In Newfoundland the old country is never forgotten

You can’t walk very far in Newfoundland before hearing an Irish dialect, seeing architecture that reminds you of Dublin or some other reminiscence of Irish culture. And Irish traditional music is no different. Ever since the provinces first wave of European immigration in the 19th century, it has more than made a significant stamp in Canada’s most eastern province.
For Newfoundland it’s culture and history have always been defined by traditional music, namely shanties, and ballads sung by early European explorers and Newfoundland fishermen who entertained themselves in the bays, coves and inlets dotted along the coastline. This form of in-house entertainment also became known as kitchen parties because they were always located in that area of the home. Throughout the provinces history church hymns, military bands, fiddling, flute playing, bag piping, also accompanied vocalists, while new settlers wrote songs to reflect the everyday experiences of life on the rock (a nickname for Newfoundland, because of it’s rocky soil and its many geological formations).
Today Irish music is defined under the terms traditional or Celtic, the former no longer indicating just music passed down from generation to generation, but new contemporary styles, while still staying true to original form. The latter because of its connection with music made by the Celtic peoples of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Over the years the inevitable overlapping of styles has always occurred but some musicians believe the small Irish communities in the province are the most active with keeping traditional Irish music alive and well.
Irish musician Fergus O’Byrne believes Irish unaccompanied singing was one of the first examples of Irish traditional music. ” If you study the singing of Philip Foley from Tilting, he tended to sing with the same ornamentation that is prevalent in Irish Nos Singing (A term for a type of unaccompanied singing in Ireland), whereas a singer from a more English area of Newfoundland may sing more straight forward with less ornamentation.”
And that ornamentation has always been a telling feature of traditional Newfoundland folk tunes.
O’Byrne immigrated to Canada in the 1960’s from Dublin and then later to Newfoundland in 1971 with the popular Irish group Ryan’s Fancy. At first attending university Fergus along with Denis Ryan and Dermot O’Reilly made a splash on the local scene. In their 11 years together they entertained audiences all over Canada, won numerous awards and spawned several Irish television programs and specials from 1972 to 1983 on CBC television. A special feature of the group was allowing amateur rural musicians onto their programs to share their love for the music.
He believes while a lot of traditional music is pop orientated contemporary musicians still research the old collections for new material such as Kenneth Peacocks, “Songs of the Newfoundland Out ports,” which was first published in the 1920’s and another collection “ The Old time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland,” by Gerald S. Doyle. Both helped establish the Newfoundland musical canon, with tunes such as Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor, The Old Polina, and Badger Drive.
The funny thing is that a lot of songs in both collections still echo songs of the old country such as I’se The B’y and The Cliffs of Baccalieu. While there are some that often get misplaced as Newfoundland originals, but are not. The Green Shores of Fogo, is an example that has been sung in Newfoundland for years but it is actually the same song as the Green Shores of Erin. And there are others where melodies and lyrics have been altered to suit Newfoundland locals such as My Old Dudeen , Erins Green Shore and Bold McCarthy.
Like all genres traditional Irish music had has it’s share of ups and downs. With the popularity of both the Peacock and Doyle song books, radio introduced the music to a wider audience in the 1930’s with CBC Radio programs such as The Big Six and the Irene B. Mellon which featured recordings and live performances of Irish and Newfoundland favourites.
During this time, instrumentation of traditional music in Newfoundland added the accordion to the fold, along with the fiddle and vocalization. Today some of the common instruments include the accordion, fiddle, flute, tin whistle, mandolin, bodhran, percussion, guitar, voice and the spoons. In Irish music their are some minor differences with uilleann pipes, harps, the hammered dulcimer, citterns, bouzoukias and different kind of accordions such as the melodeon, button, piano and concertina being used.
In the 40’s and 50’s radio also played a role with introducing country and western, jazz ands pop and of course rock and roll, which stations played almost exclusively. In the 1960’s television played an important role is making local singers a household name in the province, such as CBC’s All Around the Circle. Over the years dependence on publicly funded CBC radio and television for exposure also have to compete with government cut backs. As a result their is less exposure today than there was years ago. For rural Irish communities, radio and television played a huge role in terms of exposure, with less airplay over the years, fewer were being heard. Today there are specials, but fewer than their has been years ago. Most Irish music is recorded in larger centres, rather than the smaller communities.
For younger musicians who were exposed to local Irish musicians through radio and television the only way to capture a new audience, staying on top of current musical trends, while keeping the traditional elements of the music alive was reinvention.
In the 1960’s country and western music was added, but the most influential artists that altered the Irish traditional landscape was the 1970’s group Figgy Duff. By combining rock fusion players with traditional musicians it created a new sound that was never heard before. This led to less ballads and shanties and more upbeat music that resembled what younger audiences were listening to.
Newfoundland based musician Arthur O’Brien who grew up on the traditional stylings of this group and musicians like them during the 1970’s. Their inspiration and others like them led to his Celtic group The Navigators, who have been entertaining audiences since 2000. He notes adding other elements to the traditional form changes it somewhat but it can also open up a whole new audience to the music.
“Sometimes it depends on the extremes musicians bring to it, such as how they dress it up while keeping the traditional element of the music recognizable,” says O’Brien.
O’Brien’s family is well entrenched in the second revival of Irish traditional music. In the early 1990’s his brother Con was part of a group called the Irish Descendants. A group of hearty baritone singers from the predominately Irish community of Bay Bulls, toured Canada and around the globe entertaining Queens, presidents, even the prestigious Smithsonian, in Washington. This of course led to the inspiration of Newfoundland’s current and most successful Celtic pop group Great Big Sea.
“In Newfoundland Irish music is becoming more sophisticated then the generation before. It’s become a big industry and people look to Newfoundland for Irish music,” says O’Brien.
One of the major problems in Newfoundland has been out migration. With Newfoundland being Canada’s poorest province, many popular singers have moved away for work, such as accordion player Harry Hibbs and singer/guitarist Dick Nolan, who in the 1970s entertained expatriated Newfoundlanders with traditional stylings at the popular Caribou Club in Toronto. This kind of thing still continues today in out migration destinations such as Boston, New York and the most well known in Canada, Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Many people wonder with the older musicians in these communities passing on, if the many traditional elements of Irish music will be lost. Although amateur accordion musician Dave Penny says rural Irish communities are not letting their music die without a fight.
“When I was growing up in Eastport, Newfoundland none of my friends were not into Irish music. I mean you would be ashamed to bring an accordion out into the public and play it. But now that has all changed. I mean last week I went to a accordion festival here and all the seats in the place were sold out. The funny thing was, most of these performers were young people.”
Penny is also the President of the St.John’s Folk Arts Counsel, which hold workshops teaching younger audiences about traditional Irish instrumentation, story telling and dance music. The interesting thing is the SJFAC hasn’t been holding publicity drives in order to get younger people involved they have been seeking them out.
This years marks the 30th anniversary of the organization, which is still going strong. Their annual folk festival is one of the largest Irish festivals in Eastern Canada. And every year their mandate is to keep the music pure.
“Over the years traditional music in the province has changed. You might hear country and rock music intertwined within some of it, but we want to promote the music of Newfoundland which is primarily Irish based,” says Penny
And that purity hasn’t died out entirely according to O’Byrne, “traditional Newfoundland music has developed over the years from the English dances, Irish polkas, Irish and English songs, Irish American songs, and French and Scottish melodies and songs. However there are still many influences from the more modern interpretation of Irish music in the old country being used by young professional Newfoundland traditional bands today.”
Let hope it continues.

The Dunbrody Country House

Catherine and Kevin Dundon don’t have to take that imaginary journey. The Dunbrody Country House is a 22-bedroom Georgian Manor hotel and restaurant in Arthurstown, County Wexford, near County Waterford. During the holidays they put it to good use—not for the wandering public, but instead purely for personal pleasure.
From Dec. 24 to Dec. 27 the Dundons, who have owned the former mansion since 1997, close the hotel and Harvest Room restaurant and open it to their loved ones. The result is an enviable 3-day one-of-a-kind holiday extravaganza.
Most people settle for a Christmas dinner crammed around a makeshift table in a small family home. Once the dishes are done everyone either goes to the pub, goes home or spends a few hours cramped in a small living room.
But Christmas at Dunbrody is anything but cramped, and it’s not short-lived. About 25 relatives from England and Ireland find their way to the manor where there is a spacious dining room, a working restaurant kitchen and lots of room to roam—inside and out.
“For us it just means that you have the house,” Catherine said of the hotel. “It’s the only time of the year you have it entirely for yourself. It’s not a hotel, it’s a house. You have all your family and kids, it has an utterly different feel than when it’s a hotel.”
Her children, who are not allowed to run through the hotel or raise their voices during those other 362 business days are given free reign to frolic and play wherever they want. They don’t have to be quiet about it either.
The party starts Christmas Eve when family members stagger to the manor throughout the day. Catherine, a petite energetic soul, has run the hotel for almost 10 years and allocates the rooms to brothers, sisters, in-laws, out-laws and kids.
The closure doesn’t go unnoticed by other hotel and restaurant owners who tell them they are crazy to lose holiday business. But the Dundon’s have bigger priorities—their daughters Emily, 6, Sophie, 3, and almost a few dozen others who make up their extended family.
Kevin tells nay Sayers, “We do have a life.” And, their life, he said, is more than a hotel, one elegant restaurant, and 300 acres of land—30 allocated to the restaurant’s fruits and veggies. The remaining 270 acres make up the mansion’s grounds.
“We feel that Christmas is so important as a family,” Kevin said. “At the end of the day our kids are going to grow up. And we want to spend it with our girls.”
In fact, they want to spend it with all their relatives. In a perfect world, everyone would. Seems like the Dundons have found that perfect world and then some.
The party includes Kevin’s sister, Sharon, her husband Kieran McKenna, their children Sarah, 9, Niamh, 7, and Frazier 18 months; Kevin’s mom, Licia Doyle and her husband Mike Doyle and his grandmother Bridget “Boo” Barton. He also invites his father Bill Dundon, his wife Geraldine and his sisters Ruth and Clare Dundon, all from England.
That’s just Kevin’s side of the brood.
It wouldn’t be a party without Catherine’s parents Jim and Mary O’Shea and her brothers, wives and children: Paul and Alli O’Shea and their children, Joel and Ella; and Allen and Lisa O’Shea and their daughter Hannah.
Early on Dec. 24 the Dundons bid “goodbye” to guests and staff and ready Dunbrody for the families.
“I invite everybody and everyone comes,” Kevin said.
The tree and holly, Catherine said, comes from the grounds. “There is so much from the outside you can take in,” she said.  “There’s always a lot of work,” she said. But, because it’s family it’s doesn’t seem that way once everyone starts arriving.
“As soon as families arrive they all just muck in,” Catherine said. “It’s great when you have [more than] 20 people for dinner and plenty of helping hands.”
Arrivals vary, so after each group settles into a room they head toward a familiar and heavenly smell from the kitchen.
“I will always have a pot of Irish stew on the stove,” Kevin said. “They go into the kitchen and grab a bowl.”
After everyone has their fill of stew the group—kids and all—head for the local pub for a bit of dancing.
When it’s the children’s bedtime the crew heads back to Dunbrody where they tuck the little ones in for the night. But that isn’t the end of the adult’s party. First they assemble toys and then packages under the tree.
Then, “the night is finished at Dunbrody’s in the bar,” Kevin said.
The adults only get a few hours sleep before the children wake to look for the Christmas stockings, always hung at the end of each bed. “That’s really Santa’s present,” Kevin said of the family tradition that has gone on for years.
The wrapped presents remain under the tree and anxious children are not allowed to open them until Kevin feeds everyone.
“I cook breakfast, buffet style and people just help themselves,” he said. Last year he did bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, tomatoes, wild mushrooms, toast, tea and juice.
Then everyone heads to church. Mind you, those presents—and the kids—are still waiting.
“Then we come home and we always have Kieran’s eggnog,” said Kevin, a world-known chef, author and television cooking personality for Ireland’s RTE, a public broadcasting station.  “He makes the eggnog and uses every pot in the house. He makes such a mess, because he’s whipping cream, whipping egg whites and sipping brandy—a lot for him and a little for us.”
“Then we open the presents – after Mass,” Kevin said. For the kids, “it’s torture.”
But, it’s worth the wait. Once that’s done, wrapping paper litters the floors and the children buzz around Dunbrody house while Kevin starts an unforgettable Christmas dinner.
“I prefer to do it on my own,” he said of his expertise in the commercial kitchen complete with Sub-Zero Wolfe appliances that he uses for the Harvest Room guests. “I’m a lot quicker. It’s easier for me to get on with it and I’m just done.”
The only concession Kevin makes is with Sophie and Emily. Sophie cuts the cross in the brussel sprouts before they go in the pan and Emily helps “Mum” set the table.
It’s great to have all the china and cutler and a great wine cellar,” Catherine said of the equipment she takes from the Harvest Room and brings to the drawing room where they have dinner. Fires are blazing, decorations are everywhere and precious family sits around a table—together.
“We try to keep it as homey as possible,” Kevin said of the tables they bring into the huge drawing room.
Kevin makes a turkey and, chestnut, sage and onion and sausage stuffings. The faint of hear might want to miss this next bit. Kevin cooks two double-breasted turkeys. He buys them live, feeds them and raises them until Christmas. After he bids them farewell he plucks and stuffs them.
“They are delicious,” he said, but added, “The girls don’t see them.”
In other words, these turkeys were never named and no one became overly friendly. Dundon is no stranger to fowl. He has 45 “new girls” in a hen house adjacent to the family’s side apartment at the manor.  He uses the eggs—and sometimes the chickens—for his guests. Now that’s organic. Most of the food at the Harvest Room comes from that 30-acre farm patch he uses to feed his guests and relatives.
Dundon doesn’t stop at turkey. He makes the bread and the bread sauce, the three stuffings, a baked ham, “Mum’s potatoes,” glazed carrots, roasted parsnips, and of course Sophie’s brussel sprouts.
No one goes hungry. While everyone waits for Kevin to finish his magic there are usually “nibbles” of smoked salmon, various cheeses and always champagne.
Christmas dinner at Dunbrody house lasts about three or four hours. “We normally eat around half three Christmas day,” he said.  And, “we all look ridiculous,” he said of the poppers and other holiday hats everyone wears.
After the Christmas “pud” and sherry trifle “I retire to the bar,” Kevin said. It’s the rest of the clans job to clean up.
Once that’s done the family joins him. “Then we all get drunk.”
The music starts. Singing, laughing and joy end the evening.  “We eventually crawl to our beds.”
But the holiday isn’t over yet.
The next day everyone wakes to yet another breakfast. The pubs open on Dec. 26 on St. Stephen’s day and there are festivals around town. The whole group goes for a walk “to clear our heads,” Kevin said. Then they hit the local pub again. But this time it’s an early night and everyone heads back to the hotel where Kevin said they eat leftovers, laze around reading, playing games and finishing the holiday.
Early Dec. 27 everyone says “goodbye.” Catherine’s only rule is that everyone must strip the beds and leave the towels in a heap on the floor. Staff, after their own three-day holiday, come back and ready Dunbrody for the paying guests.
“I love Christmas at Dunbrody,” Kevin said wistfully. “We’re open the next day and we’re usually right back into the thick of it.” That means business as usual, prepping meals, greeting guests and making sure everyone is happy.
Catherine agrees. “I have to say it is very special occasion. The house lends itself completely to Christmas,” she said of the decorations, the old staircase, the wind, rain and roaring fires in the fireplace. “It’s just fantastic.”
“Most of our family doesn’t live in the area. They wouldn’t get to see their cousins, aunties and uncles all in the same place,” Catherine explained. “Ordinary houses can’t accommodate everyone for more than an afternoon.  If you are here there is a place to get away or go for a walk. You have the space. You can accommodate everyone comfortably.”
Is there anyway to marry into this family?

By Denise Dube

Dracula and the Vampire Myth

Little did the Irish writer Braum Stoker know that his monster story would transcend centuries. Or did he? Each new medium has perpetuated the myth since his story was first published in 1897.

Bram Stoker was born near Dublin on 8 November, 1847, the third of seven children. He attended Trinity College and distinguished himself as an athlete. Young Bram had always dreamed of becoming a writer, but his father had more substantial ideas other than becoming a writer. Yielding to the father’s wishes, Bram followed him into a career as a civil servant in Dublin Castle.
He labored eight-years in the civil service and continued to write stories to supplement his income. His first published story was a dream fantasy entitled The Crystal Cup (1872) followed by a serialized four-part horror piece, entitled The Chain of Destiny and the The Shamrock. He also found time to take unpaid positions as theatrical critic for Dublin’s Evening Mail and, later, as editor of The Irish Echo.
In 1878, Henry Irving offered Stoker the job of actor-manager at London’s Lyceum Theatre. Despite his heavy professional duties, Stoker somehow continued to write about his fascination with the macabre. His first book, Under the Sunset (1882), consisted of eight eerie fairy tales for children. Stoker wrote several short stories, novels and essays but his name is inextricably linked with Dracula
Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including horror fiction, the gothic novel and has been the basis for countless films and plays. The two that most closely follow the plot of the original novel are Nosferatu (1922) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).
In the Nosferatu story, Dracula’s role was changed to that of Count Orlok, one of the most hideous versions of the vampire ever to be created for a movie, played by Max Schreck (whose name literally means ‘fright’). Nosferatu was produced while Stoker’s widow was still alive. The producers were sued and forced to destroy the film but pirated versions have survived over the years.
Even Francis Ford Coppola took liberties with the original story in his version of the film, called Bram Stoker’s Dracula  starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, and Anthony Hopkins. Coppola’s story includes a subplot in which Mina Harker was revealed to be the reincarnation of Dracula’s greatest love. This story is not part of Stoker’s original.
The 1931 film version of Dracula starred Bela Lugosi and was directed by Tod Browning. It is one of the most famous versions of the story and is commonly considered a horror classic.
Stoker did not invent the vampire. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent eight years researching European folklore and stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers.
Immortality is one of the most fascinating aspects of the Dracula myth but it becomes undesirable when linked with this monster. Literary critics have examined many themes in the novel, such as the role of women in Victorian culture, sexuality, immigration and folklore. Stoker, himself might attribute this work more with the conflict between the world of the past — full of folklore, myth, legend, and religious piety — and the emerging modern world of technology, logic, and secularism.
What has become apparent is the novel’s power in the sexual implications of the blood exchange between the vampire and his victims. Dracula has embedded in it a very disturbing psychosexual allegory whose meaning even Stoker might not have entirely understood: that there is a demonic force at work in the world.

Fairies, Ghosts and Banshees

There are many accounts of fairies, ghosts and banshees associated with Ireland lending credence to the idea of a mystical place or thin places—those places that are neither here nor the beyond but border between the two. And then there are the poltergeists and such manifestations making their presence during Samhain or Halloween.
Many of Irish descent and others believe in otherworldly inhabitants and more that say they are in communication with them. For most it is a time for apple cider, brisk walks on moonlit streets collecting treats and the telling of scary stories by the hearth.
Edmund Lenihan has been called one of Ireland’s greatest living storytellers. He is a collector, writer and presenter of Irish folklore.Mr. Lenihan is on record stating the Fairy Tree of Latoon, near Newmarket-on-Fergus, was the gathering place for the Connacht fairies to plan a battle and to bury their dead on the way back from conflicts with the Munster fairies. This little tree survives in the center of the road construction site below the Clare Inn on the Ennis to Limerick road, County Clare. In turns out, Eddie was able to convince the local council to re-route the highway around this rare fairy thorn tree.  The road works threatened a 15-foot hawthorn bush (sceach) and Eddie warned that its destruction could “result in a misfortune and in some cases death for those traveling the proposed new road.”  It is claimed that the sceach was a marker in a fairy path.
Most farmers are hesitant to knock down or plough under ‘fairy forts’ or ‘Fairy rings’ or disturb ‘Fairy paths’ for fear of reprisal. Hogwash? Literature is full of examples of deadly fairy retaliation.
Banshee, translated from Gaelic, means woman fairy. The wailing or siren they reputedly make is called keening. They keen before the death of someone usually either the night before, or days before. The banshee often appears as a young woman with long hair or as an old hag. In Ireland the banshee is the type of fairy most often talked about and most encountered. County Clare is one of the most fairy-sensitive areas of Ireland
The banshee is known to most but few have seen or heard them and rightfully so for those that do hear or see are often connected to the person about to die. Certainly there is no telling of whom until the deed is done.
One such story told by Eddie Lenihan goes like this: ’There were three brothers, all great card players. They would go out nearly every night, sometimes playing cards until dawn. One evening, all three brothers were in a card game and two were soon put out of the game. Having no money left, the two walked home. Sean, the third brother, stayed on and eventually won the game. But because it was so late, instead of walking home along the road, he went through the fields. He walked up a stony hill on a moonlit night, only to hear the lonesome cry of a banshee.
When Sean stopped walking to listen carefully, the keening stopped. But when he resumed walking, the keening also resumed. Sean thought it was his two brothers blackguarding him, so he continued on over the stony hill. Whenever Sean stopped the keening would stop.
He made his way toward the sound and he saw in the moonlight a person sitting on a stone. He was certain it was one of his brothers, so he crept up and tried to grab the person.
To his horrible surprise, Sean saw an old woman’s face staring at him and she turned and struck his face. Sean felt blood running down his face. Suddenly the old woman disappeared. When Sean got home his mother saw that his cheek was badly bleeding and that he had four finger marks across his face. She dressed his wounds and put him to bed.
Sean never got up the next day, so his mother called the doctor who came and re-dressed the wounds. Two days later Sean go out of bed and took off the bandage to the four finger marks had turned to ugly scars. He tried to hide it by growing a grey beard, but the scars showed through this beard. Soon Sean went mad and not long after he died.’
The moral of the story is never interfere with a banshee.
Visit Ireland and you will see a great many castles and ancient building with stories of valor and lore. Undoubtedly, you will hear more than your share of ghost stories. Unexplained tumbling and banging of doors and noises that wake a sound sleeper. There are dozens of accounts of hearing nocturnal footsteps in castle hallways. Apparitions appear in fields, in bedrooms and kitchens.
It is said that the Irish are much more sophisticated than the English when it comes to dealing with ghosts. The English tend to associate the ghosts with haunted houses and scary things, while the Irish recognize that the ghosts are a normal part of the other world. It seems ghosts usually go about their business in an unthreatening way.
The Irish, from their Celtic roots, recognize they live in two worlds at once. The collision of the two eternities that the living pass through.
And on one night a year there is a portal that some fear, others respect and most simply enjoy a harvest tradition.

Sweater Patterns & Aran Yarns

On the western shore of Ireland across Galway Bay, tales from the Árainn Isles drift and bobble on the Atlantic like an empty currach. For centuries those tarred wooden vessels, about eighteen and a half feet long, have carried fishermen out to sea and back, but not always as planned. On occasions of noticeable weather and unpredictable seas, fishing expeditions sometimes overturned, launching true and tragic stories into the wild ocean waves. Over the years, these tales of drownings have flowed in ever-widening circles from the three small Aran Islands until pooling among the current tide of tourists.

With native islanders descending from an unrecorded era, the Aran women may have begun the art of knitting before the Book of Kells began to circulate. Whether then or later, they looked to seafaring symbols, such as the weave of a fishing basket filled with abundant life from the sea.

Some say the well-known cable knit design signifies the fisherman’s ropes along with the ongoing desire to pull the wearer safely back to shore. Others recognize the patterns as coming from the earth in a burst of blackberries or the zigzag of a bird’s wing or the honeycomb of a bee. Perhaps some on the island had hopes for success and treasures as expressed in designs of diamonds, while others fashioned a motif of moss to symbolize the outcroppings of vegetation among the windswept rocks.
Indeed, unruly winds and water buffeted parts of the craggy coastline into the smoothness of marble.

Although remarkably beautiful, such terrain does not bode well as pastureland, and so the islanders built up the soil with seaweed and compost to produce grassy patches where their small flocks of sheep could graze. Corn began to grow in the up-built soil, and wildflowers sprang forth in hundreds of species from the wild Burnet Rose to the Blue Moor-grasses.
Into this harsh but amazingly serene scene came centuries of saints and seekers. Monasteries cropped up, and stone churches flourished. Soon, the women incorporated these religious symbols into their knitting along with stitches to represent the Trinity. Some caught symbolic threads further back than Christianity, going to the biblical roots of the Tree of Life as found in the book of Genesis. Others fashioned a ladder stitch reminiscent of the Hebrew patriarch, Jacob, who climbed toward heaven accompanied by angels. Some even say the unique sweaters began, not for the local fishermen, but as fine cardigans or pullovers knitted by mothers and grandmothers for an angelic child’s First Communion.
Characteristically though, Aran sweaters can be known by the wool. Without bleaching or scouring away the natural oils, the women would set their wooden wheels to spinning the lanolin-soaked wool into coarse yarn to be knitted into warm socks and, later, water-repellant sweaters. The tightly twisted yarn gave more insulation, heft, and pattern than hand-loomed garments, and surely no factory-made sweater could compare with the quality and intricacies knitted into 100,000 hand-made stitches.
Tradition also has it that the younger women handcrafted matchless designs for their sweethearts to approve and wear on their wedding day. For those boxy sweaters, the sleeve length came slightly shorter than usual to avoid getting the heavy wool wet around the wrists when the young man went out to sea. And, yes, many say that each fisherman’s family wove the yarn into an intricate means of identification until the stories bloomed like wildflowers in the minds of novelists, poets, and playwrights. And the shopkeepers came, and the tourists came, and the exporters came, spinning their fanciful yarns.
If truth be told, the tale might lose a bit of embellishment when reduced to the plainness of poverty that gave rise to a highly prized and marketable product. In the wake of government motions and economic trends, the cottage industry reportedly began in the late 19th century when mainlanders set up schools to teach the islanders new patterns of income. By the 20th century, the women had begun to switch their favorite stitches from hand-knitted socks to sweaters, but they still handled the yarn themselves until most of the local wheels ceased spinning in the 1970’s.
Nevertheless, the Aran women passed on patterns with designs as individualized and lively as their own family stories. Continuously, they adapted their work, too, as often done in hard times or war years when metal could not be spared for needles. Living on the windswept islands, eking vegetables from the scanty soil, the islanders had always known how to make do, and so the women knitted with whatever they found at hand. Sometimes they fashioned needles from bicycle spokes or goose quills or willow rods, occasionally dropping stitches as they knitted a new sock or fishing cap or sweater.
As for unraveling the mystery of identifiable family patterns, the famous Aran sweaters may have been fabricated from stories, and not the other way around. Yet the heritage still proves true. Does it matter that part of a history began less than a half-century ago? And what historical record consists only of aged customs and dry but provable facts? In the telling, most people drop a detail or two, carefully inserting others with pride and distinctive patterns as tightly woven and beautiful as any good Irish yarn.

Mary Sayler

The Battle of the Crater

On July 30, 1864, four tons of dynamite exploded beneath the Confederate trenches outside Petersburg, Virginia. It had been placed there by a team of Irish coal miners serving in a Pennsylvania regiment. The audacious plan blew a massive hole in the rebel line, opening the way for a Union charge that could very well end the war.  From this auspicious start, however, the ensuing Battle of the Crater turned into a stunning Union defeat.

The Battle of the Crater was the product of mounting fear and anxiety in the Union in the summer of 1864.  Despite the fact that the Union Army was now in capable hands, with Gen. William T. Sherman closing in on Atlanta and Grant driving Lee’s army south of Richmond to Petersburg, Union morale was sagging.  The war was now more than three years old and victory seemed no closer than it had in 1861.  And the carnage – Grant’s aggressive drive against Lee had produced an astonishing 50,000 Union casualties.  Yet despite losing 30,000 men, Lee’s army was still intact.  Indeed, part of it was still on the move.  In early July a detachment of Confederate cavalry under Jubel Early struck terror into the hearts of northerners when it made a surprise sprint to the north, coming within five miles of the White House before turning back.
So as the massive armies of Lee and Grant stood opposite each other, hunkered down in miles of trenches outside Petersburg, there was a palpable sense of urgency in the air.  The time had come, many believed, for bold action.  The result was one of the most outlandish military maneuvers of the war.
It began when Col. Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania overheard some of his men declare, “We could blow that damn [Confederate] fort out of existence if we could run a mine shaft under it.”  This was no idle boast, for these men – mostly Irish and Irish American – were coal miners from Skuylkill County.  Pleasants, an engineer, considered the idea.  With the Confederates so heavily entrenched outside Petersburg, the only options were suicidal frontal assaults or a long, agonizing siege that might last more than a year.  If his men could blow a hole in the rebel line, the Union army could pour through before the Confederates knew what hit them.  Petersburg would fall, Lee’s army would be surrounded, and the war would be over.
General Ambrose Burnside, in command of the IX Corps which included the 48th Pennsylvania, found the idea irresistible.  It offered him a chance for personal redemption, since he had presided over the devastating Union defeat at Fredricksburg in late 1862.  With the strike of a single match, he might go from goat to hero.
With approval from his superiors, Gen. George Meade and Gen. Grant (both, incidentally, of Ulster stock), work began on June 25.  The miners were left to their own devices, since the Army’s engineers dismissed the project as impossible.  They managed to scrounge up spare lumber and made their own tools.  In less than a month they dug a 511-foot tunnel (with two 40-foot side galleries) the led directly beneath the Confederate line.   One potential hitch – ventilation – was solved when they rigged up a coal mine vent system that worked perfectly.  Lastly came the explosives – four tons of them.
While the Pennsylvania miners dug their tunnel, a regiment of African American soldiers trained to lead the assault.  They were eager to make a good showing, both to disprove white fears that blacks made poor soldiers and to play a role in the defeat of the slave South.
Everything was in order until the night before the scheduled detonation.  At the last minute, Grant and Meade overruled Burnside’s decision to use black soldiers.  They feared charges of racism that would come if the operation failed and the black troops became cannon fodder.  Unnerved by the sudden change in plans, Burnside lost his zeal.  He subsequently assigned a regiment of exhausted troops commanded by an officer known for drunkenness and incompetence to lead the charge.
At 4:30 a.m. a massive explosion erupted under the Confederate line, “bursting like a volcano at the feet of the men,” one officer later recalled.  It hurled 100,000 cubic feet of earth into the air, leaving behind a hole 170 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep.  Nearly 300 Confederate soldiers were killed, while hundreds more fled in confused panic.  The Pennsylvania coal miners had done their job and it seemed for a moment that Petersburg would fall within the day.
It was an extraordinary sight to behold – so much so that the Union soldiers hesitated at first, transfixed by the scene.  When they finally pushed ahead, they headed into the crater instead of around it, and soon became snarled in a leaderless, chaotic mass.  For Confederate soldiers now returning to their positions, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.  By day’s end more than 4,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured.
Despite the flawless work of the Pennsylvania miners, the great Union victory and Burnside’s redemption were not to be (he was relieved of his command).  “It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in the war,” wrote a distressed Ulysses Grant to a colleague.  “Such opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have.”  He wouldn’t see it again and instead had to settle in for an eight-month siege of Petersburg.  It ultimately led to victory, but it left Grant ample time to ponder one of the great “what ifs” of the epic conflict between the states.

By Edward T. O’Donnell

The Chieftains

After forty-four years the Chieftains still capture the allure of their adoring fans. The ageless Paddy Moloney and front man have not lost a step and they continue to entertain sell out crowds, and foster the local fare of Irish traditional dance and music talent. But what keeps the Chieftains going?
They have been nominated for twenty-two Emmys and they have won six. All members have amassed fortunes and are without exaggeration the most influential of all Irish traditional musicians. Throughout it all, over forty-plus albums, the essence of their collaboration is in the music. Their music has remained firmly rooted in the genuine preservation of ancient tunes. Perhaps that is all the motivation needed.

ALL THOSE YEARS AGO

Piper and whistler Paddy Moloney founded the band in 1962 during the last great folk music revival. The debut album by the Chieftains introduced each of the band members, Paddy Moloney and Sean Potts on pipes, Michael Tubridy on flute, David Fallon on bodhran, Martin Fay on the fiddle, and Tubridy on the concertina. Recorded in mono the music is an introduction to airs, reels, and jigs and the performance is more typical of a kitchen session than a polished studio production. Highlights from that first recording include “Comb Your Hair and Curl It/The Boys of Ballisodare,” “The Musical Priest/The Queen of May,” “The Walls of Liscarroll,” and “The Connemara Stocking.”  On this early recording Martin Fay’s fiddle is more prominent than on ensuing records, where Moloney ’s pipes became the driving influence within the group.
Life was not all strawberries and cream, they all had day jobs. Martin Fay rarely travels with the band and as with most bands there was a natural evolution. The band’s last line-up change before 2002 occurred in 1979. The Chieftains members include Paddy Moloney (Uilleann pipes, tin whistle), Matt Molloy (flute), Sean Keane (fiddle) and Kevin Conneff (bodhran, vocals).
Founder and front man Moloney has been the recipient of two prestigious awards this year, the first the Gold Badge of Merit presented by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, the second from the Scots Traditional Music Hall of Fame.  Moloney will be the International artist inducted this year, among five Scottish inductees, as recognition for his significant influence in traditional music. Since Derek’s untimely passing the very talented, Triona Marshall, accompanies the band on the harp.
Always the innovator Paddy is known for his willingness to experiment and cross musical boundaries with tunes, musicians and instruments imbuing them with the Irish experience and sometimes taking them to new levels. It is through the evolution and creative process of any musical group that sustains longevity. However, authenticity has always been an issue for Paddy Moloney and, of course, Ireland’s traditional music hardliners. Paddy should know in his teens he won four All-Ireland championships.
The mix sometimes brings out the best and the worst of an artist’s critics but above all, he’s stayed true to his faith in the inspirational power of traditional tunes and songs to bring people together. If the music touches one’s soul to express affinity, both happiness and solace by measuring the essence of our shared human experience their performance is complete.
The Chieftains traditional winter tour began in January 2006 marking 32 years of touring in North America for the group.  The 2006 tour began on January 17 in Shreveport, LA and ran through March 18 in Newark, NJ.  After breaking with tradition and performing their St. Patrick’s Day show in Toronto last year, they returned to New York City’s Carnegie Hall on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17).
On this night the music program included songs from latest the RCA Victor Album: Tribute To Late Chieftain Derek Bell; Step-dancing duo Jon and Nathan Pilatzke, Renowned harpist Triona Marshall along with East Coast Music Award-Winner The Cottars as very special guests.
Triona left the RTE Orchestra to come on the road with The Chieftains, and The Pilatzke’s have been a part of The Chieftain’s show for just over three years now, with Jon continuing to dazzle audiences with his ability to combine his talents on stage as a  correspondingly brilliant fiddle player. Jeff White, the Nashville vocalist highlighted on the latest Live From Dublin, was part of the tour as well.
The venue in Austin, Texas was filled with Cuban jigs, Tennessee reels, polkas and traditional sets. Kevin Conneff thrilling the crowd with his a capella vocals, Sean Keane with fiddle solos and Matt Molloy on the flute each taking turn displaying their mastery. In addition a new generation of musicians, The Cottars, from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia danced, sang and played their Breton style of music. These remarkably talented youths, all between the ages of 15 and 17, have been playing traditional music since their early childhood years and have a fan base that spans three continents. Oh yes, and then there were the dancers. Local dancers and musicians all joined the band on stage for a wonderful Breton style of line dancing that weaved through the aisles inviting the audience to participate.
And so it is for the Chieftains, ambassadors of Ireland. hm

Thomas Hickey and the Plot against Washington

On June 28, 1776, Thomas Hickey went to the gallows in New York City.  He had been convicted mutiny and sedition for his role in a plot to either kidnap or murder General George Washington. That such a plot against Washington existed seems beyond dispute. But Hickey’s alleged role in it remains murky to this day.
In June of 1776, New York City was abuzz with activity and gossip.  Commander-in-Chief George Washington had arrived on April 13 from Boston following the British evacuation of that city.  He immediately began fortifying the city, knowing the British probably planned to invade New York as part of a grand scheme to divide the colonies.  Speculation ran rampant as to when and how the British would invade.  There was also talk that the British were secretly plotting a Tory uprising as a prelude to military invasion.
Indeed, there was a Tory plot in the works involving the highest public officials, among them colonial governor William Tryon and mayor David Matthews.  The exact details of the conspiracy are not clear, but it seems to have involved a scheme to either kidnap or murder Washington and other key officials.  Then, having already secretly enlisted hundreds of men to take up arms for the King, they would cast out Washington’s rebel force.  If successful, it would not only pave the way for the imminent arrival of a massive British force totaling 30,000 soldiers and several hundred ships, but more importantly it would all but demolish the leadership and morale of the rebel cause.  With loyalist sentiment in the New York area strong (with a good many people also remaining neutral), the plotters had every reason to believe they’d succeed.
One of the men enlisted in the plot was Thomas Hickey.  Not much is known about him except that he was described at the time as being “a dark-complexioned man of five feet six, well set … an Irishman hitherto a deserter from the British Army.”  At the time of the plot Hickey was a soldier in Washington’s Life Guard.  With such access to Washington, he was an ideal recruit to the conspiracy.
The plot was discovered on June 20 and arrests of more than 20 suspected conspirators quickly followed, including mayor, David Matthews.  Had they been able to find him, governor William Tryon would have been arrested as well.  Over the course of the next few days, three of Hickey’s accomplices — including fellow Irishman Michael Lynch — agreed to provide evidence against him in exchange for leniency.
At the subsequent court martial proceeding, they gave sworn testimony that Hickey had joined the conspiracy, accepted small sums of money from a gunsmith named Gilbert Forbes, and tried to recruit additional participants.  Even if true, the testimony makes it clear that Hickey was probably on the lowest end of the conspiracy’s hierarchy and that many others were at least as susceptible to the charge of mutiny and sedition.  Several testified that the money for paying recruits came directly from David Matthews, the mayor, and that most of the recruiting was carried out by Forbes.  One man, William Green, even gave evidence that Hickey was not a Tory plotter at all, but rather a man who  merely played along with the conspiracy as a way to foil it while also making some easy money.
Nonetheless, the jury found Hickey guilty as charged and sentenced him to die the next day.  Handbills went up all around the city announcing June 28 as the date of Hickey’s execution.  On that day Hickey was led to a field near the Bowery where a hastily-constructed gallows stood.  At 11:00 a.m. before a cheering crowd of some 20,000 he was hanged.  No one else arrested in connection with the plot suffered this fate.
The story of the plot against Washington, like so many aspects of his biography, was embellished in the years following the Revolution.  Hickey, according to the apocryphal version of events, became the chief conspirator in an attempt to poison Washington.  He allegedly recruited Washington’s female servant who agreed to serve him a dish of peas — one of his favorite foods — laced with arsenic.  But unbeknownst to Hickey, she let Washington know of the scheme.  When he flung the peas into the yard and a group of chickens ate them and promptly died, Hickey was arrested.  It’s a great story, but one based on no evidence.  Nothing in the official transcripts of Hickey’s trial make mention of poison or peas.
Although probably guilty on some level of involvement in the plot, Hickey was clearly a scapegoat and the victim of unequal justice.  Terrified by the prospect of a Tory conspiracy against Washington and the colonial rebellion, officials wanted to send a message to all other potential conspirators — of which there were many — that all faced the gallows if caught, even those involved at the lowest level.  Washington said as much when he wrote to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, after the execution.  “I am hopeful this example will produce many salutary consequences, and deter others from entering into like traitorous practices.”  To another he wrote that he hoped it would be “a warning to every soldier in the Army.”  Indeed, every soldier not on duty that day was ordered to attend the execution.

Edward T. O’Donnell

Irish Society Thrive In Latin America

Estancia Santa Susana Ranch. Los Cardales, Argentina

Irish emigrants have notably contributed to the development of the countries in which they settled. Through work and social integration, they have brought respect to themselves and enhanced the reputation of their homeland in almost every corner of the globe.

So it should come as no surprise that Argentina is populated with Irish descendants. In the late 19th century, estimates of 40- 50,000 Irish immigrants were in Argentina. Most of them settled in the Argentine pampas and worked primarily as shepherds and sheep-farmers.
Today in Latin America some 300,000 to 500,000 are estimated to have some Irish ancestry, most of them living in Argentina, with lesser numbers in Central America, Uruguay and Brazil. There are estimates upwards of 300,000 Argentineans who claim Irish ancestry. In a country with a population of 35 million that is, almost three per cent of the entire population.
But let’s consider the logistics and formidable obstacles of immigrating to Argentina. First was the problem to cross the Atlantic from their areas of residence in the Irish Midlands, Wexford, Clare and a few other counties in Ireland.  The emigrants would have to use a combination of coaches and carts or the Grand Canal boats to reach Dublin. From there they would have to book passage aboard a sailing ship.
Sailing ships were used up to the early 1850s and steamboats thereafter, with an average journey of six to eight weeks. Some chartered ships sailed directly from Dublin to South America, though the majority purchased passage tickets through established companies with scheduled departures from Liverpool. Tickets cost was significantly higher than the one to North America.  The cost was an annual wage of an Irish laborer, which is a reason few were able to pay their way. In fact tickets were advanced by Argentinean employers in return for work.
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean would pale in comparison to the linguistic barrier. Only a few educated Argentines spoke English and the Spanish language was almost completely unknown in Ireland.
For the newly arrived Irish immigrants the Catholic religion was an opportunity to easily adapt to the larger society. While Admiral William Brown is well known of the Irish emigrants to Argentina other Irish men and women were also extremely influential in Argentine society. Fr. Anthony Fahy (1805-1871) worked successfully to isolate his flock and to maintain their identity as English-speaking Catholics, distinct from the native parishioners. It should be noted that many Protestant Irish settlers preferred to join the Presbyterian congregation and thus followed their pastors.
There is a proud and active Irish community in Argentina, writes Dick and Lois Miner fresh back from a visit there. They were greeted and entertained at the Estancia Santa Susana, a ranch run by the descendants of Francisco Kelly. The ranch name is homage to his wife, Susana Caffrey. The working ranch occupies 1200 acres and is mainly dedicated to agricultural activities and the raising of horses.

Estancia Santa Susana occupies 2965 acres in the district of Campana, Buenos Aires province near the town of Los Cardales. Visitors are welcomed to the ranch by “gauchos” and “paisanas” (countrymen and women.)
The distinctive seal of Estancia Santa Susana is a guided tour of the Spanish-colonial style compound. After touring the museums (picture bottom left) a bell tolls announcing the day’s meal at banquet facilities (Picture center left.) Grills prepare different cuts of Argentine meat and may be observed, while roasting over a wood fire.

Irish Diaspora in South America

‘Diaspora’ (from the Greek word ‘to scatter’) is defined as any group migration or flight from a country or region that has been dispersed outside its traditional homeland. The phrase is more widely used to describe Irish emigrants and their descendants around the world.
The dark side to this story is most he time the Diaspora is forced as with the Irish in the 17th century, when Oliver Cromwell sent many Irish rebels into slavery in Caribbean tobacco plantations. Many of the Wild Geese who had gone to Spain continued on to its colonies in South America. In the 1820’s they helped liberate the continent.
According to scholars the term ‘Irish Diaspora’ first appears in a 1954 book ‘The Vanishing Irish.’ It wasn’t until a more recent address by President Mary Robinson, in her 1995 address to the Joint Houses of the Oireachtas. Reaching out to the 70 million people worldwide that claim Irish descent she said “The men and women of our Diaspora represent not simply a series of departures and losses. They remain, even while absent, a precious reflection of our own growth and change, a precious reminder of the many strands of identity which compose our story.”

BOSTON’S FENWAY PARK

AN IRISH-AMERICAN LANDMARK

Fenway Park – home of the Boston Red Sox – is the nation’s enduring symbol of baseball, America’s favorite pastime. Officially opened on April 20, 1912, the park has outlasted all other major league baseball parks, becoming a shrine for baseball lovers everywhere.
Writing in the New Yorker Magazine in 1960, John Updike described Fenway Park as “a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg.”
The contractor who built this lyrical ballpark was Irish immigrant Charles E. Logue (1858-1919), one of Boston’s renowned builders of Irish descent. Logue (top picture) arrived from Co. Derry in 1881 at age 23, and quickly gained a reputation as a skilled carpenter and ambitious young man.
Logue’s timing was perfect when he formed the Charles Logue Building Company in 1890. The Boston Irish had finally begun to wrestle control of the city from the recalcitrant Yankees with the election of Hugh O’Brien, Boston’s first mayor, in 1884.
According to Boston historian Dennis Ryan, Charles Logue became major contractor in the Irish community, building Boston College’s campus as well as churches for the Boston Archdiocese. Mayor Patrick Collins appointed Logue to the Schoolhouse Committee in 1904, citing the need for a practical builder, and Mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, President John F. Kennedy’s grandfather, relied on Logue to build a “busier, better Boston.”

But Fenway Park would become Logue’s enduring landmark.

Ground was broken for the park in September1911, and the stadium was finished the following spring, a considerable achievement given the harsh New England winters.
According to the Boston Red Sox web site, the official opening took place April 20, 1912: “The Red Sox defeated the New York Highlanders — later known as the Yankees — before 27,000 fans, 7-6 in 11 innings. The event would have made front page news had it not been for the sinking of the Titanic only a few days before.”
Fenway remained an Irish gathering place for years to come, when there wasn’t a baseball game scheduled. On June 29, 1919, for example, Irish leader Eamon deValera held a Freedom Rally at Fenway Park that attracted nearly 60,000 people, spilling onto the infield. (bottom picture.)
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) also played at Fenway over the years. On June 6, 1937 All-Ireland Football Champions from County Mayo defeated the Massachusetts team, 17 to 8. And on November 8, 1954, the All-Ireland hurling champions County Cork beat an American line-up, 37 to 28.

Today the legacy of Charles Logue remains intact. Red Sox president Larry Lucchino has a framed photograph of Charles Logue in his office, “for a little inspiration,” according to the Providence Journal.

And Boston’s Irish Heritage Trail, which depicts the city’s 300 years of Irish history, is planning to add Fenway Park as an Irish Landmark in its forthcoming walking map this summer, joining the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Irish Famine Memorial, and other local landmarks.
Logue’s descendants have also remained a presence in the area, thanks to Logue Engineering Company, Inc. in Hingham. According to its web site, Charles remained president of the company until his death in 1919. His son, A. Emmett Logue and grandson, A. Emmet Logue, Jr. ran the company until 1972. Great grandson Jim Logue started Logue Engineering in 1975, and his son Kevin, is now the fifth generation of Logues in the family business.
“We are very proud to have him as a part of our family and everyone is always interested to hear of our connection with Fenway Park,” Kevin Logue said.
Indeed, Bostonians everywhere are proud of his sturdy stadium that has outlasted all other major league parks in the nation. To Charles Logue and his family from everyone who loves baseball – well done!
Michael P. Quinlin is president of the Boston Irish Tourism Association and author of the book, Irish Boston: A Lively Look at Boston’s Colorful Irish Past.

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