IRISH SEATTLE NEWS
  

 IRISH NIGHT - This Saturday, November 20, is Irish Night at The Rep starting at 6 pm for the Tony-Award winning Irish play, Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel, also at Seattle Repertory Theatre through December 5. Saturday at 6 pm starts with Irish Dance lessons, a live band, whiskey tastings and Kaspar's potato bar, followed by the play that is supposed to be loosely based on the lives of Friel's mother and aunts who lived in the Glenties, on the west coast of Donegal. Set in 1936 in rural Ireland, Friel's play captures a beautiful and exuberant sliver of five women's lives during a summer where love-and everything else-seemed possible.

PARTY NIGHT - The Annual Irish Night fundraiser for St. Mary's Food Bank 5 pm this Saturday at the Knights of Columbus is SOLD OUT! For information, contact jomalley@mail.com.

SENIORS' CHRISTMAS LUNCHEON - The next Irish Seniors luncheon is a Christmas Party on Saturday, December 4, 12 Noon at F X McRory's, 310 Occidental Ave S (in Seattle's Pioneer Square). All Irish Seniors (you know if you're a senior and you know if you're Irish!) and their guests are invited to attend the sit-down Christmas lunch which has a special reduced price of $10 per person. Music, door prizes, possibly even Father Christmas! Advance Reservations are required to jkeane@irishclub.org.  

DAIDÍ na NOLLAG - Seattle's Irish Community Children's Christmas Party with Daidí na Nollag (Father Christmas), is 1-4pm Sunday, December 5, Maplewood Church Hall, 19523 84th Ave W (on 196th St), Edmonds. Everyone is invited to meet Daidí na Nollag who arrives in his green robes at 2pm. Games and crafts for kids start at 1 pm, and dessert and tea or coffee will be provided. To make sure there's a present for every child, please register children in advance (names and ages) by contacting Nanci Spieker at NanciS@IrishClub.org, or call 206-427-3027.

MOTHER'S CHRISTMAS DINNER - Sorry - the January 9 dinner is SOLD OUT! No more reservations accepted. For information, contact CandaceD@irishclub.org.  

IRISH ART EXHIBITION - Seattle's Pratt Fine Arts Center, supported by a Culture Ireland grant, is currently hosting Irish artist Shay Culligan, a Boston-based Meath artist for a solo show through November 26 at the Pratt Gallery in the Tashiro Kaplan Building, 115 Prefontaine Pl S, # 107, in Seattle's Pioneer Square. The title of the show is Exile and is screenprinted art based on Culligan's photography.

IRISH SILVER ARTIST - Another Irish artist, Kevin O'Dwyer, will work as artist in residence at the Pratt Gallery from December 7-16, with a lecture on Sunday, December 12, at 2pm at Bellevue Arts Museum. O'Dwyer is an internationally recognized master silversmith and sculptor, and his work is in museum collections worldwide. He is the Director of Sculpture in the Parklands in Co.Offaly, a community art program where international artists create site specific permanent installations. Kevin plans to use Pratt's studios to interpret his work into glass, forged metal and other materials not readily available to him in his own studio.

BOOK SIGNING - Austin Dwyer, the Mukilteo-based Irish author of the award winning historical novel "The Ring of the Piper's Tune", is doing a reading and book signing at Kell's Pub in Seattle on Thursday, December 2, 6:30 pm. RSVP required before November 24 as space is limited!

YULETIDE CONCERTS - Don't miss an annual Northwest tradition and the most beautiful music of the holiday season, from the Celtic family ensemble Magical Strings, which brings its 32nd annual Celtic Yuletide Concerts to performances in Olympia, Fall City, Kent, Portland, Kingston, Tacoma, Seattle, Mt. Vernon and Bellevue starting Friday, December 3! These concerts combine lush Celtic holiday music, with singing, dancing, caroling and storytelling.

SEAN-NÓS FESTIVAL - The 4th Annual Sean-nós Northwest Festival is February 19-20, 2011 - Presidents' Day weekend at The Evergreen State College in Olympia. The festival celebrates three aspects of traditional Irish culture -singing, dancing and language.

MUSIC CAMP - The 10th Friday Harbor Irish Music Week will be March 6-12, 2011, in beautiful Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. Register for classes in fiddle, flute, concertina, guitar, button accordion, and tin whistle. Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Friday Harbor Irish Music Camp is Randal Bays who's been playing and teaching Irish fiddle for over 30 years.

DIVINE MARIGOLDS - The pilot episode of the proposed television series, "The Divine Marigolds", was shot last weekend and will now be presented to the heads of networks for their opinion! The show is an off-kilter comedy about an Irish family in Seattle where the adult children start moving back home, resulting in hilarious moments as they all learn to live under the same roof again. Variety magazine estimates that over a quarter of all pilots made for American television succeed to the series stage.

WELCOME, NEWBAY - NewBay Software, a company founded and headquartered in Dublin, recently opened its new Americas headquarters in downtown Seattle where Washington Governor Christine Gregoire joined in welcoming them - see her above with Timo Bauer, NewBay General Manager Americas. NewBay is the global leader in digital lifestyle solutions for cellular operators, enabling subscribers to create, store, view and share user generated content, e.g., photos, video, music, etc. NewBay has doubled its staff in the U.S. over the last year, and plans to add an additional 100 employees in Seattle within the next 12 months.

MORE BUSINESS - ESB Networks, the operator of the electricity distribution system in Ireland, has placed a large order with Seattle company MicroPlanet. MicroPlanet's smart grid technology products conserve energy, lower electricity bills, improve utility services and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and their technology has been deployed in seven countries, now including in Ireland.

MISCELLANEOUS

- Learn to speak Irish, or give class tuition as a Christmas gift? Sign up now for Irish Language Classes starting in January.

- Contact Seattle's Irish Book Club at hudit@comcast.net. Next meeting December 7.

- The Celtic Tenors with the Cascade Youth Symphony at Seattle's Benaroya Hall this Saturday, November 20th, 2 pm.

- Irish Christmas in America - The Show at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Friday, November 26, 2010, 7:30 pm, featuring Irish music, song, dance and stories of seasonal Irish traditions.

- One Irish Immigrant Family's Story, the story of the Hobans from Lisbaun, near Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo, describes how so many members of the family ended up living in the Pacific Northwest.

- Read a Seattleite's family memoir called  "Last Letters to Ireland"

- Hothouse Flowers, the Irish group that combines traditional Irish music with influences from soul, gospel and rock, at Seattle's Tractor Tavern, Friday, March 4.

THE IRISH ECONOMY

BANKING CRISIS - Irish government officials said today that they may accept an aid package for the banks from international lenders to end the debt crisis that has hurt confidence in the country's long-term finances. European pressure had been building for Ireland to accept external aid, while the Irish government has been trying to minimize any requested funding in order to ensure the terms are acceptable, which might include European control of Ireland's finances.

WHAT HAPPENED? - During the good times of the Celtic Tiger, Irish banks grew rapidly and sold too many speculative property loans.  When the bubble burst, the banking system almost collapsed and rather than allow the collapse, Ireland's government decided to guarantee their debts and nurse the banks back to health. However, investors are afraid that Ireland's banks might need more support than anticipated if the weak economy spurs a wave of further defaults. Ireland's credit rating has been downgraded to A+, one notch above California's rating; unemployment is over 13%; and emigration has reached the highest levels since the 1980s. Already an estimated one in every 20 mortgages is in arrears and nobody really knows how bad the loans are.

OTHER NEWS FROM IRELAND

ANGLO-IRISH ANNIVERSARY - 25 years ago on November 15th, 1985, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed by Ireland's Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and British PM Margaret Thatcher. In the agreement, the British government, for the first time ever, formally agreed that the Irish Republic should have input into Northern Ireland's affairs, while the Irish government formally agreed that there would be no change in the status of Northern Ireland unless a majority of its people agreed. This remarkable political achievement came after two years of intensive Irish-British negotiations and just one year after the IRA tried to murder Thatcher in the Brighton bombing of October 1984.

QUALITY OF LIFE - The UN Development Program report ranks Ireland fifth in the 2010 quality-of-life index, with the US rated 4th and the UK 26th. The rankings are based on indicators such as life expectancy, per capita income and average schooling.

HAPPY? - A Eurostat survey on mental health found that the Irish are among the happiest in Europe, with 79% saying they were happy for most or all of the four weeks prior to being questioned. Irish people have the lowest level of physical or emotional problems, are less likely than most to be tense or depressed, and are among the most likely to feel calm and peaceful.

FENIAN FLAG - A flag used in the Fenian Rising in 1867 was recently sold at auction in Dublin for over $70,000. The flag has a Gold Harp on a green background with embroidery on it saying: "GOD SAVE IRELAND" and "ANGLESBORO '67". Anglesborough is a village in Co Tipperary.

BOYCOTTING - When a bank recently tried to sell at auction a repossessed 67-acre farm in Co. Meath, local farmers and others present refused to bid on the land, boycotting the sale in protest. Ireland invented the boycott during the land wars in the late 1800s, and it might be coming back into vogue as a response to Ireland's banking crisis!

GERRY ADAMS, TD? - Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams will run for election to the Dáil (Irish parliament) in Ireland's next general election. He is currently a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and is also an abstentionist Member of the British Parliament.

HURLING GOLD - A video archive of All-Ireland hurling finals from 1948 to 1959 has been released. Called GAA Gold, the videos include rare footage of some of the greatest players ever to lift the camán, including Tipperary's John Doyle, Cork's Christy Ring, the Rackard brothers from Wexford and an 18-year-old Eddie Keher. All are in monochrome except for the 1959 drawn game and the replay which are in color. Available from the Irish Film Institute.

WRITING CONTEST - The Crossroads Irish-American Festival has launched an Irish-American Writing Contest for a memoir focused on the meaning of an Irish-American heritage. Deadline is December 31.

1641 DEPOSITIONS - High quality images of the 1641 Depositions are for the first time available online. The depositions are first-hand witness statements collected in the 1640s about the 1641 Irish Rebellion against British rule. There are about 8,000 witness statements altogether, amounting to 19,010 pages in 31 volumes that are currently held in the Research Library of Trinity College Dublin. Propagandists, politicians and historians have all exploited the 1641 depositions over the past 350 years, and claims regarding various 1641 'massacres' have played a key role in maintaining a strong Protestant / British identity in Ulster.

MONSTER AILEENS - Surfers are ecstatic about a new wave off Ireland's west coast generated when the massive swell caused by Hurricane Tomas slammed into Ireland, creating heavy, tubing waves with 40-50ft faces. In recent decades Ireland has become a mecca for avid surfers. "Aileens", which break below the 700-feet-high Cliffs of Moher, are marked as prime waves on the world surfing map.

CHILDREN'S PRIZE - Adi Roche, the Tipperary woman who heads the Irish-based charity Chernobyl Children International, was honored recently at a World of Children Awards ceremony in New York. Chernobyl Children International was established in 1991 and has helped immeasurably improve the quality of life of thousands of children from the Chernobyl zones. The World of Children Awards are frequently referred to as the "Nobel Prize for Children".

PATTEN AWARD - Britain's last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, has been awarded an honorary doctorate of laws by the National University of Ireland in Dublin. Currently Chancellor of Oxford, Patten chaired the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland where he "earned the gratitude and respect of the people of Ireland." Describing himself as "a man with a British passport and four pints of Irish blood", Patten said that his Irish ancestors would be "astounded that I was Britain's last colonial governor and the first Catholic chancellor of Oxford since Cardinal Pole in the 16th century".

CHILEAN PATRIOTS - Two Irish heroes of Chile's struggle for independence were honored recently with commemorative postal stamps issued in both Ireland and Chile. Bernardo O'Higgins, whose father was from Sligo, is known as Chile's founding father, while Juan MacKenna, born in Monaghan, served as commandant general of the Chilean army. O'Higgins and MacKenna owed their presence in Chile to the tradition of young Irish men travelling to Spain for an education denied them at home.

CONVENTION CENTER - The Convention Centre Dublin is a new world-class international conference and event venue on the banks of the Liffey in the heart of Dublin. Dubbed the "Cube with the Tube", see a video of the opening week light show projected on the façade of the building.

BOOLEAN HOME - Cork City Council is being urged to take steps to preserve the home where George Boole lived in the 1840s and 50s. Boole was just one of many famous Irish scientists and engineers who have revolutionized the way we live. 156 years after his major work was published in 1854, "Boolean logic" is still the basis of modern digital computer logic.

MATERNITY LEAVE - Irish women are entitled to six months' paid maternity leave, with the State paying about $360 weekly. 50% of employers add to the State's contribution to ensure women receive full pay when on maternity leave. Women are also entitled to an additional 14 weeks unpaid maternity leave.

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