As I write these words, the marvelous run of this year’s Boston Red Sox is just a few hours shy of its conclusion.
Tonight, our Olde Town Team will take to the field at Fenway for a World Series Game 6, leading three games to two, and Boston awaits in hopeful anticipation that tonight’s game will be a victory, even as images come to mind of one more Duck Boat Victory parade on the streets of downtown Boston before this week comes to an end. Or maybe not.
A performance by the innovative duo Liz Knowles and Kieran O’Hare, and a return appearance by Chieftains co-founder Michael Tubridy highlight this fall’s Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance, Workshop and Lecture Series at Boston College.
The series, directed by Sullivan Artist-in-Residence and master fiddler Séamus Connolly and sponsored by the Boston College Center for Irish Programs, brings to campus acclaimed musicians and experts in Irish, Scottish, and other related Gaelic music traditions for free public events.
A union of two local folk/acoustic music series has created a new Boston-area venue whose offerings will include Celtic performers.
The Eliot Street Coffeehouse will kick off on Nov. 1 with Fellswater, a Massachusetts-based ensemble that plays music of Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, and Canada. On Nov. 22, Eliot Street will feature The Bombadils, a Canadian quartet with a repertoire from Irish, Canadian, bluegrass, and old-timey traditions, along with their own material.
The Gare St Lazare Players Ireland return to Boston from Oct. 31 through Nov. 10 to present Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot” as part of ArtsEmerson’s World On Stage Series. Ranking among the foremost interpreters of Beckett’s work, Gare St Lazare is led by Artistic Directors Conor Lovett and Judy Hegarty Lovett. Together, they have built an international reputation while touring to more than 25 countries across six continents.
Leo Moran and Anthony Thistlethwaite are co-founders of two of the more beloved, manifestly Irish pop-rock bands of the past couple of decades: Guitarist-vocalist Moran was a charter member of The Saw Doctors, while the multi-instrumentalist (sax, mandolin, bass, etc.) Thistlethwaite helped establish The Waterboys. Both groups went on to achieve considerable critical and popular success, in Ireland and elsewhere, including the US.
In a welcome sign of renewed confidence in the slightly improving Irish economy, leaders in Cork are aggressively working on a new program to provide jobs for all working people in their county. Twenty business, educational, and political leaders have united behind an ambitious foundation to provide start up and secondary funding to new and expanding job- creating businesses.
While Breandán Ó Caollaí never set out to make a big name for himself, he did just that with a blend of passion, perseverance, and Gaelic street smarts, all blessed from birth with a mouthful of a surname that most of us could never pronounce. This Dubliner, newly appointed Irish Consul General in Boston, has a resume of diplomatic service as long and fertile as the Ring of Kerry.
BY GINTAUTAS DUMCIUS
AND MIKE DEEHAN
REPORTER STAFF
On Nov. 5, voters will pick either State Rep. Marty Walsh of Dorchester or City Councillor At-Large John Connolly, the top two vote-getters in the Sept. 24 preliminary, as the next mayor of Boston.
Can you imagine taking the floor of the United States Senate to debate the morality of a US strike on Syria, the merits of a farm bill, or the confirmation of a new US Supreme Court justice?