Planning ongoing for ‘Irish Hearts for Orphans’; organizers seeking business donations, volunteers

By Ed Forry
December 28, 2016

Participants in the First Annual Benefit Dance for Haiti had a grand time at the Marriott Boston Quincy Hotel in May 2010, where they raised funds for the Friends of Orphans group to share with young victims of the devastating earthquake. Gala participants, from left: Pat “Doc” Walsh, co-chairman; Sharon Saxelby, president/ CEO, Friends of Orphans; Rev. Philip Cleary, president, Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos International; the late state Sen. Tom Kennedy; Dan McAuliffe, of the committee; state Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry; Della Costello, of the committee, and Winnie Henry, co-chair and event organizer. Reporter file photoParticipants in the First Annual Benefit Dance for Haiti had a grand time at the Marriott Boston Quincy Hotel in May 2010, where they raised funds for the Friends of Orphans group to share with young victims of the devastating earthquake. Gala participants, from left: Pat “Doc” Walsh, co-chairman; Sharon Saxelby, president/ CEO, Friends of Orphans; Rev. Philip Cleary, president, Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos International; the late state Sen. Tom Kennedy; Dan McAuliffe, of the committee; state Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry; Della Costello, of the committee, and Winnie Henry, co-chair and event organizer. Reporter file photo
A group of local Irish Americans are gathering again this year to host an afternoon of Irish music, dance, and silent auction in April to raise funds to help orphans in the Carribean, Mexico, and Central and South America.

“Irish Hearts for Orphans” is chaired by Winnie Henry of Milton and Pat “Doc” Walsh of Dorchester, and 2017 will be the group’s eighth annual event.

As families go, they’re the tops

Ed Forry
By Ed Forry
December 28, 2016

The Obamas will soon move out of the White House, and I am saddened by that reality. It’s not just that the president will leave the post with much unfinished business, including an array of policy decisions that are likely to be changed or reversed when the new administration assumes power on Jan. 20; it’s that Barack and Michelle Obama, their two young daughters, and Michelle’s mom, who moved in on Day One from her Chicago home and helped care for the children, are emblematic of all that is good about family love and support.

The Obama family is, simply stated, an All-American family, and we all will miss the example they have set for familial love and comfort in this most public of careers.

Regular BIR readers know that I have been an outspoken and passionate advocate for President Obama during his two terms. Eight years ago, in the winter of 2008, the BIR was the first Irish American newspaper to endorse the candidacy of the then-junior US senator from Illinois, and looking back we have no regrets.

It wasn’t easy saying goodbye to my little buddy Rocky

By Maureen Forry-Sorrell
December 1, 2016
Maureen Forry-Sorrell

RockyRockyWed., Nov. 9, 2016 12:30 a.m. – In the ER with my elderly Maltese who is not doing well. We’re in line behind a Shi-tzu who ate a tampon, presumably while watching the election returns.

Memories: In 2001, my family (including my mom, who was healthy at the time) said a sad goodbye to Joe Morgan, our sweet and neurotic 11-year-old Maltese. He had been named for the manager of the Red Sox in 1988, because he had been brought home during a particularly dramatic team winning streak. The day he died, I watched my mother angrily dig a hole in the back yard on Richmond Street and proclaim that she’d never again let her heart be broken by an animal.

Roughly two months later, she arrived home with a tiny ball of white fur that had thrown up on her twice on the ride home. He curled up around my neck like scarf and began snoring. We named him Rocky and he was so cute I couldn’t stand it.

Irish treat: Harry Clarke’s exquisite stained-glass church windows

By BostonIrish.com... (not verified)
December 1, 2016

By Judy Enright. Special to the BIR

Lovely stained glass window in St. Patrick’s Church, Lahardane, Co. Mayo, by the late, great Harry Clarke. Lovely stained glass window in St. Patrick’s Church, Lahardane, Co. Mayo, by the late, great Harry Clarke. The season of peace and tranquility is thankfully upon us after a tumultuous, wild, and wooly year. No matter your faith or lack of same, this is a truly lovely season for almost everyone. The lights, color, music, scents, giving, and kindness – and couldn’t this world use so much more kindness?

HARRY CLARKE
At this time of year – actually, at any time of year - I like to direct visitors to the many magnificent stained glass windows in churches around Ireland that were created by the late Dubliner Harry Clarke. If you step inside a church and see a series of windows that include some by Clarke, you can spot his immediately. The rich colors, craftsmanship, imagination, and intricacy make them easily recognizable. Clarke windows are in many locations throughout the island, in other countries, and even in the US, at the Wolfsonian at the University of Florida in Miami. They are well worth traveling to see.

American Ireland Fund salutes the Connell family

By BIR News Room
December 1, 2016

Jay Hooley, Chuck Clough, Margot Connell, Jack Connors, The American Ireland Fund New England Director Steve Greeley.Jay Hooley, Chuck Clough, Margot Connell, Jack Connors, The American Ireland Fund New England Director Steve Greeley.Some 1,000 guests gathered for The American Ireland Fund’s 35th Annual Boston Dinner Gala at the Westin Boston Waterfront on Nov. 17. Nearly $2m was raised for the AIF’s work to support nonprofit organizations across the island of Ireland and around the world. The annual gala is one of the largest of The Worldwide Ireland Funds’ 100+ international events.

The event, chaired by Chuck Clough, Jr., with vice chairs John E. Drew and Michael R. Minogue, honored the philanthropist Margot Connell. The Connell family’s philanthropic partnership with AIF goes back decades as Bill Connell, Margot’s late husband, chaired the 1988 Boston gala.

An interview with vocalist prodigy Chloe Agnew: Her ‘Coast to Coast’ tour will wrap up in Boston on Dec. 20

By Maureen Forry-Sorrell
December 1, 2016
Maureen Forry-Sorrell

Chloe Agnew and Eamonn McCrystal in performance. Photo courtesy Hedge Hog EntertainmentChloe Agnew and Eamonn McCrystal in performance. Photo courtesy Hedge Hog Entertainment

Dublin born-and-raised Chloe Agnew was the youngest member of Celtic Women when she joined the group at age 14. Now, 24, she is poised to blaze her own path to stardom through writing and performing her own songs and collaborating with other young Irish musicians like the tenor Eamonn McCrystal.

The BIR sat down with Agnew to discuss her upcoming “Coast to Coast” tour with McCrystal, which will land at Boston’s Calderwood Pavilion on Dec. 20.

Tip-top musical ability, sweet-voiced singing mark the polished ‘Socks in the Frying Pan’

By Sean Smith
December 1, 2016
Sean Smith

Understand, it’s not as if Aodán Coyne and brothers Shane and Fiachra Hayes – known collectively as “Socks in the Frying Pan” – had some grand scheme to become one of the most in-demand Irish bands to make the trek to America.

For a good while, they were quite content to play in and around their native Ennis in Co. Clare. But through a succession of happy events, and the requisite hard work, the three – ranging in age from 25 to 30 – saw their popularity mushroom, culminating in their first American tour in 2014. They’ve returned to the US twice since then, including a visit this year that brought them for the first time to The Burren in Somerville, where they performed in the early fall to a full house as part of the pub’s Backroom series.

“It all just came out of nowhere,” said Coyne, as he and the Hayeses relaxed prior to the show, reflecting on the last couple of years. “We made an album pretty much for the sake of making it – so we’d have something to sell in the pubs – and it found its way into the right hands. Then when we got over here, we met all these bands and performers we’d looked up to, and we got to tour and play together on the same stages. And that just got everything rolling.”

Christmas Celtic Sojourn director’s role: ‘You stay out of the way and let it happen’

By Sean Smith
December 1, 2016
Sean Smith

Seamus EganSeamus EganWhen you’re the music director for “A Christmas Celtic Sojourn,” says Seamus Egan, Christmas comes early. “Actually,” he quips, “Christmas tends to last all year.”

Egan is finishing up his first decade overseeing the musical end of things for the popular holiday-themed showcase of music, dance, songs, and stories in the Celtic tradition, which takes place for the 14th year this month with performances in Providence, New Bedford, Worcester, and Rockport, as well as its run at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in downtown Boston [the schedule is available at wgbh.org/celtic].

A virtuoso on banjo, flute, mandolin, whistle and guitar, Egan will once again be performing at the show with members of Solas, the Irish-American super-group he co-founded. Also returning to “Christmas Celtic Sojourn” are harpist Maeve Gilchrist, singer Eilís Kennedy and cellist Natalie Haas, as is dancer Cara Butler – newly minted as the show’s dance director – and her longtime partner, Nathan Pilatzke, as well as the Harney Academy of Irish Dance. New to the roster is the Acadian trio Vishten.

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