IRISH WEEK - Hundreds of photos from the various events of Irish Week - the Parade, Festival, dinners, luncheons, etc., are linked on the Irish Heritage Club website. Show your support of Irish activities by making sure your membership is current!

 

CONAN WATCH - The Irish Week Proclamation Luncheon had a surprise drop-in guest in the form of Conan O'Brien who was in town promoting his Tonight Show on NBC - he takes over for Jay Leno on June 1. Conan shook hands, signed autographs, posed for pictures and mugged it up for the camera before heading on his way after about 30 minutes.

 

PARADE - Among the bands in this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade were The Marching Lumberjacks from Humboldt State College in California. In case you were wondering, the Banned (that's what they call themselves!) doesn't do that marching-in-step stuff - at least not intentionally! We loved them in Seattle's parade and hope to have them back again!

 

at Seattle's Irish Pioneer Cemetery

An open-air Mass, with hymns in the Irish language accompanied by traditional Irish musicians, will be celebrated at the Seattle area's Irish pioneer cemetery, St. Patrick Cemetery in Kent, at 10:30 am on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25. The Mass will serve to honor in a special way the Irish history of the graveyard as well as all who are buried there and all the Irish buried in cemeteries around Seattle. Established in 1880 by the Irish-born O'Connells, St. Patrick is located 1/2 mile east of I-5 on Orillia Rd at 204th Street, just east of Sea-Tac Airport. For details, click the photo above or email Mass@irishclub.org.

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1950s SEATTLE - The IHC website carries the translation from the Irish of part of a booklet written by the late Fr. John McGlynn that describes his time in Seattle in the 1950s. The original was written in Irish (Gaelic) and Mary Kelly has translated the chapters that describe his time in Seattle between 1949 and 1958. 
 

GAELIC HEADSTONE - An Irish language scholar who viewed a photo of that 1860s Headstone on Whidbey Island wrote that he had never seen anything like it in stone before. "The writer/carver who made this used medieval manuscript shorthand which went out of use as the Irish finally gained ready access to the printing press in the middle of the Nineteenth Century." The headstone was sculpted and engraved in Ireland before being erected on Whidbey Island in the 1860s.

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To former Seattleite Ann Gill who was recently married in Westport, Co. Mayo, to Niall Delaney from Carlow.

 

To Fr. Bill Treacy, the Seattle area's senior Irish-born priest who will shortly celebrate his 90th birthday. Best known for the hugely popular interfaith TV program, "Challenge", which ran on KOMO-TV from 1960-1974, Treacy and Rabbi Raphael Levine in 1967 founded Camp Brotherhood to foster harmony among different faiths and races. That's where Fr. Treacy's 90th birthday party is being held on June 7!
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PIPERLINK CONCERT - With their unique tone and rich complexity, the Irish Uilleann Pipes have had a profound influence on Ireland's musical heritage. Now, piping expert Seán Donnelly and two of the foremost pipers in the world, Tommy Keane and Gay McKeon, will be in Seattle on May 8 along with sean-nós singer Muireann NicAmhlaoibh, the first female member of the band Danu. The PIPERLINK Concert will also provide a chance to try your own hand with the pipes! Friday, May 8th, 8 pm, Woodshed Studios, 300 Fairview Avenue N., Seattle. Tickets $20 at www.irishpipersclub.org or call 206-784-8268.
 
'LÁ na GAEILGE' - A full day of Irish Language activities - for fluent speakers or absolute beginners - at Marylhurst University, 20 minutes south of Portland, on Saturday May 30, the Saturday after Memorial Day. Visit www.marylhurst.edu/irish for the details. 
 
TALBOT BREAKFAST - Matt Talbot Center's Annual Downtown Business Breakfast is Thursday, May 21, 7:30 am - 9 am, with UW Football Coach Steve Sarkisian as the Keynote Speaker. Free admission - contact 425-290-7839 or Talbot@irishclub.org.
 
MARATHON - Former Seattleite Conor Owens runs the Belfast marathon on Monday May 4 to raise funds for the Marie Curie Cancer Care in Belfast. After losing 35 pounds and swearing off alcohol (!), Conor feels ready for the challenge. To donate or for more information, visit www.justgiving.com. 
 
GAA TELECASTS - Starting this Sunday, May 3 at 8 am with Tipperary vs. Kilkenny in Hurling, all televised Gaelic Football and Hurling games in Ireland will be telecast live at Fadó Irish Pub, 1st and Columbia, downtown Seattle. Visit the Fadó website for weekly updates on teams, telecast times, annual or individual game fees, etc, or call 206-264-2700.

 

*  The As Gaeilge local conversational Irish-speaking group meets on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 7:30pm at Mosaic Coffee House in the Wallingford District. For information, contact james@banshee.com.
*  The 10th Annual Pacific Northwest Irish Dance Championships Feis will be held at the Seattle Airport Hilton on May 16-17.
*  An Irish Language Immersion Week offering credit and non-credit courses will be held July 11 - 18 in historic Butte, Montana. 
*  The Helena Hibernians, the Thomas Francis Meagher Division, plan to memorialize their namesake with a bronze monument at Fort Benton. They invite contributions to the project for which details are available at www.hibernian.org.

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Irish Day at the Races at Emerald Downs, Sunday, June 14. Free admission tickets for the whole family! Races@IrishClub.org.

 

IRISH COMMUNITY PICNIC - Sunday, July 19, St. Edward State Park in Kenmore. Free admission and all are welcome.

 

Irish Night at the Seattle Mariners, Wednesday, August 12, 7:10 pm, vs. Chicago White Sox. Reduced price tickets ($40 tickets for $25, $20 tickets for $11 - while they last) include a cap with the above design, Irish stepdancers and bagpipe music! Mariners.com/Irish. 

AREA CONCERTS / CÉILIS, ETC.

 *  In the last 12 months, as many as 50,000 immigrant workers are thought to have returned home from Ireland, mostly to Eastern Europe.
*  The Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin has over 100,000 tales, myths and legends on record, the largest collection of its kind in the world
*  The Irish government has announced a new honors system, called the "national presidential citizen awards", to recognize outstanding contributions made by individuals to Irish society.
*  The only portrait of Shakespeare that was painted in his lifetime was recently found after hanging for over 200 years in Newbridge House in Dublin where it was always believed to be a painting of Walter Raleigh.
*  Ireland's ban on abortion is being challenged before the European Court of Human Rights whose rulings are binding on the 47 member countries of the Council of Europe.
*  Ireland's last execution took place by hanging fifty five years ago in April 1954. That was the only execution held in the Republic of Ireland after it became a Republic in 1949.
*  Irish diplomats were among those who walked out at the recent UN conference on racism to protest the Iranian president's speech denouncing Israel as a "racist regime".
*  Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle is the youngest of nine children of Irish immigrants and visits the Shrine of Knock in Co. Mayo every year.
*  Starting in January 2010, anyone playing hurling will be required by rule to wear a helmet.
*  According to www.irishcentral.com, the top Irish Names for boys in the US are Ryan, Brandon, Logan, Austin, & Kevin while those for girls are Brianna, Kayla, Anna, Megan, & Kaitlyn.
*  More than 1,000 of the world's top fencers were at the University of Ulster's Jordanstown campus recently for the Junior and Cadet World Fencing Championships 2009. Fencers from 85 countries participated.
*  So many loyalists in Northern Ireland are requesting Irish passports that Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs will now allow them to enter their birthplace as Londonderry, rather than Derry which previously was the only name accepted.
*  On March 17, CNN's Lou Dobbs declared "That's right! I'm against St. Patrick's Day."
*  90% of Irish women surveyed say an optimistic attitude to life is important or very important in a partner. However, it's important to only 67% of Irish men.
*  The 97th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic was marked by a ceremony in Cobh, Co Cork, the Titanic's last port of call. Among the 1,517 lives lost when the liner sank were 79 passengers who boarded in Cobh.
*  When Gardaí (Police) recovered goods stolen recently following a burglary in Roscommon, part of the haul included a gold lunula and two gold sun discs, previously unrecorded gold artefacts dating from about 2000-1900 BC.
*  Waterford-born magician Keith Barry was recently declared Best Magician of 2009 in the 'Best of Las Vegas' Awards, ahead of David Copperfield, Penn & Teller and Criss Angel.
*  The Irish charity, the Niall Mellon Township Trust, received a significant boost when the US Senate recently directed the US agency for international development (USAID) to consider supporting its work.
*  The BBC has a new Irish language website - www.bbc.co.uk/irish.

*  102 years ago today, April 28, 1907, the Irish Crown Jewels (the insignia of the Order of St Patrick) were stolen from Dublin Castle and have never been recovered.
*  The 2009 Sister Cities International Youth Conference will be held in Belfast in June and is already fully booked.
*  This year's European and local elections will be held in Ireland on Friday June 5th.
*  Dan Rooney, owner and chairman of the Pittsburg Steelers football team, is President Obama's nominee to be US Ambassador to Ireland.
*  The Irish Times newspaper is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Their first issue was printed March 29, 1859.

*  This week was the 225th anniversary of the death on April 26th, 1784 of Nano Nagle who founded the Presentation Sisters in Cork in 1775. The Order today has over 1,600 Sisters with a presence on every continent.

AN EMIGRANT'S PROVERB