughter Annie is 45 now and she is pushing a large cart through the Costco warehouse. She is standing between a pallet of Depends male undergarments and the Kirkland store-brand adult diapers that Consumer Reports has just announced might run the risk of leaking on the sides. She labors over the decision on what to swaddle my incontinent fat white rear in for a moment.

Right before she chooses, the dream curtains part to reveal my 13-year-old daughter Maura in her 43-year-old form as she tours the wings of a nursing home.

She stands between the brightly lit ambient hotel vibe of the premium wing and the darker hallway that leads to rooms of boxy concrete blandness that emit a slight yet unmistakable smell of Frosted Flakes soaking in a bowl of stale urine. Maura nods politely as the manager weighs the pros and cons of their packages.

When I am no longer competent to make choices for myself in the (hopefully) distant future and my children are at a fork in the road like the ones outlined in these dreams, I hope memories my daughters have of the stuff I have been doing for them all along inspires them to choose the name brand adult diapers and the premium suite in the assisted living facility instead of opting for the cheap route.

In case they forgot, here are just a few gentle reminders to the girls on things I did that provide irrefutable proof that their dad deserves precious metal treatment in his golden years.

Christmas morning: Yes, the present bounty that was laid at your feet was only possible from your dad’s work and sharing his paycheck. That’s a given. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The real work began after the presents were unwrapped. Those toys didn’t just spring from their packages and run across the floor on their own!

Tickle Me Elmo needed a battery enema up his furry red butt before he started to giggle, and that required yours truly to drive to every 7 Eleven in a 30 mile radius for a few packs of Duracell on Christmas morning.

With Elmo all sorted out, I turned to the Barbie that was crucified to her pink confines with wire twist ties to ensure she kept her position while in the shipping container from her Asian manufacturing origins. It was up to Dad to untwist her dozens of plastic-coated confines, and at times I must admit I wasn’t successful at ejecting her within an impatient toddler’s timeframe.

There could be more than one decapitated doll in the Central Jersey landfills that lost their heads when I lost my cool and forcibly yanked the doll from the package before her time. Rushing to K-Mart on Christmas morning to replace Headless Barbie before you noticed the incident is yet another reason why only the best will do for Dad as you put him out to pasture!

Teenybopper concerts: Sure, it might look like I was enjoying myself immensely when I hollered the lyrics to Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” at the top of my lungs, but I was just masking the pain of being subjected to a whole evening of bubblegum pop. Passing a kidney stone would have been a more joyous way to spend an evening.

Yet I still would rather take in a Greyson Chance/Selena Gomez double bill than sit through Disney’s Single Mom Princesses on Ice, Elmo Goes to the Proctologist on Ice, Bert and Ernie Come Out of the Closet on Ice, or Sesame Street’s Intervention of Oscar the Grouch on Ice.

Our downstairs basement is crammed with plastic wands, glow sticks and hats that are fond reminders of those shows and evidence that I deserve the deluxe meal package at the nursing home.

Chuck-e-Cheese: This most god-awful amusement and eating establishment on the planet was your
favorite place on Earth for the first few years of your life. This was, of course, a germaphobe’s nightmare -- kissing a homeless man’s tush would be cleaner than the yellow and red ones you joyously slobbered on while inside that giant meshed playroom.

The silver Chuck-e-Cheese game tokens have the words “no cash value” on them, something I confirmed the following day when I tried to use them as part of my co-pay when I had you in the pediatrician’s office for a mysterious case of pink eye.

Coincidence? I think not.

Dance recitals: Wading through three hours of interpretive dance, modern dance, ballet and company performances just to see you do that one tap number in the back line is torture at an incomprehensible level. Your mother sat next to me and she seemed to enjoy every minute of it while I plotted the murder of the effete dance school owner whose idea it was to string this many show tunes in rapid succession.

IKEA furniture: When you have kids of your own, I’m sure you’ll tell these mocking stories of how your father would think he was following the Swedish instructions down to a “t” on your little art desk, only to realize there were four screws left over and the drawer mechanism was facing the wrong way once everything was tightened up.

You’ll stand up in a fit of laughter, mocking the way when you were a kid your dad would throw the widget tool across the room and scream “f***ing live with it that way” before exiting the room with great dramatic flair.

Perhaps this might be a compelling reason to buy the store-branded adult diapers, come to think of it. Never mind.

Hopefully, I made my case and my point!

(Mike Farragher’s essays can be found on www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com)

Vatican don’t mess with the Catholic Church’s nuns

Catholic Nuns

Much ink has been devoted in our paper and website about the Catholic Church lately, with some of our columnists locked in an epic battle with the readers they serve.

There seems to be some debate as to whether our church has gone off the deep end, with my esteemed colleagues pointing to Catholic hospitals coughing up a hairball over the president’s mandate of reproductive health coverage, and Catholic universities barring commencement speakers with views inconsistent with church teaching as evidence.

Now comes irrefutable proof that the Vatican has lost touch with reality altogether.

They’re messing with nuns.

It was recently announced that the Vatican has decided to reign in these powerful women into the fold, ordering the American nuns to hand control of their group over to a trio of bishops because they fear the nuns have lost Rome’s conservative narrative.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose members represent about 80% of nuns in the United States, issued a sharp statement calling the Vatican’s rebuke unsubstantiated and “the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.” 

The nuns said the Vatican’s report has “caused scandal and pain throughout the church community and created greater polarization,” according to widely published statements.

It makes you wonder if our current Pope and the cardinals were educated by nuns themselves; if they were, they would never think about crossing one -- certainly not the ones I encountered in my business career.

I was educated by these gals in Jersey City, a fact I immortalized on a t-shirt that says “you can’t scare me -- I was educated by nuns.”

I’m sure my boyhood imagination amped up the nightmare factor, but I swear the only time I saw any one of them smile or act joyful was when their founder, Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, was canonized by the Pope in 1975, when I was in the fourth grade.

I thought I would leave the Irish nuns behind me when I left school and entered the working world, but that was not the case.

I landed a job selling laboratory supplies to hospitals in the Pennsylvania Dutch territory, and I found these veiled ladies at every level of one institution. I remember having to negotiate pricing on test tubes and petri dishes with Sister Jane O’Malley (last names changed to protect the innocent).

My company could never get far with Sister Jane until I had overheard from someone how she had this morning routine of attending Mass in the hospital chapel before hitting the storeroom to check inventory.

Mass started at 6:30 a.m. and I lived an hour away, but I was in the chapel each Tuesday on stockroom order day.  Despite being a grown man in a power suit, I would allow a wide berth between myself and the diminutive, stooped woman.

She would shuffle through the aisles, squinting constantly as I followed behind her with an order pad.

Her negotiations were brutal and she employed the most powerful weapon in an Irishwoman’s arsenal -- guilt.

“Sharpen your pencils, young man,” she would croak. “I know everyone has to make a living, but every dollar of profit you take for yourself is a dollar I can’t spend on the poor in this community.”

I grew my business exponentially as I won the old gal over, and I was grateful for the lessons within her keen business sense. I needed her tutelage when I eventually moved up the ranks and into the Big Apple to face Sister Kate, a hospital administrator in lower Manhattan.

In this business setting, she kept the sensible navy suit and sensible shoes. Sister had a keen mastery of healthcare trends, balancing her enormous hospital’s expenditures against the harsh New York reimbursement climate.

The hospital was buckling under the demands of charity care in Manhattan, a situation made worse by the HIV pandemic gripping the city at the time. Though she had ditched the veil long ago, her head was still weighed down with the concern of the poorest of the poor in the surrounding neighborhood.

Of course, she would never show me that passionate side. She had a major axe to grind with pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies that toasted these huge profits in the earnings statements she seemed to have memorized by heart.

Perhaps it was a negotiation ploy, but she ignored the line item about the amount of cash we generated for research and development to continue the high standard of care she expected.

“Just adding bells and whistles that no one needs, young man,” she scoffed.

That’s what it was like dealing with her. I applied my charm and humor on this steely woman but she seemed immune to it.

That all changed the day we came from the cafeteria (where she bought her own stuff so it didn’t look fishy that I was buying her favor with a $3 tuna sandwich) and I said, “That’s something you don’t see everyday,” when I passed an image of a nun in stained glass.

“You know who that is?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, Sister,” I replied nervously. “That’s Elizabeth Ann Seton. She was the first United States citizen to be canonized and was the founder of the order of the Sisters of Charity nuns that educated me in Jersey City.”

Her stone face cracked a smile, slowly at first, then she beamed brighter than the light in the stained glass.

“You might be one of the good ones after all,” she said. “She founded my order and those ladies in St. Ann’s are my sisters. Now I know why I like working with you so much!”

I’m praying those three unfortunate Vatican bishops catch a lucky break like that during their first visit with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. It’s gonna be a tough room indeed!

(Mike Farragher’s book of essays can be found on www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com)