Irish Music

When Mick Moloney was a boy growing up in Ireland's County Limerick, he would watch for hours as the three blind Dunne brothers played music outside a church. No one knew their first names. "We called them the 'three blind mice,"' Moloney, now 47, remembers. He was especially fascinated by the one who played banjo - not with a pick but a thimble. Such tales of his homeland both enliven and illuminate Moloney's life - and his life's work. He, too, became a banjo player (albeit without the thimble)

We travel for many reasons, sometimes for a song. That's what took me in May to a hillside overlooking a country cottage near Armagh, Northern Ireland. Over hay wagon-wide farm roads, I tooled for hours in a little rental car on an improbable ride to the ancestral home of a musical hero, Tommy Makem. He died in 2007 and may not be Ireland's top dog in music anymore, or even remembered in America. But the Irish still call him "the godfather of Irish music. " And Makem was once so hot in America that at the 1961 Newport Folk Festival, they named him the most promising newcomer on the American folk scene.

The Circlewood Coffee House will continue its series of folk-music performances with an April 19 concert of Irish music by the Wood's Tea Company, starting at 8 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of the Unitarian Church of Cherry Hill on 401 N. Kings Highway. The Coffee House is "going on its second year" of presenting folk-music shows, said Laurie McCarthy Bates, who does publicity for the all-volunteer group. "We're not trying to make a profit," although group members wouldn't mind if they did, Bates said.

The songs that many Americans may be singing today in celebration of St. Patrick's Day might be more Irish-American than Irish, say several local musicians who themselves play different varieties of Irish music. "It's certainly Irish-American," Seamus Egan of Lansdowne said of the songs and music often associated with St. Patrick's Day. "It promotes a very romantic view of Ireland. It's not what people would be playing a hundred years ago sitting around the fire," said Egan, who plays the Uilleann pipes, flute, banjo, mandolin and tin whistle with his sisters and with the band The Green Fields of America.

When Dennis Gormley and Kathy DeAngelo pick up a tin whistle and fiddle, it's easier to believe their house is settled in the rocky fields of Connemara than on a development street a short walk from the Echelon Mall. Gormley and DeAngelo have been husband and wife since 1979 and McDermott's Handy, an Irish-music playing duo, since 1978, four years after they started playing together off and on. As McDermott's Handy, the couple perform a wide range of Irish folk music at fairs, festivals, local libraries, coffeehouses, private functions and other locations.

On the one hand, it's a long journey from the Lobby Bar in Cork, Ireland, to O'Friel's Irish Pub here. On the other, it's really not. At a show sponsored by the Green Willow Folk Club on a recent Monday evening, audience members packed the pub's 130-seat listening room, quaffing pints of Guinness stout and Harp lager while savoring the spirited sound of Nomos, a nine-year-old quartet that plays its hometown Lobby Bar when it's not touring....

Ruben Blades is known as one of the greatest living salseros - he's won four Grammys - but he's always been about more than that. He has run for president of his native Panama and has a master's degree in international law from Harvard. He has acted in a dozen films and has recorded an album in English (one of his few missteps, actually). Indeed, he's one of the most socially conscious, thought-provoking lyricists in the Latin music world. And he has explored music that has taken him in directions far from the Afro-Latin sounds that made him an international star.

When the Ely family take part next weekend in the All-Ireland Music Festival, winning a medal won't be the point. It will be all about the music - and the tradition. "We're going for the fun of it, to hear the music and meet other musicians," Marie Ely said. "Competing is not our mind-set. " Ely, her daughter, Katie, and her son, Josh, play traditional Irish music on traditional Irish instruments. Each qualified for the competition in Ireland by winning medals at the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh (pronounced flay)

Settling in for an evening of Blackthorn is like spending a day motoring across the Irish countryside. The band's musical vista comprises all the moodiness of Ireland's physical terrain - soft and dreamy one moment, sprightly and green the next, craggy, dark and somber up around the bend. It is that quality, perhaps, that makes Blackthorn an area favorite with audiences of all ages and persuasions. The band stays true to the finer elements of the Irish tradition and steers clear of the bland and sentimental.

Wearing a hat bedecked with shamrocks, Russell Sweeney of Highspire, left, sold his hand-made walking sticks at the second annual Irish Festival at St. Michael's Church last weekend. Visitors were offered Irish music, games, arts and crafts, and lots of food at the church's pavilion. At right, Kathleen Feeney, 8, of the Timoney Irish Dancers, takes Anthony Hudgins, 5, of Jeffersonville, for a spin on the stage.

We travel for many reasons, sometimes for a song. That's what took me in May to a hillside overlooking a country cottage near Armagh, Northern Ireland. Over hay wagon-wide farm roads, I tooled for hours in a little rental car on an improbable ride to the ancestral home of a musical hero, Tommy Makem. He died in 2007 and may not be Ireland's top dog in music anymore, or even remembered in America. But the Irish still call him "the godfather of Irish music. " And Makem was once so hot in America that at the 1961 Newport Folk Festival, they named him the most promising newcomer on the American folk scene.

'It's all related," says Paddy Moloney. He's cofounder and heart of the Chieftains, the iconic - heck, atavistic - Irish band that jigs through town for a céilidh on Friday at the Kimmel Center. It's their 50th anniversary world tour, and in that half-century, they have dedicated themselves to playing with and for everyone and anyone around the world, discovering roots with many different kinds of music, from Dublin to Philadelphia to Africa to Oaxaca to China and back round.

A small piece of Lower Bucks County's popular culture was formally lost to nature Wednesday. The Valley Stream Inn, a popular restaurant known for its crab cakes, Sunday brunch, and scenic views of the Neshaminy Creek, now is set for demolition. The county commissioners approved the $230,000 purchase with federal funds to preserve the 3.5-acre low-lying tract as open space. The landmark, built in 1956, got flooded several times over the years but always reopened. It closed for good in September, after Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee flushed the creek over its banks twice in two weeks, said Bill Mitchell, executive director of the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Harry R. Kerr Jr., 65, of Coatesville, a salesman for several companies, coach, and college administrator, died of heart failure Thursday, Sept. 23, at home. Mr. Kerr played football and basketball for Sharon Hill High School and was on the football and basketball teams while attending the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and Millersville University. From 1968 to 1971, he served in the Army and was an intelligence specialist at Fort Hood in Texas. After his discharge, he earned a bachelor's degree in secondary education and a master's degree in English from West Chester University.

Thomas M. Moffit, 79, of Southwest Philadelphia, an accordionist, a bandleader, and host of an Irish music radio program, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Tuesday, May 11, at Mercy Philadelphia Hospital. For more than 30 years until retiring three years ago, Mr. Moffit led the Tommy Moffit Band, performing at Irish festivals and in clubs. On Sundays from 1974 to 2006, he hosted an Irish hour on WTMR-AM (800). He played traditional Irish music and shared information about events in the Irish community.

At the Philadelphia Flower Show, the crowd is snaking along the pathway through the Irish garden display, their eyes intently raking the underbrush as if engaged in an Easter egg hunt for adults. In a corner of the exhibit's colonnaded courtyard, largely unnoticed, Moya Brennan is singing a haunting rendition of "Down by the Salley Gardens," accompanied by a harpist and a fiddler. That she is drawing so little attention is remarkable. Imagine stumbling across Aretha Franklin singing "(You Make Me Feel Like)

Timothy Callanan, 56, of Fairless Hills, a fourth-generation stained-glass artisan, died of melanoma Sunday at home. Mr. Callanan designed, installed, and restored windows for businesses, synagogues, and churches including Girard College, Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel in Center City, St. Helena Roman Catholic Church in Blue Bell, and Augustus Lutheran Church in Trappe. "The stained-glass artist is painting with light. It's the only art that light doesn't reflect: It has to pierce it," Mr. Callanan told an Inquirer reporter in 1987.

From alt rock to R&B and jazz, these music venues will satisfy your appetite for good chow and sassy tunes. North by Northwest. 7165 Germantown Ave., 215-248-1000, www.nxnwphl.com . Eclectic mix of R&B, world music, gospel and more; the menu is New Southern comfort. Ortlieb's Jazzhaus. 847 N. 3rd St., 215-922-1035, ortliebsjazzhaus.com. Swingin' jazz every night; American cuisine with a taste of N'Awlins. Prime Rib. Radisson Plaza Hotel, 1701 Locust St., 215-772-1701, www.theprimerib.

When Frank Dalton booked the first traditional Irish music concert at the Coatesville Cultural Society in 2004, he was amazed that 50 people came. Dalton was so encouraged by the concert's success he started scheduling more professional Irish musicians. Hence, the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series was born. This Saturday's concert with Irish fiddler Maeve Donnelly and guitarist Tony McManus will be the 20th Irish concert Dalton has produced in Coatesville. "The quality of the performers are really top-notch," Dalton promises.