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www.celtic-connection.com
FEBRUARY 2002
THE THREE MUSKETEERS - Catherine Poole, Jacquie Metzler and Linda Cipparrone at Carnegies for the Feed the Hungry fundraising event in December.
DANNY BURNS who leads the Irish Ballad Band is also the organizer of the annual Feed the Hungry benefit. He is shown here with local jazz singer Denny Clark.
LOCAL IRISH DANCERS shown above at the Feed the Hungry Benefit at Carnegies on West Broadway were from both the Moore School and the Stewart School of Irish dance. They delighted the audience with their talent and enthusiasm.
THE BRADY CLAN from Richmond, B.C. were among those who came out to support the benefit to raise funds for the Lower Mainland hungry.
Shooting to Start on New Veronica Guerin Movie
DUBLIN - A new feature film on the life of Veronica Guerin will begin shooting in Dublin early next month.
Chasing The Dragon will star the award winning Australian actress Cate Blanchett as the former Sunday Independent crime reporter.
Blanchett is currently appearing in The Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. She also plays the title role in the upcoming Charlotte Gray.
This is the second feature on Guerin in the last two years. She was played by Joan Allen in If The Sky Should Fall. That film was generally treated with derision by critics and didn't receive a widespread release internationally.
Chasing The Dragon will shoot on
location in Dublin and at Ardmore Studios for 10 weeks beeinnins on March 4. & fa
The director is Joel Schumacher, who did two of the Batman films, and the producer is the enormously successful action picture specialist, Jerrv Bruckheimer (Top Gun, Beverly Hill Cop and Pearl Harbor).
The script was written by Mary Agnes O'Donoghue and Dubliner Carol Doyle (Washington Square
and Portrait Of A Lady).
Guerin was shot dead by the pillion passenger on a motorcycle on the Naas Road in 1996. Dublin criminals Brian Meehan and Paul Ward are both serving life in prison for the killing.
Blanchett visited Independent Newspapers at Christmas. The writers and producers have gone through most of Gueriu's work and they have also examined the Sunday Independent newsroom.
The actress, who made no less than five films last year, is widely considered to be among the best of her generation. Her credits include Elizabeth, The Talented Mr Ripley, The Gift, Pushing Tin and Bandits for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe this year.
Local Musicians Help Raise Funds to Feed the Hungry
By CATHOLINE BUTLER
VANCOUVER - Danny Burns and the Irish Ballad Band sponsored their third annual Feed The Hungry fundraising concert on December 15. This year, Carnegie's on West Broadway was the venue where many well-known local artists donated their time and energy to help raise funds for the homeless and less fortunate.
Some of the entertainers were Blackthorn, Route 66, Denny Clark and, of course, Danny Burns and the Irish Ballad Band. A group of Irish dancers from a number of local Irish dance schools were also on hand. They thrilled the audience with their flashing precision steps.
Organizer Stephanie Boggan, reported that $1,250 was raised to feed the hungry. These funds were donated to the Union Gospel Mission on the downtown East side which feeds hundreds of hungry souls every day. Well done again Danny Burns and friends.
IRISH QUOTE
During some of the years of Irish famine, such were the unhappy circumstances of the country that she was exporting provisions of every description in the most prodigal abundance, which the generosity of England was sending back again for our support. So it was with literature. Our men and women of genius uniformly carried their talents to the English market, whilst we laboured at home under all the dark privations of literary famine.
- William Carleton (1794-1869)
A SURPISINGLY RICH JOURNEY
PAGAN DANCES
OF CAHERBARNAGH
By Bridget Horan O'Mahony
Educare Press
ISBN: 0-944638-28-7
Reviewed by Sharon Greer Gently surprised by the beauty and eloquence of prose, Bridget O'Mahony's Pagan Dances of Caherbarnagh takes the reader through the empty loneliness of the mournful Irish emigre^
Essentially this poignant tale is about emigration, survival in a foreign land and acceptance of a time lost. It is much more than it seems at first glance.
Pagan Dances is not technically a novel, but rather a story of reminiscences through the rendering of sad, touching letters from home and a series of short stories. It is heavy with typical Irish melancholy.
This is invaluable storytelling which easily holds the reader's attention. Alternating between stories filled with eccentric characters that make up the Irish universe and letters from a heartbroken mother in Ireland to her son now living in Seattle, this hook takes you on a wistful Irish journey.
In particular, I enjoyed the letters from family members in Ireland. They revealed more about the heartache of broken families forced into exile due to the economic circumstances of Ireland prior to the recent Celtic Tiger economy.
Years of isolation from family and friends, the familiarity of the homeland and the fast pace of their contemporary lives underscores the main character of Christie Horan, who ends up be-
ing too busy to return home to Ireland to attend his mother's funeral.
One good example of fear within Irish society is one man's ostracization as he contemplates selling of his farm. The anger projected at him is easily felt emanating from the pages.
One of my fondest and most lasting memories of Ireland is the prolific fuchsia shrubs seemingly everywhere in Ireland. O'Mahony's description of the red and purple flowers growing wild struck a sensitive chord in me.
Of course there are references to set dancing and music throughout this tome but it is the lasting quality of melancholic longing which stretches its long, grasping tentacles around your heart that sets the mood. It does not make a vain attempt at pretending to be a literary masterpiece. It is just a really good read.