Fine Touches from Europe
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March 2010 VOL. 21 #3 $1.50 Boston’s hometown journal of Irish culture. Worldwide at bostonirish.com All contents copyright © 2010 Boston Neighborhood News, Inc. St. Patrick blesses the Ould Sod at the Hill of Tara, Leinster, Co. Meath. Photo courtesy Tourism Ireland Fine Touches Inside: Holiday from Europe Month Coverage BIR Publisher Ed Forry • A full page of events found touches of Euro- planned for the Saint’s pean style along with the month. Page 10. legendary Irish welcom- • In Arts & Entertain- ing grace at his stopping ment: The Chieftains places during a trip to are coming; the Reagle Ireland last year. At the Players have a produc- brilliant Harvey’s Point tion; BCMFest keeps at Country Hotel, he met it. And much more. Pages up with general manager 20-26. Deirdre McGlone, at left. Thomas J. Hynes, Jr. is a He gives an account of his man who is always on the Also, the story of a go. For a profile of one bishop and his bus. Page journey, with photos, on of the city’s pre-eminent shakers in commercial real 27. Page 29. estate, see Page 6. Page March 010 BOSTON IRISH REPORTER Worldwide at www.bostonirish.com Shamrock Nation presents Foster & Allen Friday, March 5, 8:00 p.m. – with Pauline Wells and DEVRI Saturday, March 6, 7:30 p.m. – with Denis O’Gorman Sunday, March 7, 3:00 p.m. – with Denis O’Gorman All Shows include performances from the Woods School of Irish Dance Freeport Hall Local 103 IBEW Hall 256 Freeport Street Dorchester, MA Tickets $30 & $25. Call 781-534-3919 or shamrocknation.com All seating will be at tables. Order now for the Best Reserved seats! Full bar and snacks available. Worldwide at www.bostonirish.com March 010 BOSTON IRISH REPORTER Page ON THE TOWN WITH THE BIR BY CAROL BEGGY Kelly Ripa on their ABC morning show “Live With SPECIAL TO THE BIR Regis and Kelly” as “Burn Notice” was finishing up Tanya McRae simply describes the best title for its third season. her work in television production as “I do it all.” And In the one-hour show, Donovan, an Amesbury native, as anyone who works with her can attest, that’s an plays a former “special ops” spy who now helps other accurate description. people in trouble, is known for his martial arts skills Originally from New York City, but we won’t hold and doing his own stunts. It’s a skill he has honed that against her, McRae went to middle school in over the years. Amherst and graduated from Cambridge Rindge & “When I went to college, I wasn’t good enough to Latin High. She has been working as a host, reporter, play any sports, so I took up karate,” Donovan said producer, and writer in Los Angeles for the last 18 on the morning chat show. He later studied akido and years. Her credits include shows on all four networks, Brazilian jujitsu. and several cable channels including Lifetime, Travel And now on “Burn Notice” Donovan practices both Channel, Discovery, MTV, TLC, E! Entertainment his training at the New York University’s Graduate Television, and A & E. She moved back to Boston last Acting Program and karate, but he’s actually been fall to be closer to family and heard the buzz around hurt on the set. “I got used to the long hours and the town about “styleboston,” a 30-minute independently tough schedules, but I was injured in the pilot,” said produced lifestyle show that airs on Wednesdays on the Amesbury High alum. Donovan would train visit- NECN. She is now hosting segments and doing busi- ing actors on the show’s stunts, but no matter how ness development for the show. much he would stress it was all acting, “I would get McRae’s Irish roots are deep. Her maternal hit in the face.” g r e a t - g r a n d f a t h e r , ***** Thomas Casey, was Fans and friends of Coach Jim Cotter and Boston from Waterford. During College High School football – and they are legion the famine, when he – have been celebrating the release of Cotter’s illus- was eight years old, his trated memoir, “A True Man for Others: The Coach family put him on a boat Jim Cotter Story.” A well-attended event was held alone and sent him to the recently at the school to celebrate Cotter and the book’s United States. Somehow, publication and to raise money to support the school’s he survived the journey Cotter Scholarship, Compassionate Care ALS, and that killed many others The Angel Fund. and made his way to St. Cotter’s name is nearly a synonym for BC High Louis. football. And now this man, who has been hailed for As a young man, Casey teaching his players how to be tough and fair on and off traveled to Red Wing, the field, has collaborated withPaul Kenney for the ***** Minn., and then eventu- book in which Cotter calls himself “a Battler.” Cotter Scituate native has enlisted the help of ally settled in Denver. made his way through BC High and Boston College as Nick Flynn some of Boston’s best musicians for the release of his Tanya McRae He owned a ranch that a two-sport athlete and worked on the docks, all before latest book, “The Ticking is the Bomb.” Flynn added he called the Lazy KC returning to his alma mater in 1960 as a teacher. He musical performances for his recent appearances at (brand for “Casey”). And, says McRae, “Family lore would go onto to become the head coach of BC High’s Berklee College’s Cafe 939 where he was joined on has it that Sitting Bull, on his way to his last meet- football program, which he would run for 41 years. stage by ing with the federal government, bought a horse from Now, as the memoir lays out, Cotter is battling his Eric Martin (of the Neats and Illyrians) for his early performance, Thomas’s ranch.” In time, Casey built a brick factory toughest opponent, ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. and Drew O’Doherty with the “KC” brand stamped on the bricks. Kenney is from the Columbia/Savin Hill section of and Bill Janovitz and Chris Colbourn of Buf- for the later On her mother’s side, her family traces its roots to Dorchester where he grew up on the “top floor of a falo Tom, along with Franc Graham 90-minute show. County Cork, with the family landing in Philadelphia. Wattendorf tri-level ranch” and spent his “formative An award-winning poet and the author of the best- In 1854 members of the family were murdered in years on the corners of Romsey Street.” Kenney met selling memoir “Another [expletive] Night in Suck Know-Nothing riots and those who survived migrated Cotter at BC High in 1967, when the young aspiring City,” Flynn’s book is about how in the months leading to Minnesota and Denver. But McRae, like so many writer took Cotter’s American history class. up to his daughter’s birth in 2007, he became so outraged others, claims a diverse lineage. “My heritage also in- The accolades have been rolling in for the book, in- by the photographs of the torture of the prisoners at cludes Swedish, Scottish, African American, Cherokee, cluding one from BC High alum Dennis Lehane, the Abu Ghraib that he traveled to Istanbul to meet some Lumbee, Cree, and Yuchi Native American tribes.” bestselling author of “Mystic River” and “Gone, Baby, of the Iraqi men show in the photos. ***** Gone.” Lehane writes of the memoir: “A wonderful Flynn spent six years working at the Pine Street Another “styleboston” person in the news is one of book about a Boston legend. As colorful, insightful, Inn, which led to his memoir. He has published two the show’s co-hosts, former Massachusetts lieutenant and enthralling as its subject. You’ll end up buying collections of poetry, “Some Ether” and “Blind Hu- governor Kerry Healey, who conducts interviews for two copies, one to read, one to pass on in hopes of ber,” and his work has appeared in The Nation, New the 30-minute show that was created by former Boston inspiration.” Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times Common editor Terri Stanley. Healey’s interviews ***** Book Review. have included Charles Hotel owner Dick Friedman, And speaking of Lehane, “Shutter Island,” the third He is teaching for a semester at the University of former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, and state feature film to be made from the bestselling author’s Houston and now calls upstate New York home. Representative Linda Dorcena Forry. books, has set box office records for the movie’s star ***** ***** and director. “Shutter Island,” which was filmed in Ray Flynn, former U.S. Ambassador to the Vati- When Jeffrey Donovan, star of the USA Network’s Massachusetts, opened Presidents’ Day weekend and can and Mayor of Boston, will serve as the Grand hit series “Burn Notice,” was an undergraduate at the brought in $40.2 million in the first three days it was Marshal of the Cape Cod St. Patrick’s Day Parade University of Massachusetts Amherst, he used to get in theaters. That’s a record for Leonardo DiCaprio that will be held on Saturday, March 6. The parade’s up at 4 a.m. and drive the campus shuttle bus to pay and Martin Scorsese. theme is “Heroes and Heroines of Ireland.” Flynn was his tuition.