Wilde Irish Women

Three decades in New England hasn’t diluted Green eld resident Rosemary “Rosie” Caine’s thick

Irish accent, nor has it severed her strong connection to Gaelic culture.

Having moved  om Ardee, Ireland, in County Louth, to Massachusetts in 1972 to pursue a musical

career in America, Caine is still — in her own words — a “wild Irish woman.”

“They tried to beat me down with New England Puritanism, but I’m as wild as I ever was,” said

Caine, 74, at her home on Colrain Road in Green eld. She led the way into a music room where a

traditional Gaelic harp — which is Ireland’s national emblem — sat beside a piano. “Part of me is

still there,” she added.

Caine’s Irish heritage and her music will be on public display this weekend, Nov. 15 and 16, at Hawks

& Reed Performing Arts Center on Main Street in Green eld during a musical celebration of radical

ladies of Irish history. The performance will be a “best of” montage featuring musical vignettes

written by Caine, a professional Irish vocalist who also plays the harp. Every one of the songs —

which will be accompanied by theater — originally appeared in a past performance by Wilde Irish

Women, a local theatrical-music group that Caine founded in 2002 a �er reading “Wild Irish Women:

Extraordinary Lives  �om History” by Marian Broderick. The book pro les 71 Irishwomen, both

renowned and unknown, such as the love interest of Irish poet W.B. Yeats, Maud Gonne, an Englishborn

revolutionary of Irish descent who was moved to action by the plight of evicted people in the

Land Wars of the late 1800s.

“It was as if the title jumped up at me and said, ‘That’s a show,’ ” Caine remembered about the

group’s inception. Homemade soda bread sat on a counter in the kitchen — “The food of my

childhood,” she said. Irish art decorated the walls, including the cover of “Uylsses” by Irish novelist

James Joyce, the characters of which Caine memorialized in a 2014 production.

Notably, Wilde Irish Women’s inaugural performance, “Wilde Irish Women of Literature and

Legend,” which opened locally, was selected to perform at the Acting Irish International Theatre

Festival in Dundalk, Ireland, where Caine was nominated for the judicator’s award for the best score.

It featured musical “thumbnail sketches” of seven women including Queen Maeve of Connacht, a

legendary woman of Irish mythology who may have inspired the fairy Queen Mab found in William

Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”; and Sarah Curran, the love interest of Irish patriot Robert Emmet,

who famously declared at his execution in 1803, “When my country takes her place among the

nations of the Earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written.”

Among others in that  rst show were Lady Jane Wilde, mother of famed writer Oscar Wilde and a

revolutionist poet herself who published under the pen name “Speranza,” and Irish pirate queen

Grace O’Malley, who de ed the English crown for nearly four decades by plundering seafaring ships.

In one account, a Turkish corsair is said to have attacked O’Malley’s ship the day a �er she gave birth

to a son. According to lore, she burst  �om her room armed with two blunderbusses and fought o �

the attacker.

Inspired by Irish folklore

This weekend’s show will be the   rst time Wilde Irish Women has performed since 2016, when the

group produced “1916,” commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, which was one

of the most important events in Irish 20th-century history. An armed con  ict that ended in tragedy,

it was the spark for Ireland’s eventual independence  �om Britian.

Caine, who didn’t start writing music or playing the harp until she was in her 50s, says she draws

 �om folklore and Irish poetry for inspiration, sometimes setting them to music without changing

the words.

While writing the   rst musical, “It was as if the melodies came out of the strings — it didn’t have

anything to do with me,” she said. This organic songwriting process at one point prompted her to

reach out to the family of W.B. Yeats. A �er “Wilde Irish Women of Literature and Legend” — which

featured lyrics by the Irish poet set to Caine’s music — was selected for the international theater

festival, Caine says she had to call them to ask for copyright permission because the poem wasn’t in 

the public domain.

“I remember sitting down on a chair thinking I should do a shot of brandy — do I have the guts, the

balls, to call up the son of Yeats?” she recalled. “I actually did it, with a beating heart.”

In each of Wilde Irish Women’s past   ve performances, Caine says the shows have followed a strong

narrative path coalescing with theatrical performances. This time, however, because each song has

been selected rather than created, the music itself will be the show’s central theme. Threading the

score together will be a dramatic monologue by Michael Haley, of Conway, who is reprising his role

as Lady Jane Wilde. Originally, Caine says she cast Haley, a retired Hollywood assistant director who

played the umpire in “A League of Their Own,” as a way to challenge gender norms.

“Michael Haley swished into a fundraiser I was holding wearing a kilt,” Caine recalled. “I said, ‘That

man wouldn’t mind wearing a dress.’ He is the wildest of our Irish women.”

When asked if he’d take up the dress again for this weekend’s Wilde Irish Women revival, Caine says

Haley replied, “‘Yes. But I’ve gone up a bra size since then.’” This time, Haley’s performance is

assured to be “hilarious, just wonderful,” Caine said. Returning to the stage with Haley will be his

wife, Joan Haley, and actors Charlene Scott, Ann and Brooke Steinhauser, Moe McElliott, Stephanie

Carlson, Alannah Martineau, Sean McMahon and Matt Haas. Joining Caine, on the harp and piano,

will be multitalented musicians Chris Devine, Michael Morgan, Robin Pfoutz, Rob Terreden and

Lynn Lovell.

Keeping culture alive

For Caine, who performs in other area music groups including The Mother Plucker Trio, bringing

wild women to life through music isn’t about making money. “Naturally, we haven’t made a penny

off Wilde Irish Women,” she said. Instead, it’s a way to connect with Irish heritage and share her

culture with the Franklin County region at large — which is something she’s been doing for her

entire life, ever since dropping out of law school at University College of Dublin.

“I left in my final year and never regretted it,” Caine said. Instead of law, she performed with the 

signing group Burren Flora beginning in the 1960s, touring Ireland and Europe before coming to

America in her mid-20s.

“We jumped out of a larger group on the cusp of Irish cultural tourism,” she said, explaining that

Burren Flora, known as the “Shannon Castle Singers,” performed mostly “at castles in the west, in an

attempt to boost the tourism economy.”

When the group dissolved in Boston, “each went their separate ways,” Caine said. In the United

States, she met and married her husband, Howard Natenshon, a radiologist at Baystate Franklin

Medical Center in Green eld, and managed Rosemary Caine’s Dress Design & Bridal Studio, a

boutique in downtown Northampton, for a number of decades. She wasn’t involved professionally in

music fom then until she read Broderick’s book, beginning a musical-immersion process that

helped to “renew my identity.”

“My grandmother played the harp, but not during her era with me,” she said. But while Caine’s

grandmother didn’t play, she passed her musical legacy down in another way. One of Caine’s five

instruments, a McFall Harp built from bogwood in Belfast in 1885 (which, notably, was one of the first to incorporate key-change levers into its design), was previously owned by her grandmother.

“When I was a child, this harp had two rusted strings and woodworms,” she said, running her hands

over the smooth wood and remembering how it was kept in an upstairs bedroom. After her

grandmother died, Caine had the instrument refurbished as a keepsake.

“It’s a very important harp historically,” she said.

Since immigrating, Caine says she’s returned many times to Ireland, at one point studying the harp

at Cairde na Cruite (Friends of The Harp) in Termonfeckin, Ireland, with her daughter, Jennifer

Chibani.

Ireland is always close to her heart. But had she not left her homeland, Caine says she’s not sure if

Irish culture would have inspired her in the way that it has. Wilde Irish Women might never have

formed. These days, her focus on Irish heritage is as prominent as is her accent.

“There’s something about not taking it for granted — I’ve had to work to keep it alive and share it

with other people,” Caine said.

Andy Castillo, features editor at the Green eld Recorder, can be reached at acastillo@recorder.com.

How to connect

“Best of Rosemary Caine and Wilde Irish Women,” a musical celebrating radical ladies of history, will

open be performed at Hawks & Reed Nov. 15 and 16. Doors to Friday’s show will open at 7 p.m. with

a start time of 7:30. Saturday’s show will be a matinee, with doors opening at 2:30 p.m. and a start

time 30 minutes later. Admission is $18 in advance, $22 on the day of the show. Tickets can be

purchased at bit.ly/2pLwwwF (https://bit.ly/2pLwwwF). For more information on Wilde Irish

Women, visit the group’s Facebook page at facebook.com/wildeirishwomen.