Tag: Irish entertainment

In the popular mindset, 1916 is the moment when Ireland threw off the chains of imperialism and left the British Empire.

But in reality, the Proclamation of 1916 had no legal effect. The rebels had no mandate legally – or even popularly – to sever Ireland’s constitutional bonds from Britain or her Empire. That would take time and a further three long decades would elapse before Ireland fully extricated herself.

Unlike America which proclaimed independence unilaterally, Irish independence came about through a negotiated settlement with the British Government in 1921. The Anglo-Irish Agreement controversially partitioned the island into two and even though the southern 26 counties would have their own Parliament, the new Free State would retain the King as its head of state.

For many, this was an unacceptable derogation of Irish sovereignty. Members of the IRA had fought a war for a 32-county republic, not a partitioned island still firmly ensconced within the bosom of the Empire as a British Dominion.

It was, Michael Collins acknowledged an imperfect solution. But, he insisted, “it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire… but the freedom to achieve it.”

With weary resignation, Ireland’s politicians took their seats in the new Free State Parliament – both only after they had fulfilled their legal obligation to swear an oath that they would bear “true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the Irish Free State, to the Treaty of Association, and to recognize the King of Great Britain as Head of Associated States.”

It was a bridge too far for many; angry republican women waved sarcastic “Empire Day” placards at politicians as they arrived and many elected members simply refused to take their seats because of it.

But if the new Government – almost all of whom had been members of the IRA – were embarrassed by each other’s professions of fealty to the British Monarch, they soon found his Empire had its uses; as Civil War spread across Ireland like wildfire the new Free State army found that it could only quell the anti-Treaty IRA with help from their former enemies in the British Army. Their former enemies were now indispensable allies and their former comrades in a revolutionary war were their enemies.

Elsewhere the trappings of imperialism remained ubiquitous. The new Government saw to it that a bewigged and gowned Lord was enthroned as the speaker of Ireland’s new Senate and although the Union Jack mysteriously vanished from most Government buildings, stamps and coins continued to bear the portrait of King George V and Irish passports were issued in his regal name.

The National Anthem remained for a number of years the very Britannic ‘God Save the King’, and George V was represented by a Governor General. That there would be a representative of the Crown in Dublin was a red-line issue for British negotiators and although various other titles were considered – including President of Ireland – Governor General was chosen because it was the same title used in other Dominions like New Zealand and Canada. If the British Government sought to exert too much control over the Governor General it was hoped the other Dominions would protest, thinking any interference in Ireland a threat of their own growing autonomy.

This was one of the most visible reminders of the British Empire. Constitutionally the Governor General was also the representative of the British Government and had to assent to any bills passed by the Free State legislature and in theory, wielded a veto. He also fulfilled many of the duties of a head of state, holding garden parties in the summer and attending events held for worthy causes. He and his wife were generously housed and fed in the Viceregal Lodge. To visitors from anywhere in the British Empire, the role would have been well understood and familiar. Many middle-class ladies in Dublin even curtsied when he passed by.

If the legal trapping of the new state still seemed shrouded in British imperialism, the new Cumann na nGaedhael Government – or His Majesty’s Government in the Irish Free State as it sometimes grandly referred to itself – set out loosening those legal bonds as quickly as possible. President of the Executive Council William Cosgrave keenly pressed for more autonomy at the 1926 Imperial Conferences. There, alongside his fellow Dominion Prime Ministers, it was agreed that Britain would renounce the legal power to legislate for any Dominion without its permission and abolish the British Government’s right to veto Irish laws. The Balfour Declaration was hailed as a triumph by many in Ireland as a significant stepping stone along the road to greater sovereignty.

By contrast, many British imperialists fiercely denounced the Declaration and Churchill presciently warned the British Parliament, “this Bill confers upon the Irish Free State, full legal powers to abolish the Irish Treaty… It would be open to the Dáil… to repudiate the Oath of Allegiance.” Such an eventuality was exactly what many in Ireland hoped would happen.

And they would not have to wait long. In 1932 a new more stridently republican party called Fianna Fáil swept to power with a man called Éamon de Valera at its head. ‘Dev’ as he was widely known had rejected the Treaty on the grounds that he could not accept Ireland’s status as a British Dominion. Upon assuming power, he swiftly moved to abolish the hated Oath of Allegiance sparking a mini-constitutional crisis in London. “TEST OF EMPIRE MEMBERSHIP” shouted the front page of the Times of London. David Lloyd George who had been Prime Minister during the First World War and negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty that Dev detested so much said the British Parliament was “practically unanimous on the… policy of treating the oath as the test of the Free State’s desire to remain in the British Empire.”

Nevertheless, Britain blinked and Ireland went unpunished for so blithely casting aside a tenement of both the Empire and Treaty that had caused so much grief.

Emboldened, Dev moved next to abolish judicial appeals to the imperial Privy Council. No longer would Ireland’s highest court be in London but in Dublin. The result was more predictable gnashing of teeth and Lord Hailsham assured the House of Lords that no Dominion had the legal authority to sever its links to the Privy Council. But still, mindful of the need for good relations between the two states, the British Government “would do nothing to make future relations difficult.” John Dulanty, Ireland’s High Commissioner to London (equivalent to the position of Ambassador in the British Empire), assured a concerned King George that de Valera “does not want to break away from the Empire”.

The old King passed away in 1936 and the accession of his charismatic but flawed son Edward to the Throne presented de Valera with the greatest opportunity to refashion Ireland’s constitutional settlement since independence. Edward VIII, King by the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas was a popular man. Handsome and charming, he was the Princess Diana of his day but his love for the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson would rattle the Throne of St Edward more violently than any crisis since William of Orange had toppled the Catholic King James.

Divorce was forbidden in Ireland but de Valera – unlike his Dominion colleagues – was relaxed about Mrs. Simpson becoming Queen. Outmaneuvered by his Prime Ministers and outflanked by furious Church leaders in England Edward VIII abdicated, leaving his Throne to his younger brother the Duke of York. Whilst the crisis convulsed much of the Empire, de Valera appeared supremely unbothered by the drama. Only when informed that unless the Oireachtas [Ireland’s two houses of parliament] passed legislation Edward VIII would remain King of Ireland did he act.

The same day that the Oireachtas formalized Edward VIII’s abdication, de Valera saw to it that a second bill was passed to “eliminate the King from all those Articles of the Constitution which seem to give him functions in our internal affairs.”

Twenty years on from 1916 was this the legal declaration of the republic proclaimed on the steps of the GPO? Not quite.

The Oireachtas also passed an External Relations Act which stipulated that “so long as Saorstát Éireann [i.e. the Irish Free State] is associated with the [other member nations of the Commonwealth], and so long as the King is recognized by those nations… for the purpose of the diplomatic appointments and consular representatives… the King so recognized… may act on behalf of Saorstát Éireann.”

Was the Free State a republic or a monarchy many wondered?

De Valera’s new 1937 Constitution of Ireland declared the state a “sovereign, independent, democratic state” but not a republic. The new President of Ireland seemed to be the head of state but the new King George VI still signed international treaties of Ireland’s behalf and issued letters of credence to Irish diplomats just as his father had done before him.

Ireland remained a member of the Commonwealth but no longer went to Imperial Conferences. John Dulanty attended meetings for Commonwealth High Commissioners but admitted to feeling “like a whore at a Christening”. Ireland was, in Churchill’s words, “neither in nor out of the Empire.”

Emotionally, the moment Ireland finally left the Empire for many was when de Valera declared he would not join the Allies in the fight against the Second World War. Before the US joined the conflict in 1941 the British Empire stood alone against the Nazis. Within hours of Britain declaring war on Germany in September 1939 so too did Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. For many British people, it was bewildering that Ireland chose not to join them when so much was at stake.

The final, ultimate, rupture from the British Empire came in 1948. On a visit to Canada, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) John Costello was affronted when a formal toast at dinner was made only to the King. Costello’s view was that the President of Ireland should have been included but the Canadian insisted that George VI was King of both Canada and Ireland so there was no need for separate toasts. The furious Taoiseach announced his Government would formally declare Ireland a republic and put an end to the final veneer of constitutional monarchy in the southern state.

The Republic of Ireland Act of 1948 passed with cross-party support, although Dev – then in opposition – said it would be better to wait until a 32-county republic could be proclaimed.

The Act came into effect on Easter Monday 1949. 33 years after the Easter Rising the state was now a fully-fledged legal republic and a member of neither the British Empire nor the Commonwealth.

Here’s British Pathe news footage of the big news:

*Originally published in 2017. Updated in February 2023. 

As the 103rd anniversary of Percy French’s death fell on January 24, it is timely to recall the songs of the gifted polymath. songs like “The Mountains of Mourne,” “Phil the Fluter’s Ball,” and “Comeback Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff.”

Many consider French’s song “The Mountains of Mourne” his signature tune made even more famous in the modern era when Don McClean, who wrote “American Pie,” recorded it. Percy French was inspired to write the song when on the strand in Skerries, north Co Dublin, painting one clear sunny day around 1894 he saw the Mourne mountains across the bay and the lines: “where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea” came to him. 

French wove a lyric around the line and scribbled them on a postcard to Heuston Collisson in London. Collisson set the lyrics to a version of Thomas Moore’s “Bendemeer’s Stream,” which itself was set to the old Irish air, “Carridghoun.”

In 2008, a bronze seat was erected on the beach in Skerries, Dublin dedicated to Percy French.

James Joyce laced “Finnegans Wake” with French’s songs, stories, and operas and a number are thematic within the Wake most especially “Phil the Fluter’s Ball” the most referenced song in Joyce’s swansong with 26 references now detected.

James N. Healy in his book “Percy French and His Songs” (1966 & ’76) said French “was possibly the greatest and certainly the most prolific writer of comic songs in the tradition of the Irish ballad.” It is an astute and accurate assessment. 

He also noted that despite being comic, the songs had a ‘special humanity’ and, this indeed is also astutely observed. French had huge empathy and sympathy for the people who inspired his songs and, they were all drawn from real-life characters and events.

While working as an engineer in Cavan he visited his old friend Arthur Godley in Carrigallen, Co Leitrim around 1887 and it was from Godley he was told the story of a local flute player who threw a ball every once in a while, to raise money to pay his rent. This inspired French most comic songs “Phil The Fluter’s Ball” written in a hornpipe rhythm. 

Many years later, in September 1910, when French and Collisson were on a liner to Canada to commence a six-month extensive entertainment tour of Canada, America, and the Caribbean, the ship pulled into Cobh at Cork and a number of Irish emigrants boarded the liner. When out at sea, French was on deck and overheard a man from Donegal say in a heart-broken voice to another passenger with a deep sigh ‘they’ll be cutting the corn in Creeslough today’ a reference to the corn harvest, an occasion of great festivity which he would never partake of again. 

Emigrants then never returned and so these enforced departures were a sort of bereavement. French was so moved by the poignance of the utterance that he wrote what is possibly his most powerful emigration song called “The Emigrant’s Letter.” Other poignant emigration songs are “The Mountains of Mourne,” “Ballymilligan,” “The Emigrant Ship,” and of course “Come Back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff,” ostensibly for his former jarvey in his Cavan days but, in reality, a thinly disguised lament for himself, then in 1912, a homesick exile in London.

French always felt the pangs of the emigrant. He loved Ireland and always wanted to live in Ireland but was forced to move to London permanently in 1900 for the wider opportunities it offered in the precarious world of entertainment into which he was catapulted full-time when he was about 40 years old.

French wrote his first comic song in 1877 aged only twenty-three while an engineering student in Trinity. The song “Abdullah Bulbul Ameer” underscores the absurdity of the Russio-Turkish war of the same year. It was an immense success and French borrowed £5 from his friend Archie West and had 200 copies of the song published by Piggott’s & Co which he sold for 2/6d each. As he said in later life ‘Eldorado seemed around the corner’ but, unfortunately, he had omitted to register copyright on the song and, it went on to be pirated and sold all over the world and French lost a fortune in royalties which were only restored to the family over 20 years after his death. 

Some of his best songs were written while in Cavan and, aside from “Phil the Fluter”, other famous songs from his Cavan years were “Slattery’s Mounted Fut” (1889) with a lively marching chorus about an undisciplined and inebriated military regiment whose dissipation and ‘divilment’ were too uproarious to make them in any way effective at soldiering. Joyce admitted French’s influence on him when, as Shem the Penman in the Wake he said he’d reinforced his “strength in spadefuls of Mounted Fut.”

It was in Cavan too that he wrote “Andy McElroe,” a song about an Irishman serving in the British army during the Sudan war of the 1880s. The theme of Irishmen going to serve in foreign wars, often as a means of adventure, is a theme in many songs by French such as “Soldiers Three,” “Fighting Maguire,” and the “Killyran Wrackers.”

French’s ballads on wars are all anti-war in sentiment. And later, during the first World War which he experienced up close in Normandy and Belgium where he went to entertain the troops, he wrote “Am Tag” and “All By the Baltic Say” which, although comic, have a strong anti-war moral too. French was an avowed passivist and a great unifier of people. War to him was futile.

His early martial ballads were often inspired by stories from the Napoleonic wars. “Cornelius Burske” was a song he wrote also on a martial theme but only the first verse today is attributed to Percy French. French drew a line through the rest of the printed song and ‘scornfully’ said it was written by ‘some hack writer and spoilt!’ 

The story of how French came to write his song “Dromcolliher” is an amusing one. In 1896, French was touring around the Limerick / north Cork region when some mishap occurred in his accommodation arrangements. Friends made last-minute arrangements that he would be put up at McAuliff’s store in the large village of Dromcolliher, west Limerick.

The store was a one-stop shop, serving as a guest house, hardware, and grocery store, and had several other versatile uses. French was treated royally there and was served fulsome Irish breakfasts reflected in the repeated refrain ‘for hardware and bacon and tae.’ French wrote the song as an act of gratitude and as a form of advertisement for McAuliff’s.’

French wrote a number of songs on courtship in the late Victorian era such as “Eileen Og,” “The Darling Girl from Clare,” and “Wait for a While Now Mary.” They are songs of innocent times, often reflecting the complications around doweries and land inheritance at that time. “Whistlin Phil McHugh” plays out, with great charm, the story of a young woman who chooses love over money. The highly amusing “McBreen’s Heifer,” dismissed by some women even in French’s day as being vulgar and sexist, dramatizes what French called ‘the ancient Irish custom’ of giving a dowry with the plainest daughter as an inducement to marriage, and so runs the opening lines ‘McBreen had two daughters and each one, in turn, was offered in marriage to Jamsie O’Byrne’ n.’

It is important to mention a song by French forgotten today called “The Fortunes of Finnegan” because when I was writing my book “Sounds of Manymirth” on French’s influence on James Joyce, I discovered that “The Fortunes of Finnegan” is the second most references of French’s songs in “Finnegans Wake” and is entirely thematic because it is a very amusing song about an indestructible giant – Finnegan who survives a series of mishaps; being bitten by a cat but the cat gets paralyzed not Finnegan, then he was hit by a motor car and the car came out the worst in the incident and the invincible Finnegan presumed dead, was found under the bonnet fixing it. He was also the man who succeeded in politics and who won the hand of ‘beautiful Mary Flynn’ because disregarding the matter of a dowry which made all other suitors cautious, Finnegan was ready to wed her ‘in the clothes she’s standin’ in.’

French was interested in all matters mechanical and it went beyond his amazing experiences on the now-famous West Clare locomotive and the trials and tribulations he encountered on the line trying to get to his entertainment on time. What became the song “Are Ye Right There Michael” led to a court case which, according to Healy, was initiated by the company and it spurred French to counter-sue. Differing accounts of the story are extant. In any event, French was awarded £10 damages for loss of earnings – a considerable sum in Edwardian times. He traveled by the West Clare Railway many times afterward and made a great friend of Michael Talty the porter of “Are ye Right there Michael” and the train driver Michael Donovan. A commemorative plaque was placed at Ennis station and the famous ‘Bessborough’ Engine immortalized in the song is now preserved in a museum in Co Clare in memory of the entire incident. French had a particular affection for county Clare and its people and visited every summer and had special arrangements with the best hotels in Kilrush.

What is now a favorite song by many Percy French fans, the haunting “Woods of Gortnamona,” was written as one of his poems of pathos inspired by the death tragically young, of his first wife, Ethel (Ettie) a day after their first wedding anniversary in June 1891. The song was first set to music in 1958 by Philip Greene. 

French wrote a number of songs of which the music is lost today. His opera “The Knight of the Road,” also so beloved by Joyce, was praised by Healy who re-printed a number of its songs in his book on French’s songs and believes the opera could successfully be performed for a modern audience. Words of some songs from his other children’s opera “Freda and the Fairies” survive but some of the music is tragically lost. ‘Pretendy Land’ has survived and is in French’s archive. 

In all, French wrote, about 80 songs if you factor in the ones from the operas. Sadly, when French died suddenly in Formby Liverpool on 24th January 1920, he was a poor man. It only emerged over 20 years after his death that he was owed a fortune in royalties by Piggot’s in Grafton St. When Ashcerberg, Hopwood, and Crewe took over Piggot’s in the 1940s, they contacted French’s widow and daughters and they made a substantial settlement with them, also winning back for them the royalties on his pirated first song “Abdullah Bulbul Ameer.” The family purchased their first home after this windfall – a quaint Elizabethan cottage in the charming village of Monks Eleigh, Suffolk.

French was a gentle person whose songs evoke a gentler age and a musical tradition that is not widely practiced today. French was short-changed on many fronts in life, his Protestant, gentry background constantly telling against him, but he remained remarkably un-embittered and despite many misfortunes and setbacks, he kept going. Often even otherworldly and absent-minded, to his friends he was dubbed ‘the young lamb’s heart amid the full-grown flock’ by his close friend the poet, Catherine Tynan. 

He had universal appeal as a personality and when I worked in the Oriel Gallery, Dublin I was always struck by the sheer diversity of his following. So many visited the gallery who could never afford a watercolor but would come to look at his paintings, buy a catalog, or to simply talk about their love of Percy French or relate some anecdote about him.

A man of peace and compassion with no concern for worldly wealth in his own immortal lines: ‘All the gold that I want I will find on the whins/When I’m in Connemara among the Twelve Pins.’ His politics were at one with Daniel O’Connell’s and he poked parodic fun at the ‘Revivalists’ most aptly expressed in his own version of the ‘Shean Van Bocht’ another song by French that pre-occupied Joyce in the Wake and provides a constant motif linked to Finnegan in the entire book. 

Against a changing Ireland, socially and politically, the road was often a very thorny one for French but his legacy, albeit under-celebrated officially, is immortal and to the end, he troubadoured heroically every year in August around the coastal towns of Ireland long after he was robust enough to do so and where his memory handed down through generations, is still fresh more than a century after his untimely death. 

It is little wonder he would indeed be seen as a giant by Joyce who clearly idolized him even as he envied and poured mock scorn on him but, as he spent a third of his life writing what will, I am in no doubt, in time, come to be recognized primarily as French’s encomium – “Finnegans Wake” it is surely a very great accolade indeed.

*Bernadette Lowry is the author of “Sounds of Manymirth on the Night’s Ear Ringing: Percy French (1854-1920) his Jarvey Years” and “Joyce’s Haunted Inkbottle.”

You might say that in Ireland all roads lead to tea. From breakfast and lunch breaks to weddings and wakes, a cupán tae (cup of tea) is always a welcome guest.

Irish tea is far more than just a hot drink to go with a scone and jam: it’s an important custom that serves as a symbol of hospitality, friendship, and pleasure. Some say the Irish people have a relationship with tea that “transcends the ordinary” — hyperbole, perhaps, but given that the average person in Ireland drinks four to six cups of tea a day, perhaps not!

Tea time in Ireland is actually my favorite time of day. I enjoyed my first official cup at my cousin Kit’s cottage in County Kerry during my first visit there 35 years ago. Within minutes of our meeting, the kettle was on, the teacups were out, and the milk and sugar appeared. A box of Jacob’s Rich Tea biscuits quickly followed, and Chocolate Kimberley biscuits for my children arrived on a small plate. Our relationship was ceremoniously underway.

For years, I had only known Kit as “my Irish cousin”: a distant relative twice, maybe even three times removed whom I’d never met. Christmas cards were exchanged like pen pals, but this in-person visit with cup in hand closed the gap between cousins from across the pond.

Funny enough, we couldn’t actually connect the dots in our ancestry chain — she was an O’Sullivan who dropped the “O” while my grandmother was an O’Sullivan who kept the “O” – but none of that really mattered.  We sipped our tea and sealed the deal.

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Tea for two! Don’t mind if we do!

We repeated this ritual each time I visited Ireland, usually once a year, but later I supplied the sweets. I brought cookie “collections” in fancy-tins with photos of local scenes like Moll’s Gap or Ross Castle at tourist shops in Killarney. Or I brought treats from Jam, a local bakery known for its heavenly scones and fruity crumbles. Tea time in Ireland was terrific.

The cuppa with my cousin was just the beginning of other wonderful tea time experiences, especially afternoon tea, the elegant three-course affair where tea is the main attraction, and delicacies like dainty sandwiches, flaky scones, and luscious pastries act in supporting roles. Introduced in England in the mid-1840s, the mini-meal grew in popularity there and eventually spread to Ireland.

I have to admit I fell under its spell when a friend first suggested we meet in Dublin and have tea at The Shelbourne, one of Ireland’s most legendary hotels. Without a tea biscuit or Kimberley in sight, we settled into a tea stand laden with traditional tea sandwiches – cucumber, smoked salmon, and creamy egg salad; plain and fruity scones with clotted cream, lemon curd, and strawberry jam; elegant tartlets, cream-filled eclairs, and macarons. The tea selection ranged from aromatic Darjeeling to citrus-scented Earl Grey and exotic Lapsang Souchong. Heaven!

I was smitten, to say the least, and in Tea Time in Ireland, I share some of my most memorable tea experiences along with recipes from legendary hotel tearooms like The Shelbourne, Ashford Castle, Adare Manor, The Merrion, and Dromoland Castle, and from smaller tea venues like Cupán Tea in Galway and Castlewood House in Dingle; recipes from Irish home cooks join the mix.

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The cover art for Margaret M Johnson’s Teatime in Ireland.

Teatime in Ireland provides both a delicious culinary and cultural experience and offers more than seventy recipes from delicate sandwiches and rich tea loaves to elegant tarts and homespun cakes. The recipe for this Victoria Sponge, which some say is the “quintessential teatime sweet,” is from the tearoom at Belleek, Ireland’s oldest working fine china company, established in the Fermanagh village in 1857.   

Victoria sponge recipe

Serves 8 to 10.

The traditional cake consists of jam and whipped cream sandwiched between two sponge cakes. The top of the cake is generally noticed or decorated except for a sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar, sometimes over a doily to create a lacy pattern.

The cake is named in honor of Queen Victoria, who spent time at her residence on the Isle of Wight following the death of Prince Albert in 1861. In order to inspire the monarch to get back into the swing of civic duties, she was encouraged to host tea parties, at which a sponge cake like this was served. “Victoria Sponges” became fashionable throughout England and Ireland and also became the measure of the home-baker. 

Ingredients

• 6 ounces butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

For the filling

• 1/2 cup strawberry or raspberry jam 
• 2/3 cup heavy cream, whipped 

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Fresh strawberries, for garnish (optional)

Method

Make the cake. Preheat oven to 325° F. Butter a 9-inch round pan and dust with flour; tap out excess.

In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk in flour and baking powder until smooth. 

Transfer mixture to prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the top is golden and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove cake from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.

Invert cake onto a serving plate, and then return it to upright. With a serrated knife, cut cake in half horizontally; spread the bottom half with strawberry or raspberry jam. Spread whipped cream over jam and replace the top half of cake.

Place a nine-inch doily on top of cake; lightly sift confectioner’s sugar over it. Carefully remove doily, leaving a lacy pattern on the cake. Cover and refrigerate the cake until serving time. Garnish with fresh strawberries, if desired.

*Margaret M. Johnson is author of eleven cookbooks — Favorite Flavors of Ireland; Christmas Flavors of Ireland; Flavors of Ireland; The Irish Pub Cookbook; Irish Puddings, Tarts, Crumbles, and Fools; The Irish Spirit; The New Irish Table; The Irish Heritage Cookbook; Tea & Crumpets; Cooking with Irish Spirits; and Ireland: Grand Places, Glorious Food. As a food and travel writer, she has contributed to publications in both the U.S. and Ireland including Intermezzo Magazine; SIP, For the Love of Drink; Irish Echo newspaper; and to online sites such as TheWildGeese.irish, and IrishPhiladelphia.com. She frequently appears at Irish food and cultural events, and when she’s not visiting her ancestral home in Ireland, she lives in Westhampton Beach, NY. You can reach Johnson at [email protected] or visit her website www.irishcook.com. You can buy Margaret M Johnson’s newest book “Teatime in Ireland” on Amazon or purchase a signed copy on her website.

* Originally published in January 2020, updated in 2023.

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It’s not just you, things really have gotten weird out there. Thanks to social media, political gridlock, pandemic lockdowns, and our very halting return to normality, we are all a bit on edge these days.

So when I went to see Colin Quinn’s new show “Small Talk” off Broadway, I was expecting to laugh about it – and I certainly did – but I did not expect to be moved and in a real sense helped by the sight of someone else confronting the same modern disconnects that I am myself.

“I mean, I feel like it’s fake, like almost like everybody’s kind of living like an advertising campaign to themselves, rather than being themselves,” Quinn, 63, tells IrishCentral.

“But I feel like the fun was drained away long before this. I feel like COVID is just a symptom. There’s something that’s very artificial about everything and everybody right now and one thing that’s really changed here is small talk.”

(Quinn has called his new off-Broadway show “Small Talk” to make that point).

“I feel like people have lost the skill of it, and how important it is in their life,” he says.

On both the left and the right these days, there are legions of angry inquisitors ready to police the political boundaries and prevent all dissent, but in the process, they suck so much of the humor, empathy, and fun out of our daily social lives, Quinn believes.

Why does he think this has happened, I ask.

“I don’t know. But there’s something strange going on. I think if you put in the position of benign dictator for a couple of years I believe I can get to the bottom of it, after much spilled blood of course, but this is how it has to be.”

This is the kind of crack that enrages many of his unaware followers online, who can’t hear his obvious irony because sadly they live in a world where it no longer exists. Does he believe there’s a new joyless new kind of inquisition going on? Do we now live in a world where you have to adopt all the new orthodoxies or screw you, you’re canceled?

“Absolutely. And it’s really a constant thing. I just put a new thing in the show. The only people that are left to speak honestly now are the stupid people.”

Is this kind of big cultural shift making his job harder, I ask. Part of the job of the comedian is to go to those places of tension and unease and sort of jump up and down on them after all. But there’s also a sense now of why bother, the American Empire is already over he says in his show. He actually says onstage that the Empire has fallen, is that what he believes?

“Yeah, and it doesn’t matter. I mean who the hell wants to be the Empire? There’s a lot of pressure to be the Empire. We’re so used to thinking like, we gotta be number one. I mean, if we’re not now, and won’t be in the future, who cares? Once you’re number one, everybody just keeps asking you for sh-t? So in some ways, it’s better not to be number one.”

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Colin Quinn back on stage in “Small Talk.”

When you’re looking out at your audience each night, they’re all wearing masks now, because of the situation that we’re still in, does that play into what you’re doing on stage?

“Well, I mean, I don’t really feel like it affects me as much as it probably should. I’m still in the same delusional state that I always was about dying. At first I was like, ‘Oh, sh-t, this is serious,’ but it didn’t take long for that to dissipate, you know? I guess I thought for a week or two when it started that it was going to transcend petty politics and all that kind of stuff. But they came right back amazingly quickly.”

In the show, Quinn hilariously reflects on what happened after he had a heart attack in 2018. In particular, he recalls, with deep embarrassment, what he said when it struck. Here’s a clue, it was the m-word that rhymes with trucker.

“I really should have memorized like a Yeats poem or something a little more profound,” he deadpans. 

If anxiety is the Irish lifeblood – and in many ways that’s undeniable – being funny in the face of the worst is too. Irish people are naturally gifted in the art of small talk and being funny in almost any situation because they remember what it’s for, Quinn says.

“Personally I think I’ll never be as funny as an Irish-born 19-year-old girl. I was at a hotel in Dublin, my wife and I this year, and I walked into the hotel restaurant. And some young girl was behind the counter, just 19 years old, just waiting there and I go, ‘I want the finest table in this place.’ And she replies instantly, ‘You deserve no less.’ And then I go, ‘my wife will be joining me,’ and she replies, ‘and she’s a lucky woman.’ Irish people have not forgotten the art of how to talk to people, or how to be funny, the way the world has.”

After growing up in Ireland, the women you meet elsewhere don’t always seem as vivid, I say.

“Oh definitely, my mother and her sisters all had dark red hair. And when they’d get together all you’d see was dark red hair. And it was just very animated, very verbal, and very forthright, like they said what was on their mind, you know?”

In Ireland small talk is still a big thing, I explain. It’s considered an important social skill, it’s also considered egregiously rude if you won’t talk to anyone. It’s actually one of the worst things that can be said about someone. Because what’s behind that aloofness it is the failure to connect. And that’s what’s happening almost everywhere else nowadays, right? 

“And if you don’t connect, you’re also not acknowledging that you’re equal. And as we both know, for the Irish there’s nothing worse than somebody who thinks they’re better than somebody else. And that’s what small talk does, it says we’re equal.”

What makes his show Irish, I ask.

“A true Irish show should make you feel laugh and then feel horrible,” he replies, with the kind of deadpan that can only come from within the tribe itself.

What else makes you Irish? “Well as a true person of Irish extraction, I don’t like compliments. When an Irish woman is complimented by her husband for being beautiful, her response is usually to tell him to shut up.”

“Small Talk” by Colin Quinn is now playing at the Lucille Lortel theatre off-Broadway. For tickets visit: colinquinnshow.com

St. Brigid’s Day, observed this year on Monday, February 6, is Ireland’s newest national holiday following Herstory’s successful three-year campaign.

Herstory is leading Ireland’s St. Brigid’s Day 2023 celebrations with a number of events, including its Festival of Light in several locations across Ireland, the new RTÉ documentary “Finding Brigid,” and the traveling Peace Heroines exhibition.

Herstory Festival of Light 2023

Herstory’s St. Brigid’s Day Festival of Light will illuminate iconic landmarks across Ireland with beautiful art of Brigid and women from all walks of life.

The illuminations feature art from Herstory’s open call, inviting artists to be inspired by Brigid – goddess and saint – and the modern women who share her passions as environmentalist, feminist, Pride icon, healer, pioneer, human rights activist, goddess of the arts, alchemist, and wisdom weaver. Art was submitted from the island of Ireland and internationally from Iran, Kazakhstan, France, Brazil, Germany, and more.

The illuminations will be animated with live performances by fire-dancers, musicians, and storytellers. All events are free and open to the public. The full programme is available here on Herstory.ie.

This weekend #Herstory starts the national #StBrigidsDay #Imbolc celebrations with a spectacular Festival of Light across Ireland, illuminating iconic landmarks with beautiful art of Brigid and women from all walks of life. pic.twitter.com/lKIoBaoEU9

— HerstoryIreland (@HerstoryIreland) January 25, 2023

Herstory Festival of Light 2023 schedule

Galway City – Friday, January 27

• 5:30 – 7 pm: Lynch’s Castle
• 7:30 – 8:45 pm: St. Nicholas’ Church
• 9.00 -10 pm: Galway City Museum
• 10:30pm – 12:00 am: Pálás Cinema

The Galway light show is funded by Galway City Council Creative Ireland Programme, with curation by Herstory in partnership with Galway City Arts Office.

Roscommon – Saturday, January 28

Venue: National Famine Museum, Strokestown House 

• 3 pm: Imbolc Visual Arts Exhibition opening
• 4 – 5:30 pm: Herstory Salon
• 5:30 – 9 pm: Herstory Light Show 
• 6:30 pm: Shadow Puppet show

This event is one of many in Roscommon’s new Brigid’s Awakening Festival on January 28 – February 5. Roscommon is going for the world record for the biggest St. Brigid’s cross. Funded by Roscommon County Council Council Creative Ireland Programme.

Kildare – Tuesday, January 31 (St. Brigid’s Eve)

• 5:30 – 10 pm: Potato Market Naas 
• 5:30 – 6:30 pm: Wonderful Barn, Leixlip 
• 7:30 – 8:30 pm: Maynooth Castle
• 10 – 11:30 pm: Athy Library

Kildare – Wednesday, February 1 (St. Brigid’s Day)

• 5:30 – 9 pm: Potato Market Naas

The Herstory Light Show in Kildare is part of the fantastic Brigid 1500 Festival, funded by Kildare County Council Council Creative Ireland Programme.

Finding Brigid

Herstory’s Melanie Lynch and Laura Murphy join “Derry Girls” star Siobhán McSweeney as she gathers a “mnásome” in a stone circle in Galway in her quest for the Real Brigid. Melanie and Laura candidly reveal their motivation behind the Herstory campaign and their mission to make St Brigid’s Day a national holiday.

Tune in to watch RTÉ’s epic new documentary “Finding Brigid” on Tuesday, January 31 on RTÉ One at 10:15 pm.

Good news for Siobhán McSweeney fans (which is basically all of us right?!)

As Ireland prepares to celebrate its first public holiday dedicated to a woman, @siobhni is going in search of the real Brigid for a new documentary on RTÉ One,#FindingBrigid. Airs Tuesday 31st January. pic.twitter.com/HGldHbSg0p

— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) January 19, 2023

Peace Heroines

In the healing spirit of Brigid, Herstory’s new Peace Heroines exhibition is highlighting the pivotal role of women in the Northern Ireland peace process, as we build up to the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 2023. Their story is a key United Nations case study.

Finally, the peace women are getting the spotlight and recognition they deserve. As Head of NI Civil Service Jayne Brady said, “Your day in the sun is long overdue.”

The Peace Heroines exhibition is on show at the Derry Tower Museum from January 13 – March 24. Internationally, the exhibition will be showcased at the Irish Embassy in London on St. Brigid’s Day, February 1, and at US Congress on February 8 before it travels to the United Nations HQ in New York from March 27 – April 7.

#PeaceHeroines is now in Derry!

We were delighted to attend the launch at Derry Tower Museum today w/ some of the peace heroines ftd in the exhibition. Thank you to Derry Tower Museum for hosting it & to Below The Radar who’re filming a mini doc for the @bbc’s The One Show! pic.twitter.com/YdqlMM4XcT

— HerstoryIreland (@HerstoryIreland) January 13, 2023

The Real Brigid

Melanie Lynch, Founder of Herstory, says: “I’m a big fan of both the Goddess and Saint Brigid. The Goddess Brigid is a reawakening of ancient Ireland and an invitation to return to our ancestor’s deep reverence for nature and in the words of John Moriarty, ‘remember how to walk beautifully on the earth again.’

“We love the Saint, as a true representation of the real Christianity: compassionate, kind, and a formidable activist for the poor, animals, and nature, long before the climate crisis. The fact that she was a bishop and co-founded a double monastery in Kildare where men and women practised equally, gives us key insight into the early Celtic Christian Church, which was evidently more advanced and progressive than today’s Roman Catholic Church. Monks recorded in the Annals that she shared her bed with a woman, her beloved Darlughdach, so it was wonderful to see her return as a Pride icon for the historic Marriage Equality Referendum.

“In many ways, Ireland is still catching up with the trailblazing Brigid.”

Herstory is every woman’s story and we hope this landmark moment for Mná na hÉireann inspires our diaspora and other countries to join Ireland in celebrating women and girls as we work towards equality for all. On the first day of Spring let’s come together in the spirit of the Celtic tradition to plant new seeds for our shared future and co-create a healthy Mother Earth.

Given the whiff of scandal that permeated the corridors of power in Dublin these last couple of weeks, Irish politicians could do worse than to read Luke 16:10: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

Barely a week back in office and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s administration is mired in controversy, with one junior minister having to resign and another senior minister fighting for his political life. 

In the scale of things, the issues involved are hardly earth shattering but the effect has been to damage reputations and threaten government stability. Not the new beginning that Varadkar would have wished for.

Damien English, minister of state for employment affairs, business and retail, really had no option other than to resign once it became clear that he had made an untrue declaration on a planning application 14 years ago. On The Ditch broke the story reporting that the Fine Gael TD failed to disclose that he owned a bungalow when applying to Meath County Council for permission to build a new home. 

This omission allowed him to get permission to build a house in an area where the council only granted permission to local residents who didn’t already own a house, and who could prove they had a housing need.

His actions in breaching regulations were unethical, the question as to whether they were illegal resting with Meath County Council. As soon as the story broke it was clear his position was untenable, and without political support from the Taoiseach, he promptly resigned. 

I have informed the Taoiseach last night of my decision to resign as Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Yesterday in an online article, questions were raised about my planning application from 14 years ago. I reviewed this application,

— Damien English TD (@Damien_English) January 12, 2023

Some apologists for English pointed out his popularity across the political spectrum and proposed the “cute hoor” defense. This is a uniquely Irish concept where those that manipulate laws or regulations are given a begrudging respect. No doubt there were plenty of cute hoors who lied on planning applications in order to game the system, but the vast majority of people did not and do not. 

While English lost a seat in government and also suffered serious reputational damage, he got to retain his 2,800 square-foot bungalow as the statute of limitations to seek demolition of an unauthorized structure has passed. Only he can decide whether the price he ultimately had to pay for the home was worth it.

Then, just as the government was recovering from that resignation came a second bombshell involving Paschal Donohoe, the minister for public expenditure. He has had to apologize and submit an amended financial statement to SIPO, the political ethics watchdog, after it was disclosed that he did not correctly account for expenses paid during his election campaign in 2016. A complaint against him has been submitted to SIPO.

The issue involved the putting up of posters during that year’s general election. Donohoe did not record the payments made to workers and the cost of the use of a friend’s company van as he was required to do. 

His subsequent valuation of both of these elements once they had been identified as requiring disclosure led to the happy coincidence that the amount was, by a whisker, within allowable legal limits. To howls of derision in the Dáil, opposition TD Roisin Shortall mocked the calculations as the work of “a minister for finance who can’t keep track of his election donations and expenses and who was relying on mate’s rates.” 

It was a telling intervention and turned the spotlight of the story away from posters and toward Donohoe’s mate who helped out with the van and manpower. It turns out that person, Michael Stone, founded and runs an engineering company, Designer Group, which has 750 employees and a turnover of €170 million.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on anyone’s part in this relationship, but the media has highlighted that companies Stone is associated with received €8.7 million in government payments over six years. He was also appointed to the board of the Land Development Agency. 

This had proved to be hugely embarrassing for a minister who has been characterised as “Mister dot your i’s and cross your t’s.” The very antithesis of the cute hoor.

Meticulous and detailed orientated by nature, Donohoe clearly failed to read the small print in his election returns. He also ignored this problem when it was first brought to his attention in 2017 and failed to deal with it satisfactorily when he made a Dáil statement last week. At the time of writing, a further public statement is awaited this week. 

While this is hardly a resigning offense, it will rumble on and erode confidence in the government. Donohoe is too close to the center of power to be thrown under a bus, and in truth, there is no real demand for this to happen. His presidency of the European group of finance ministers, the Eurogroup, puts Ireland at the center of EU monetary policy, and to relinquish it would be a disproportionate price to pay for his negligence.

What the controversies have highlighted is the major shortcomings in our ethics legislation, and the fact that SIPO lacks real clout. This is no surprise as the ethics body itself last year found that 49 recommendations it had made to tighten up Ireland’s electoral law and improve the transparency and accountability in Irish politics were awaiting government action. 

These included its top recommendation that powers should be given to SIPO to appoint an officer to initiate investigations as opposed to having to wait for a complaint to be made. Other recommendations also waiting for action included a call to introduce a code of conduct for public servants and members of state boards, and a demand that liabilities or debts should be disclosed as material matters in the annual register of interests by elected members.

So it now falls to the minister with responsibility to take action to strengthen Ireland’s electoral laws. The only problem with that? The person responsible is Paschal Donohoe.

He has rightly recused himself from all involvement in decisions relating to SIPO until the complaint against him is dealt with as it would never do for a poacher to become gamekeeper.

Donohoe’s harshest critics are in Sinn Féin, a party that has flirted with ethics legislation in the past. Perhaps an additional biblical reading might be appropriate for them, John 8:7: “Let he or she who is without sin cast the first stone.”

*This column first appeared in the January 25 edition of the weekly Irish Voice newspaper, sister publication to IrishCentral. Michael O’Dowd is brothers with Niall O’Dowd, founder of the Irish Voice and IrishCentral.

When FDNY firefighter William Moon died after a tragic accident at work last month his organs were donated to five recipients in dire need, among them fellow FDNY member Patrick Reynolds, son of Irish immigrants, who received Moon’s liver.  He talks to the Irish Voice about his disease and profound gratitude to the Moon family.

Retired New York City Fire Department (FDNY) captain Patrick Reynolds never knew firefighter William “Billy” Moon, 47, whose life was tragically cut short after a training accident on December 12 at his Brooklyn firehouse.  But Moon’s name will forever be revered by Reynolds, who received a life-saving liver transplant from the fallen FDNY hero just before Christmas. 

“My wife calls it a Christmas miracle.  We are so, so grateful to the Moon family,” Reynolds, 63, the son of immigrants from counties Kerry and Westmeath, told the Irish Voice during an interview from his home in East Northport, Long Island, where he is convalescing after a seven-hour surgery that he wasn’t expecting at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on December 20.

Reynolds retired from the FDNY in 2016 after serving 31 years; many of his days after 9-11 were spent at Ground Zero.  He and his wife Bridget, whose parents emigrated from counties Cavan and Mayo, have two grown children, Aileen and Brian.  Lurking in the background for several years was the genetic liver illness Reynolds was diagnosed with after retirement.

His Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency was pegged by a gastroenterologist who surmised that the cirrhosis showing up on scans, coupled with Reynolds’ shortness of breath, could be genetic instead of 9-11-related.  A test confirmed the doctor’s hunch, and Bridget Reynolds did some research which led the couple to Mount Sinai and its Alpha-1 specialists.

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Patrick Reynolds, interviewed by station WCBS last week.

Life didn’t demonstrably change for Reynolds after the diagnosis.  “I was pretty active right up until the surgery.  We were traveling and skiing and playing tennis. I was feeling pretty good but always knowing that the disease would eventually get worse,” he said.

“The mental element was tough for me and my family. You start worrying that maybe one day you could be too sick to get a transplant.”

One year ago, Reynolds was placed on the national transplant list which is overflowing with hopefuls in need of organs, but not nearly enough supply.  Once Reynolds’ case became known many members of the FDNY, and some kind-hearted strangers, offered themselves as living donors where they would give a lobe of their liver for transplant, but none of those who did preliminary testing proved to be a match.

December 19 was an ordinary pre-Christmas day for Reynolds, until a 4 p.m. phone call that changed the trajectory of his life.  It was from Mount Sinai saying that a liver was ready for donation and that Reynolds should make his way to the hospital ASAP.

“We got there in 90 minutes. The next morning at 7 a.m. I was on the operating table,” he says.

Firefighter Moon’s liver was made available to Reynolds through a direct donation, in which the donor’s family chooses who should receive an organ.  Moon’s widow Kristina proceeded with the donation of his liver, heart, kidneys and lungs which saved five people – Reynolds, a fellow retired FDNY Lieutenant Terrance Jordan, who was in need of lungs, and three patients residing outside of New York. 

Reynolds spent eight days at Mount Sinai and says he’s feeling fine.  There have been minimal side effects, and he’s taking a number of medicines to combat his body possibly rejecting its new liver. 

“People say to me that I look so much better now. I guess I didn’t realize that I wasn’t looking good,” Reynolds says.

Activity, for now, has been minimal, and for three months he and his wife are isolating as much as possible.  His future prognosis is excellent.

“They have pretty high success rates with liver transplants.  I’ll be on some sort of anti-rejection medicine for the rest of my life but that is fine.  Ideally, once you get past a year you’re in a comfortable position.  Every month I should be feeling better and better.”

As it happens, Alpha-1 is an ailment that is common among descendants of northern Europe.  “That’s one of the things that we discovered,” Reynolds says.  “There’s an Alpha-1 program in Dublin.”

Alpha-1 Foundation Ireland was founded in 2001 and is based out of Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital.  Its website (alpha1.ie) reports that Alpha-1, “after cystic fibrosis, is the commonest genetic disorder in Ireland.  It severely affects more than 15,000 people, with another 250,000 carriers also at risk of lung and liver disease on the island of Ireland.”   

The foundation provides free blood testing for the condition as part of a national screening program funded by the Irish Health Service Executive “to reduce the underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis of Alpha-1. This targeted detection program is the only national screening program for Alpha-1 in the world.”

Patrick and Bridget Reynolds are looking forward to returning to Ireland.  Childhood visits to his parent’s homeland were regular when Patrick grew up in the Yorkville section of Manhattan.  He and Bridget, a Bronx native who played the bagpipes at Manhattan College, met at a supermarket where they both used to work.  

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Patrick and Bridget Reynolds with their daughter Aileen in Ireland.

“We brought our kids to Ireland in 2009.  My wife and I have been back two times since. I don’t have too many cousins there as many of them left for England. But we love going back,” he adds.

The home where his mother was raised has been turned into a tourist attraction in Kerry.  Molly Gallivan’s Cottage and Traditional Farm, in the village of Bonane just outside of Kenmare, was purchased by a family who restored it to how it was in Molly’s time back in the 1840s.

“I stayed there as a child and loved it.  My aunt used to live nearby. Someone bought it and I’m sure there’s some embellishment in the story,” he laughs. 

Also planned for the future is a meeting with Kristina Moon so the Reynolds family can share their appreciation for her husband’s selfless act.  Reynolds has not yet spoken to Kristina, who he calls a “pillar of strength” for an address she gave to members of the FDNY, urging them to become organ donors in the event of a tragedy.

“It brought me great peace to know that there are people who are able to spend their holiday with family and friends because of Billy’s gifts,” Moon said.