MOHAWK VALLEY IRISH CULTURAL Volume 14, Issue 1 EVENTS NEWSLETTER Jan 2017 Halfway to GAIF Hooley Set for January 29th The annual Halfway to the Great American Irish Festival Hooley will be held on Sunday, January 29th, 2017 from 2 to 6 PM at Hart’s Hill Inn in Whitesboro. Since its inception in 2006, the very popular party has provided a much-needed respite from the winter doldrums, with great music, food and drink, and a chance to see what hundreds of GAIF volunteers look like in their winter clothes. The Hooley is the festival’s way of saying “thank you” to the hundreds of tireless volunteers who helped make the Great American Irish Festival the fastest growing Irish festival in the land, and has become the forum for presenting the performance lineup for the upcoming festival, as well as the announcement of the board’s selection for the Utica St. Patrick’s Day Parade Grand Marshal. The event includes a buffet, beer, wine, soda and coffee, and a cash bar is also available. Entertainment will once again be provided by Kilrush. Tickets are just $20 each and can be purchased at the door. For more information, email Colleen Kain Martin at [email protected]. Burns Suppers No, that’s not a summary of my cooking. Well, okay, maybe just a little. But the real “Burns Suppers” remember the life and genius of “Scotland greatest treasure,” poet Robert Burns. Burns was born on 25 January 1759, and since not long after his death on 21 July 1796, Burns enthusiasts around the world have been holding celebratory dinners each year on or around his birth date. Burns suppers may be formal or informal. Both typically include haggis (a traditional Scottish dish celebrated by Burns in Address to a Haggis), Scotch whisky, and the recitation of Burns’ poetry. Two such events are being held in the (fairly) local area. Cazenovia’s Brae Loch Inn holds their annual Robert Burns Weekend from January 20-22, with the Weekend Kickoff on Friday from 7 PM to 2 AM, featuring complimentary hors d’oeuvres, scotch tasting and music by Tumble the Haggis. Saturday will feature a formal seven-course meal to include Haggis, Steak and Kidney Pie, Prime Rib and Finnan Haddie (smoked haddock), beginning at 7 PM (cocktail hour begins at 6 PM). Music will be provided by Bells & Motely, Nancy Skye with Highland Dancers and Grey Barr Men Pipe Band. The cost is $65. Finally, on Sunday, $19 will get you into their Celtic Hangover Brunch (11 AM to 2 PM), with Scotch Eggs, Finnan Haddie, Shepard’s Pie, and Scottish music by 10 Strings. For more info, click here. Meanwhile, Albany’s Capital District Celtic Cultural Association will be holding its annual Burns Dinner on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017. Doors open at 5:30 PM, with drinks, pipers and a set of Celtic/Scottish music. From there, the obligatory reading of “Address to the Haggis,” followed by dinner, performances by pipers, Highland Dancers, dessert and coffee, and another set of music. Tickets – which, last year, sold out in early January -- are $40 per person and $350 for a table of 10 (click here for tickets). For more information, call (518) 250-5719. Celtic Hall is located at 430 New Karner Rd, Albany. Mohawk Valley Irish Cultural Events - 1 2017 St. Patrick’s Day Parade Accepting Nominations for Grand Marshal The Great American Irish Festival is seeking nominations for the Grand Marshal of the 2017 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The nominee, male or female, need not be of Irish descent, but should be someone recognized by the community for his/her commitment and contributions to the Irish in the Central New York area. The letter of nomination should include the individual’s background and a list of qualifications as to why he or she would be the proper choice to receive the shillelagh from the 2016 Grand Marshal, Chris McGrath. In addition to leading the St. Patrick’s Day parade, the Parade Grand Marshal also serves as honorary chairperson of the 2017 Great American Irish Festival, slated for July 28-30, 2017, at the Herkimer County Fairgrounds in Frankfort, NY. Nominations can be submitted online at http://greatamericanirishfest.com/nominations/, by mail to St. Patrick’s Day Parade, PO Box 18, Newport, NY 13416, or via email to [email protected]. Nominations are due by January 15, 2017. Gaelic Storm Returns to the Egg On January 21st, the genre-bending Gaelic Storm makes a triumphant return to Albany’s premiere ovoid-themed entertainment venue, The Egg. With a career that began as a pub band, through their appearance as a Third Class party band (“third class” is a location, not a rating!) and now to the present, they’ve topped the Billboard World Chart five times and regularly headline the largest Irish Festivals across the country. Oh, and there’s Kiana Weber. This show supports their latest CD, Matching Sweaters, which features Patrick Murphy and Steve Twigger at their song-writing best, gluing all the tracks together with the spark and spirit of a band that’s spent close to 20 years on the road. And then there’s Kiana Weber. Tickets for the 8 PM show are $34, and are available in person at the box office or on-line. The Egg is located in the Empire State Plaza in Albany. And of course, there’s Kiana Weber. From Cells to the Stars: Mary Ward’s Story – Women’s Voices by Sue Romero From the tiniest creatures to the far reaches of the universe, Mary King Ward’s scientific curiosity led her to explore and document what she discovered through both the microscope and the telescope. Despite a short lifespan and limited opportunities due to her gender, she accomplished a great deal. Born in County Offaly in 1827 to an Anglo-Irish family, Mary soon caught her relatives’ zeal for science. At the tender age of three she was already collecting and examining insects and butterflies. Since girls were not sent to school in those days, Mary and her sisters were educated at home by a governess and encouraged by their parents to explore scientific subjects. By the time she was 18, Mary was adept at illustrating with her drawing and painting skills the tiniest details of the creatures she studied. When the eminent British astronomer James South visited her parents, he saw her staring through a magnifying glass to perfect her sketches, so he suggested to her father that she should be given a microscope. He did that, and Mary continued to expand her collection of illustrations. She contributed several Mohawk Valley Irish Cultural Events - 2 drawings to books published by Sir David Brewster, the Scottish academic who, among many other accomplishments, invented the kaleidoscope. In 1854, when Mary was 27, she married Henry Ward of Castle Ward in County Down. Over the next 13 years she bore eight children and continued to study, write and draw. In 1857 no publishers would consider a scientific book written by a woman, so Mary self-published her first book on microscopy at a local print shop. All 250 copies of Sketches with the Microscope sold in a few weeks. The next year a London publisher accepted the book and published it under the title The World of Wonders as Revealed by the Microscope. It sold so well that it was reprinted eight times between 1858 and 1880. Mary’s cousin William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, had been working on building what would become the largest telescope in the world from 1845 until 1917. With a six-foot mirror, it was called the Leviathan of Birr Castle. From the world of the very small, Mary expanded her studies to the vast universe, making illustrations of the telescope itself and of what she saw in it. Inspired by this new subject, she wrote and published Telescope Teachings in 1859. When plans to restore the historic telescope began in the 1990s, Mary’s drawings were instrumental since the original plans had been lost. You can still see the restored telescope at Birr Castle today. Tragically, Mary was to gain another distinction on August 31, 1869. While riding on a steam-powered car designed and built by her cousins from Birr Castle, she was thrown under its wheels when the car turned a corner. She was the first person in the world killed by an automobile. She was only 42 and left behind her eight young children. From the Irish Kitchen (recipes suitable for clipping) This month’s recipe – “Irish Barm Brack (fruit loaf)” - “This is often called Tea Brack because of the soaking of the raisins and currents in tea. The original Brack had only Barm (a mixture of hops, malt), milk and flour and was made for New Year’s festivities where pieces of baked loaf would be thrown at the back of the house door to ward off poverty in the coming year. It is between a loaf and a bread in texture. The preparation time does not include the soaking overnight of the raisins & currents.” INGREDIENTS: 3⁄4 cup golden raisin 2 cups self-rising flour 3⁄4 cup currants 1 cup cold strong tea 1⁄3 cup crystallized cherries (undyed preferred) 1 egg 1⁄3 cup candied peel 1 teaspoon mixed spice (Cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove) 1 cup light brown sugar METHOD Soak the raisins and currents in the cold tea overnight (go do that and come back tomorrow. I’ll be waiting). Hi, welcome back! Heat oven to 350F and line a one pound loaf pan with greased parchment paper.