In the 70’ s I was pretty Eurocentric and never imagined that on March 2nd 1972 I’d be bidding farewell to the land of my youth forever. As a member of the Burren Flora trio I had joined that long line of emigrants who followed the work. Harpist Jackie Dolan from Nenagh , Alice Foy from Limerick and I from Ardee. We were early alums of the Shannon Castle Singers , joining in 1966 . Our 4 seasons at Dunguaire Castle in Kinvara at the outset of Irish cultural tourism gave us an annual Winter leave break. We worked May to October. We went on holidays, harp in toe , to Majorca and were hired by the Tago Mago Club. It was a major night spot on the island and showcased the owners, Los Valldemosa, local Majorcan traditional flamenco artists, singers , musicians and headliners like Sandy Shaw , Tom Jones and Cilla Black. Additionally for 5 months The Burren Flora. When we went on stage at 11pm we were back lit with a movie montage of chocolate box Irish mountains , lakes and streams.
We left the castles in 1970 to seek our uncertain fortunes in the wider world of professional entertainment. After Majorca our first job was outside Boston, a jump from The Embankment in Tallaght to an Irish Pub in Norwood Massachusetts.
I was recently reminded of our 1972 arrival in America, when I heard of Shay Healy’s sad demise and his cheerleadering appearance when we landed at Logan Airport. He was one gem of a welcome committee. We were to join a stable of Irish , Welsh and Scottish performers of whom he was one. Not alone did he pick us up , his wife Dymphna and son Oisín shared their small 2 bedroom apartment with us , until ours was ready. On the way to Norwood, Shay gave us a running commentary and hilarious primer on what to expect.
What kind of repertoire- we nervously asked.
3 Dunguaire/ Bunratty Castle refugees , with dark waist length hair , chiffon dresses and a harp.
Oh ! Forget The The Last Rose Of Summer warned Shay.
You’ll die an untimely death with Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms or Down By The Sally Gardens - this is straight on Wild Colonial Boy Territory , said Shay.
You’ll be eaten alive if you don’t give them Danny Boy in every set - 4 at 45 minutes apiece per night. With Shay’s support and encouragement we adapted and gave them what they wanted including The Wild Colonial
Boy. Danny Boy not so much.
Then it seemed overnight our three months were over and I stayed behind and ran off with a man fixing black smoldering eyes on me from his stool at the bar. Alice and Jackie returned to a Summer gig at the -pre Bono - Clarence Hotel.
The dark eyed future husband was there every night and in between sets kept up a “ could I freshen your drinks girls “ offer. There was no getting away from him , or so I thought , until later , married for 13 years I divorced him. I have a lovely son from that marriage. I bounced around for a few years in academically oriented Amherst Ma looking for something that could give the same cultural bandwidth as my life in Ireland. That was the beginning my one woman Irish Embassy in Western Massachusetts.
Music and a determined mission to keep what I knew of myself alive , now without a trio . I was a loose Celtic canon in the tightly wound world of the Puritan. I invited about 200 people to Boxing Day every year and force fed them plum pudding , Irish poetry , jigs and reels and continued to pine for Ireland, the ballads and the craic.
I felt a religious zeal to lead Western Massachusetts upward and onward out of Celtic Siberia. Entirely missing the point that indeed in this enlightened place there were plenty of folk who not alone knew who Yeats was but had read Ulysses.
I was lonely , sad and always alert -not so much for the echo of my own voice in my head - but for the sound of a another’s like mine with an Irish accent. I shocked myself by becoming something of a professional Irish woman. In Dublin I would have sneered at the future me
My American husband had financial obligations to his widowed mother. I knew from the get go if I flew the marital coop I would need to be able to fully support myself.
My escape route came when I stumbled on an idea , which woke me up in the middle of the night. I sat up in bed with a retro vintage design fully formed in my head. White Victorian dresses were all the rage in the secondary wedding market. With nothing but gut instinct I rode that wave and redesigned a romantic Edwardian blouse and skirt outfit. Here was a green connection , upcycling damaged and stained Irish damask tablecloths. I had no background in design but loved clothes and a desire to express myself in some form , whatever that could be.
A lucky break landed my blouses and me on to The Gazebo , a Madison Ave boutique in NY. I was off and running. So began my era as a dress and wedding gown designer. The business had a twenty five year span and was my escape route. I sourced skilled sewers and I finally came to understand the American work ethic. The pay off , an honest hour’s work for an honest hour’s pay and a constant stream of orders from all over the country. It became a viable cottage industry with skilled brilliant women as sewers . Most of them with young children sewing at home. They could have worked for Georgio Armani but miraculously they worked for me. I was finally able to support myself and my son , doing something I loved which gave me a connection to Ireland. I made frequent trips back to my family in Ardee to source linen and antique Irish lace. The history of the fabric and the Irish crochet I used stretching back to Famine Relief work and damask from the Northern Ireland Linen industry. It inspired a sense of continuity and integrity in the process and product .
Additionally America gave me a divorce. I became a citizen when I felt enough pride and understanding of my adopted land to take that step. I kept singing as I sewed bridal
veils. My design business became a fully
functioning boutique in Northampton Ma. When the boutique market stalled, I sold the business in 1999.
In 1998 with the encouragement of my former Burren Flora Alum , Alice Foy Duffy I went to the Summer Harp School , Cairde na Cruite in Termonfeckin. Beginning the next stage of my Hibernian American odyssey.
I started to play the harp. With poetry in my veins , melodies emerged from the strings. The WB Yeats poem , The Fiddler Of Dooney became a song and the beginning of a stage musical inspired by Marian Broderick’s book - Wild Irish Women. Essays about the wild wonders of Irish women Some notorious, famous - like Maude Gonne or partially erased from history like 1916 heroine Elizabeth O Farrell , she who was recently resurrected with the unveiling of a portrait in her honor.
My bothers and I own a pastel portrait of Sarah Curren. Marian borrowed it for her book. After reading the book and picking 7 other characters among them my own ancestor Grace O’Malley and of course Sarah . I might been “far from the land “ but the land was never far from me as I wrote a new melody for the famous Thomas Moore poem,
She Is Far From The Land Where Her Young Hero Sleeps
Would anyone in Western Ma really care about the tragic Robert Emmet , his speech from the dock and the early demise of the heartbroken Sarah ?
Would people come to a show written by an ex dress designer, neophyte composer about obscure distant and forgotten Irish women ?
My fear of heathen Hibernophobes was unfounded. They came , they listened , they applauded. We filled multiple smaller venues as we tested audiences , ourselves , the music , the stories of Veronica Guerin , Queen Maeve , Lady Jane Wilde and set sail for The Dundalk Drama Festival in 2004 playing twice to a full house of 350. We were the Wilde Irish Women from Western Massachusetts.
With more than a few good men.
Followed in 2006 by the musical Women In Arms , a play about Deirdre, Nessa , Macha and Maeve The Ulster Cycle femmes fatales written by Mary Elizabeth Burke Sheridan. I was nominated for the Adjudicator’s award for the score.
My present Jewish husband Howard said helpfully- try the not so obscure, how about the Wilde Irish Women of James Joyce.
OK said I , I’m right on it. The production completed in 2014 worked well for Bloomsday that year and on to the next in 2016 The Commemoration of The 1916 Rising.
As I trolled my contacts for O’Neills , Murphys Mc Mahons Ryans and OConnors , for an Irish audience to fill The Hawks and Reed in Greenfield , I found more Rothenburgs , Schoenbergs, Greenbachers and Steinhausers and on the night we opened, thanking the audience for showing up realized all my best Irish friends were Jews.
Now on to Margaret Maher and the Celtification of Emily Dickinson. Margaret a maid from Tipperary saved many of her mistress’s poems from the flames. The one woman Embassy is still running on Irish gas…… stay tuned.