AOH Dennis Kelly Division 1

2012-01-17T13:00:00.009-05:00

Comedy Night!

AOH Comedy Night is Friday, April 13th, 2011 @ 7PM
Tickets are just $25 per person, with a cash bar, to support the Hero's Homecoming Fund, benefitting local wounded Soldiers.

Auction items and a 50/50 will also be available. Come out and see some fine comedy acts, enjoy a night out with family and friends and help a great cause!

Sponsored by: Dennis Kelly Division #1 - Havertown
Friday, April 13th, 2011 at 7:00 PM
The Palombaro Club (map)
2632 East County Line Road Ardmore, PA

To purchase tickets online: https://www.ticketriver.com/event/2821-annual-comedy-night

For more information or to buy tickets in person, call:

Chuck Harrington: charrington2000@yahoo.com or call 610-757-5944
Mike Brennan: comayo7@verizon.net or call 610-368-4184
Kevin Kane: Kevin.Kane@RaymondJames.com or call 267-625-6515 Joe Roan: Joe.roan@yahoo.com or call 610-505-5367

Because of the likelihood of a sellout, only tickets paid for in advance or online can be held at the door for pick up. Don't be left out of an exciting, fun-filled evening...get your tickets now! For a PDF flyer of the event, click here: http://www.aohdenniskelly.com/pdfs/aoh.comedynight.4.13.12.pdf

2012-01-03T16:03:00.002-05:00

Division Meeting

Our next Division Meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 11th at the Cheese Club in Darby, doors to open at 7PM and meeting to start at 7:30PM. Unfortunately our scheduled guest speaker will be unable to attend, as Fr. Creggan decided to use the Semester break at Villanova to visit Ireland. Can’t blame him. So I expect the meeting to start on time at 7:30 and to be relatively brief. (Irish brief, mind you). Please bring your dues for 2012, if not yet paid, also we will have raffle tickets for the second and final iPad raffle to be drawn January 27th, chances are $5 each, 100% of proceeds are going into a segregated account to fund the Malachy’s student exchange program to take place this March. I know we are going to the same well repeatedly, but also available will be Temple vs. St. Joes tickets for the Saturday, January 28th game @ the Liacourias center at 4PM. This game will decide the big 5 champ and the tickets are face value, and discounted at only $10 each and we are all sitting together. In addition the above, bring an item or items for our annual gift basket donation, more info on that below.

Gift Basket for Mother’s Home

Once again this year we will be putting together a care package for babies and mothers staying at Mother’s Home in Darby, in memory of Sean Burke, the son of Division brother Kevin Burke. Mother’s Home is a safe haven shelter that provides refuge for vulnerable pregnant women who are being abused or kicked out of their house because they chose Life. We stock the basket with supplies and items donated by the brethren only, and it’s about as good a cause as you will find, so for the January meeting, please bring an appropriate item, something for a newborn or the mother. Bottles, pacifiers, baby clothes, bibs, etc.

Wounded Soldier Beef & Beer

Saturday January 14th, 7PM at the Murray-Stewart American Legion Post #566, 35 South Glen Avenue, Glenolden PA 19036. To benefit James Kalitz and his family. James is a local wounded Marine Who’s disability income is far lower than required to support his family of 3 girls (age 2, 6 &8) and a Wife. To add insult to injury, his wife was injured in a head on collision in December and is unable to work due to her injuries. In the accident the minivan was totaled and they need a replacement as all 3 kids are in safety seats. We all go out for our “milkruns” and throw a $20 on the bar for a night of a few pints. This is basically the same thing. If you happen to be free on the 14th, join us down there even if just for an hour or two, to fill the room with AOH members would be a great thing.

Bonner Basketball Beef & Beer

Join us for a Beef & Beer to support the Bonner Basketball team at McGillicuddy’s on Brookline Blvd on Sunday January 8th, 2:30 to 5:30, $25 each for domestic bottles, wine and buffet, the NFL playoffs will be on TV.

Second iPad 2 Wifi (32Gb) Raffle!

2011-12-29T12:26:00.000-05:00

Due to the tremendous response from our first raffle, now sold out, we are holding a second raffle. First prize is anothe iPad 2, 32Gb model with a retail value over $600, second prize is $100 cash and third prize is $50 cash. Tickets are available by contacting any of the division officers listed on the website below, or Kevin Kane at Kevin.Kane@RaymondJames.com Tickets remain just $5 each for this second, seperate raffle.

iPad 2 (32GB) Raffle

2011-12-20T09:24:00.001-05:00

The Grand prize winner of the AOH of Havertown and Monsignor Bonner raffle to benefit the Bonner to Belfast student exchange program, is Mike Billingsley, who will take home a brand new iPad 2 (32GB) with a $600 retail value. Second prize of $100 goes to Sean Crumlish and Jim McCans won the third prize of $50. You still have a chance to win, we are running a second raffle, with the drawing to take place Friday January 27th. Check this site for winner information. 100% of proceeds are being used to fund the St. Malachy's of Belfast Student Exchange Program. For ticket information, please contact Chuck Harrington at charrington2000@yahoo.com

November Meeting

2011-10-14T13:15:00.002-04:00

Our November meeting will take place on Wednesday November 9th. Doors to open @ 7PM and the meeting will start promptly at 7:20. We are starting early as we will have a speaker to go on at 8PM. Our US Congressional Representative from the 7th Districk, Patrick Meehan is scheduled to speak to us on current affairs. Please plan to attend and to be there early. Division meeting will get wrapped up by 8PM, and the formal meeting closed, so feel free to bring non AOH members to hear Pat speak. If there are any questions, feel free to contact Division President Kevin Kane at Kevin.Kane@RaymondJames.com

2011-08-15T17:43:00.003-04:00

Summer Barbeque

When: Sunday, August 21st 1PM to 7PM

Where: American Legion Post #338 2200 Grasslyn Avenue, Havertown PA

Who: All Dennis Kelly Division #1 Brothers, families and prospective members

What: Summer Barbeque - Irish Style

Cost: Free

Fun and games at the adjacent township park for the kids, food & refreshments at the Legion post. Enda Keegan will be entertaining us again this year, so it should be a great day for all!
Please email me at comayo7@verizon.net ASAP the number of adults and kids attending with you. Don't forget to invite a prospective member and his family as well.

Please refer to Division Quick News for Important Updates!

2010-12-06T22:05:00.000-05:00

Final Itinerary - Division Gettysburg Trip

2010-05-20T11:53:00.008-04:00

Division Day trip to the Gettysburg battlefield, Friday November 5th, 2010

This year, we will depart from the Grimes Center parking lot located on St. Denis Lane near Campbell Avenue in Havertown. Please be at the parking lot by 6:30 as the bus will depart at 6:45AM on Friday November 5th. Due to a tight schedule we will not be able to hold the bus for late arrivals. We travel on a deluxe motorcoach. Bus will be equipped with DVD player, TVs, and a bathroom.

Coolers of beer/soda are encouraged but SPACE IS EXTREMELY LIMITED so when you arrive in the parking lot please work to consolidate coolers. Soft pretzels will be on board complements of the Division. We depart for the Gettysburg Tourist Center run by the US National Park Service where we will watch a 40 minute brief summary of the events leading up to the battle of Gettysburg and the 3 day conflict itself. The $7.50 fee for the tourist center admission and the film is included in the package price.
.
After the film we will re-board the bus where a licensed Battlefield Guide will join us and give us a private 2 1/2 hour guided tour of the battlefield explaining what happened at each site, paying particular attention to the contribution of the Irish regiments.
.
After our battlefield tour, the bus will drop us off in the Gettysburg town center for about 3 hours of "time on your own" for lunch and to explore the high concentrations of restaurants, pubs and shops all located within just a few square blocks of the drop off point, a map will be provided, but it is likely that a few roving pub crawls will ensue that you can join.
.
The bus will pick us up at the same spot for a 5PM departure back to Havertown, where we expect to roll in no later than 8PM. Just $30 reserves your seat on the bus and pays for your bus fare, admission to the tourist center and film, the battlefield guide and soft pretzels on board. There are no other out of pocket expenses on this trip other than what you choose to spend yourself in Gettysburg town. The extra bar take that we take in from the Division meetings is going to help subsidize this trip to keep the cost to the members reasonable.
.
We are glad to do frequent family trips and events throughout the year, but this one is a Guy's only trip. You are highly encouraged to bring your non AOH friends with you on this trip, prospective members for our AOH Division particularly but all adult males over the age of 21 are welcome.

2010-05-12T15:07:00.003-04:00

May Division Meeting

Tonight, May 12, 2010. Cheese Club at 2311 Darby Road in Havertown, next to the Lamplighter Restaurant.

Doors and Bar to open at 7PM for AOH members, a short official meeting will take place at 7:15-8:00PM. At 8:00PM tonight, the doors will be open to the public as we will have special guest speaker, Pat Meehan.

Pat is the former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and is a candidate for the 7the Congressional District seat vacated by Joe Sestak. Come out and join us for a beer to hear Pat speak. Phils and Flyers games will be on the TVs (with sound down of course) so you won't miss a thing.

St. Malachy's GAA and Orchestra itinerary

2010-03-11T09:30:00.002-05:00

St. Malachy’s GAA & Traditional Music Group
Philadelphia-Bonner Visit 2010

Thursday March 11

Arrival to Philadelphia Airport
GAA Group arrives 1:45
Bus should arrive at Bonner 5:00 PM
Music Group arrives 5:22
Bus should arrive at Bonner 7:15 PM

Friday March 12

Free Day for families (Bonner does not have classes)

Saturday March 13

11:00 AM Bus from Bonner to Ronald McDonald House
3925 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA
Musicians to perform
GAA game 4:00 PM Medford NJ
Return to Bonner approx. 8:00 PM

Sunday March 14

St. Patrick’s Day Parade Philadelphia
Bus from Bonner leaving 9:30 AM
Arrive back at Bonner 3:30 PM

Monday March 15

All going to Don Guanella School
1797 South Sproul Road Springfield
GAA Demonstration
Bus leaving Bonner 9:30 AM

Return to Bonner 2:30

All going to Irish Center
6815 Emlen Street Philadelphia
Music Group performing approx. 6:00 PM
Bus leaving Bonner 3:45 PM
Return to Bonner approx 8:30 PM
.

Tuesday March 16

All going to St. Malachy’s Philadelphia
1415 N. 11th Street Philadelphia
Music Group performing
Bus leaves Bonner 9:00 AM
Return to Bonner 3:00 PM

Wednesday March 17

School Mass at Bonner honoring St. Patrick
Musicians going downtown Leave 9:15 AM
Judge Jimmy Lynn Breakfast Performance
Irish Memorial Performance
New Deck Performance

GAA – Gym class demonstration of Gaelic Football

Thursday March 18

All going to Constitution Center
525 Arch Street Philadelphia
Bus leaves Bonner 9:00 AM
Music Group performing at Constitution Center 12:00 PM
Return to Bonner 3:00 PM

PERFORMANCE AT BONNER
Music Group 7:00 PM
Bonner Auditorium

Friday March 19

All going to New York City

Saturday March 20

GAA Game
Bonner Field 2:00 PM

Sunday March 21

GAA Game
Bonner Field 6:00 PM
Reception for Host Families following match

Monday March 22

All going to Don Guanella
Bus Leaving Bonner 9:30 AM

Music Performance

All to Airport
Music Group departs 5:50 PM
GAA departs 9:10 PM

Northern Ireland marks historic deal on police powers

2010-02-06T15:56:00.002-05:00

London/Belfast - Protestant and Catholic leaders in Northern Ireland celebrated yet another "historic day" for the troubled province Friday as they finalized a crucial deal on the sensitive issues of policing, justice and parades. The deal, reached after tense marathon talks late Thursday, provides the "last jigsaw" in the devolution of powers from London to the regional institutions in Belfast, Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said.

It is expected to enter into force on April 12 - almost exactly 12 years to the day of the conclusion of the groundbreaking 1998 peace agreement. "This is the last chapter of a long and troubled story and the beginning of a new chapter," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who travelled to Belfast for the occasion, joined by Brian Cowen, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland. "The deal lays the foundation for a new future," said Cowen, one of "mutual respect for people of different traditions, equality and tolerance."

Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland's First Minister, welcomed the deal while warning sections of the Protestant community "not to play politics" with the agreement now reached.
Gerry Adams, the veteran leader of Sinn Fein, the mainstream Republican-Catholic party, said the deal offered a "wonderful chance now in a new spirit for us all to go forward."

The exuberant praise expressed by all participants is a reflection of the relief felt over the agreement after negotiations had repeatedly broken down and threatened the very survival of the power-sharing government in Belfast between Robinson's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein.

Under the deal, the British province, which ceded policing and justice powers to the parliament in London at the height of the "Troubles" in 1972, will add a new ministry of justice to its range of regional portfolios. As well as taking over responsibility for the police, the new ministry will oversee the public prosecution service and the courts and probation services.

The British government has pledged 800 million pounds (1.3 billion dollars) to back the plans.
There has also been agreement on the greater involvement of "local groups" in the organization and control of annual Protestant and Catholic parades, which have been a contentious issue over decades in Northern Ireland.

Given the troubled history of sectarian violence, which started in the late 1960s and continued well into the 1990s, the question of trust in the police and justice authorities has been among the hardest issues to tackle after the 1998 peace accord. The former Protestant-dominated Royal Ulster Constabulary, replaced by the new Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in 2001, simply had no legitimacy in the eyes of Catholics in Northern Ireland. During the "Troubles" more than 3,500 people lost their lives, among them 300 police offers - most of them victims of the former terrorist Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In 1999, a year after the peace agreement, just 8 per cent of the province's police officers were Catholics. But since the establishment of PSNI, that percentage has risen to more than 25 per cent, with a 50:50 recruitment policy the ultimate target.

However, while the mainstream IRA laid down its arms in 2005, dissident groups have pursued a low-level campaign of violence in recent years, culminating in the murder a year ago of two British soldier and a police officer in the province. Almost daily low-level attacks on police stations and individuals continue. The politicians now hope that by by placing key police and justice powers back into the hands of Northern Ireland's mainstream parties, the destabilizing violence will stop. "They (the dissidents) have to recognize this morning that the game is up," Woodward said in Belfast Friday.

Read more: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/307695,northern-ireland-marks-historic-deal-on-police-powers--summary.html#ixzz0en8lt77c

2009 Year In Review

2009-12-23T09:27:00.003-05:00

2009 was a wonderful year for the AOH Dennis Kelly Division in Havertown. We welcomed many new members, had some fun, and helped a lot of people in the process. We held two successful fundraisers, our comedy night last spring and a beef & beer in October.

Our Division also sponsored a trip to Jim Thorpe PA and other historically significant sites in Carbon County. We also took part in the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in Philadelphia. Because of the tireless efforts of the brethren, we were able to raise enough money to donate $1,000 split amongst 5 different wounded soldiers returned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who were in need of a hand.

We were also in a position to help a local family after a tragic death, and make a donation to the “Duffy’s Cut project”. I urge you to read prior posts for a full explanation on this important archeological project in our area. Other recipients of Division donations were the St. Malachy’s School fund raising concert, Old Saint Josephs Homeless outreach, and 15 parish schools in the area which also received donation checks.

We are currently in the process of purchasing oil heat and having it delivered to two different families with children in need. These are homes that otherwise may have gone cold this winter.

2010 promises to bring its own opportunities and challenges. We plan to scale back to just 1 major fundraiser for this year, our Comedy Night in April. A soon to be announced very well known headline act will surely sell us out this year so be sure to check back often to the site to se when tickets go on sale and purchase yours immediately, as they will probably not be available at the door. The division is planning another bus trip to a historically and culturally significant spot, possibly Gettysburg, so stay tuned for that and jump on the bus tickets early as it will also surely sell out. We again plan to march in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in March, and will be doing our AOH Night at the Phillies yet again.

We hope that this brief report on the humble but important progress of our Division over the past year will encourage you to help support us in our future endeavors, or to reach out and join our Division if you are not a member. Simply click on the "Division Officers" link and email one of us for more information. Our entire Division wishes you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

2009-11-23T12:13:00.005-05:00

Jim Thorpe Trip

.
On Friday, November 6th, 35 members and friends of the AOH Dennis Kelly Division #1 from Havertown took part in a Division sponsored trip. First stop was a senic overlook over the mountains and town of Jim Thorpe PA. Photos courtesy of Terry Louge.

Also part of the trip was a guided tour of a coal mine with an explanation of how the mines worked, what hardships the workers had to endure and how the industry has transformed over the last 100 years.
.

While in the town of Jim Thorpe, PA, our group was treated to a guided tour of the Prison where the “Molly Maguire’s” were held and subsequently executed. These replica gallows were similar to the ones used to hang the Maguire’s. The prison also houses famous “cell 17” with the legendary hand imprint on the wall that is visible to this day. We also visited the Hibernian House in Girardsville PA where a descendent of Black Jack Kehoe continues to hold the original shackles that were used to confine him.

The trip, designed and set up by Brother Pat Shea was very well received and we will follow this route again in a few years. Stay tuned for another trip particular to Irish historical interest for the Fall of 2010.

Today in Irish History

2009-10-19T09:49:00.014-04:00

December 29th

1766 - Richard Dawson, MP for Monaghan Borough, dies on this date. Before his death, his bank - Wilcox & Dawson of Dublin, which was established in 1747 - closes with debts thought to amount to £192,000

1809 - William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal) British PM (1868-74, '80-86, '92-94) He was also Chancellor of the Exchequer and a champion of the Home Rule Bill which would have established self-government in Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone

1829 - Fr. John B. Bannon, Confederate Army Chaplain, is born in Co. Leitrimhttp://www.battleofchampionhill.org/history/bannon.htm http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/johnbannon.htm http://www.pricecamp.org/kelly.htm

1864 - The National Association of Ireland is founded in Dublin, backed by the Catholic hierarchy and intended to foster cooperation with English radicals to promote disestablishment of the Church of Ireland

1876 - The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language is formed in Dublin

1902 - Birth of Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford; theatrical producer and dramatist

1932 - Eileen Desmond, Labour politician, is born in Kinsale, Co. Corkhttp://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0107/desmonde.html

1937 - Ireland adopts constitution (Irish Free State becomes Eire) Éire is the nominative form in modern Irish of the name for the goddess called Ériu in Old Irish, a mythical figure who helped the Gaels conquer Ireland as described in the Book of Invasions.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunreacht_na_h%C3%89ireann

1997 - Secretary of State Mo Mowlam holds day-long crisis talks with security chiefs and prison officials amid renewed calls for her resignation and fears that breakaway loyalist and republican terror bosses will ruthlessly exploit any political vacuum
1998 - Battered by gale-force winds and torrential rain, The Isle of Man ferry runs aground in Dublin Bay
1998 - More than 12,000 families across the country face their fifth day of candle-light and cold meals as the painstaking process of repairing storm-damaged electricity lines drags on
2000 - One of the coldest spells to grip the country in decades continues

2001 - Singer Daniel O'Donnell is awarded an honorary MBE in the Queen's honours list for his decades of service to the music industry. Fashion designer John Rocha is awarded a CBE.

2006 - Sinn Fein leaders voted to convene an emergency conference and confront a pivotal issue in Northern Ireland peacemaking, whether the IRA-linked party should support the police.

Beef & Beer

2009-09-10T08:51:00.001-04:00

Be True To Your School !!

The Ancient Order of Hibernians in Havertown are hosting a fundraiser for local Parish Schools. A Beef & Beer will be held and funds will be allocated to Parish schools according to ticket sales. All attendees are asked to write the Parish they wish their attendance to sponsor on the back of their ticket. Tickets will be collected and proceeds divided accordingly. $25 per ticket for unlimited beer, wine, soda, gourmet food and live music provided by Misty Isle.

Saturday, October 17, 7:00 PM
St. Denis Gym, 300 East Eagle Road, Havertown PA

To view and print a flyer for the event:http://www.aohdenniskelly.com/pdfs/aoh.beefandbeer.10.17.09.pdf

Tickets are now available! Contact ticket coordinator Rich Brennan at rbrennan53@comcast.net or any division officer. We may sell out again so please be sure to buy your tickets in advance!!!

Division Online Fundraiser

2009-07-30T09:36:00.004-04:00

Online Fundraiser August 10th - September 7th!!!

Top Non-AOH member reviewer to recieve a $25 dinner gift certificate!

Join us in helping to raise funds through an online business review writing campaign. Anyone over the age of 18 can help us raise money!

• Go to the website that insider pages has created for us and sign up at: http://www.insiderpages.com/fundraisers/Ancient-Order-of-Hibernians-0908
Sign yourself your wife and any kids friends family and contacts over the age of 18 that you can. Simply click on the “Join this Fundraiser” blue box on the right side of the page, and when it takes you to the login page, just click on “Join Today” if you don’t already have a login for insiderpages. It takes about 20 seconds, nothing to it.

• You can go to the website and sign up now, but our reviews writing clock starts on August 10th. Be sure not to write any reviews before this date, we will not be compensated for them. Once the clock starts, we have 3 weeks to write as many as possible to generate revenue.

• All reviews must be first hand experiences you have had at a particular business.

• If a business already has at least 4 reviews, move on and don’t bother, it won’t generate any revenue.

• It can not be generic quick reviews and no text speak (omg, lol, etc.) A few lines of original thought per business is all it takes.

And its that simple. Other local organizations have raised well over $3,000 through this program, we are setting a goal of $4,000 which will help bolster our charity efforts in a difficult fundraising economic environment. We ask everyone to sign up now (and all of your friends and family) then start writing reviews on August 10th, and to write several per day for any businesses that have 3 or fewer reviews. The top reviewers are constantly updated on the main website linked above. The top non AOH member will recieve a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant. Thank you for your support!

2009-06-04T14:27:00.004-04:00

Death of the Celtic Tiger

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Every inch of the Elysian, Ireland’s tallest building, is designed to entice viewers to splurge as much as 1.8 million euros ($2.56 million) on an apartment in the 17-story tower. A signature three-bedroom duplex penthouse offers a black-lacquer kitchen with taps designed by Porsche SE and a panoramic view of Cork, Ireland’s second-largest city.

The only feature missing: buyers. Eighty percent of the Elysian’s 211 apartments were still on the market in late April, according to Michael O’Flynn, 51, developer of the 150-million euro project. About half the office and store units also stand empty on the site.
“It’s not the product, it’s just the times we’re in,” says O’Flynn, who has reduced his company’s payroll to about 400 employees from some 1,200 three years ago.

From the top of the 266-foot (81-meter) building, prospective buyers gaze upon a tableau that includes a multistory parking lot, a factory and a busy highway. The Elysian is a symbol of how an export-driven economic boom became an unsustainable property bubble. Irish house prices quadrupled to an average 311,000 euros in the decade to January 2007, a year when construction accounted for about a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product and the economy grew 6 percent. Even in a world convulsed by the worst recession in 70 years, Ireland’s rapid shift from boom to bust stands out as an example of what can happen when government officials fail to slow an economy overheating on property speculation.

Worst Performer
The country’s GDP, after expanding by an average of more than 9 percent a year from 1997 to 2001 -- faster than any other European Union country -- will shrink about 12 percent from 2008 through 2010, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin. That would be the worst performance by an industrialized nation since the Great Depression, the group said on April 29. The government is cutting public employee wages and hiking taxes to reassure continental neighbors that the country won’t need a bailout like Iceland, its neighbor to the north. Iceland’s banks collapsed last October after overseas investments went sour, triggering a run on the krona, which lost 85 percent of its value against the euro in 2008. In November, Iceland received a $5.1 billion International Monetary Fund-led rescue package to keep its economy alive.

Low Taxes
Investors appear to be supporting Ireland’s austerity efforts. The difference in yield, or spread, between Irish and benchmark German 10-year government bonds jumped to 284 basis points on March 19, the most in 10 years, compared with an average of 22 basis points over the previous decade. The difference on June 3, following the government’s tax raises and cost-cutting, was 194 basis points. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point. Irish executives say the low taxes, open business environment and educated population that transformed a rural society on the edges of Europe into a free-enterprise showcase will also help the country survive the current crisis. “People are always inclined to look for dramatic, Iceland- type situations, when what you’re talking about is something totally different,” says Peter Sutherland, Irish-born chairman at BP Plc and Goldman Sachs International and a former EU commissioner. “Ireland still has a gross domestic product which is incredibly high, a significant balance of trade in positive terms and a vibrant manufacturing sector.”

Property Bubble
At the moment, the Celtic Tiger has not only lost its swagger; it has retreated into its lair. In the glory days of the 1990s, companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Microsoft Corp. fueled growth in this country of 4.4 million people --attracted by a corporation tax rate that fell to 12.5 percent by 2003, then the EU’s lowest for business. The surging economy lured back thousands of Irish citizens who fled the country in the 1980s, swelling property values. Unemployment, which exceeded 15 percent in the mid-1980s, plunged to 3.9 percent by 2001. Then it all came crashing down as the global recession cut off easy credit and curtailed demand for exports. The IMF says the Irish economy will shrink 8 percent this year, following a 2.3 percent contraction in 2008. The country’s implosion was foreseeable and avoidable, says Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF and now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “Ireland’s done very well in the past 30 years, improving people’s skills, bringing in sensible new productive investment; it was a Singapore-style strategy,” Johnson says. “Then they took their eye off the ball. Property is the classic emerging- market blind alley. You’re gambling that the world economy stays stable forever.”

Austerity Program
Ireland’s coalition government, led by Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s Fianna Fail party, is trying to repair the damage as tax revenues plummet. Ireland’s budget deficit is projected to soar to 10.8 percent of GDP in 2009, more than three times the EU limit. In May, the government imposed a special levy that raises the rate of tax on incomes over 175,000 euros to 47 percent from 41 percent last year. A new state agency will buy as much as 90 billion euros in real estate loans from the banks, which may make the government the country’s biggest landlord.
“The recession in Ireland is going to be longer, deeper and more painful than in any other European country,” says Michael O’Leary, chief executive officer of Dublin-based Ryanair Holdings Plc, Europe’s largest discount airline. “Ireland is going to be terrible for the next two years.”

Bank Bailout
In January, Cowen’s government seized control of Dublin- based Anglo Irish Bank Corp., once the country’s No. 3 bank, which had some 80 percent of its loan book in the hands of commercial developers, according to Dublin-based Goodbody Stockbrokers. Anglo’s lending rose to 73 billion euros by September 2008 from 18 billion euros in 2003. The lender’s demise was accompanied by scandal. Sean Fitzpatrick, 61, the bank’s CEO from 1986 to 2005 and then chairman, resigned in December after a public revelation that he obtained a series of loans from Anglo Irish that had previously not been disclosed to investors. Those loans amounted to 106.8 million euros in outstanding debt on March 31, the bank said in a May 29 statement. Police and regulators are investigating Anglo Irish’s affairs. Fitzpatrick, in a phone interview, said he had been advised by lawyers not to comment.

Wrong Place
Ireland will spend 13.9 percent of its GDP on a bailout program for lenders including Allied Irish Banks Plc, Bank of Ireland Plc and Anglo Irish, the IMF forecast on April 21. Cowen’s government disputes those figures without offering its own estimate for the rescue, which will be paid for partly by state pension reserves. On Feb. 21, about 100,000 public employees demonstrated in Dublin to protest pay cuts and bankers’ excesses. “Ireland was in the right place at the right time in the 1990s, in a booming global economy,” says Dermot O’Leary, chief economist at Goodbody. “By 2006, Ireland was in the wrong place at the wrong time, heavily dependent on construction, a sector that relies on credit.” The country’s political leaders aren’t volunteering to take responsibility for the mess. “I can’t remember anyone at any level telling me, ‘The banks are giving hundreds of millions of euros to developers, and they’re borrowing this at short rates, so if anything happens to them, they’re caught,’” says Bertie Ahern, 57, prime minister from 1997 to 2008, in an interview at his north Dublin office. “I know some people say ‘you should have asked.’”

Who’s to Blame
Government officials such as Ahern have only themselves to blame, says Johnson of the Peterson Institute. “Any responsible policy maker should be asking tough questions,” he says. “Ireland’s highly responsible for its own problems.” Ahern resigned in May 2008, as a trawl through his personal finances by a government-appointed tribunal damaged support for his Fianna Fail-led ruling coalition. He wasn’t charged with any offense. His party has been in power since 1997 and led Ireland into the European single currency. From July 1998 to January 1999, when Ireland joined the euro zone, its benchmark rate fell by more than half to 3 percent, as the European Central Bank assumed authority for the country’s borrowing terms.
Falling under the ECB’s purview robbed Dublin of the ability to control its own money supply, says Charlie McCreevy, finance minister from 1997 to 2004.

Colonial History
“If we’d had control over our interest rates at that time, they would have been higher,” says McCreevy, 59, now the EU’s commissioner for financial services. Nevertheless, the benefits of euro membership outweighed any drawbacks, he says. Ireland’s modern struggle to control its own fate can be traced to its fractured independence from Britain in 1922. The country’s rural economy stagnated for decades as the government imposed import tariffs. The policy to isolate Ireland from the U.K. was driven by Eamon de Valera, the republican leader who dominated Irish public life from the 1930s to the early 1970s, serving multiple terms as both Taoiseach, or prime minister, and president. “De Valera wanted self-sufficiency, which was an absurd idea in a country 300 miles long, with no climatic range and very few people,” says Garret FitzGerald, 83, former leader of the Fine Gael party, who served two terms as Ireland’s prime minister from 1981 to 1987.

‘European’ Ireland
In 1973, de Valera’s last year as president, Ireland made a decisive break with isolationism when Fianna Fail Prime Minister Jack Lynch led the country into the European Economic Community, as the EU was then known. The financial benefits of membership were overwhelming: From 1973 to 2008, Ireland received a total of 62 billion euros from Europe, of which almost 44 billion euros went into the pockets of the country’s farmers. By finding salvation in an economic embrace of continental neighbors, Ireland’s politicians followed the advice of Robert Hand, a character in Exiles, the 1918 play by the Dublin-born writer James Joyce: “If Ireland is to become a new Ireland, she must first become European.” Even with Europe’s largesse, Ireland’s economy grew at an average of just 1.7 percent from 1980 to 1986, and unemployment averaged 16 percent from 1983 to 1988, which drove 228,000 people out of the country at the end of the decade.

‘Begging Bowl’
To help create jobs, the government’s Industrial Development Authority began targeting foreign investors. The IDA marketed the country’s educated, English-speaking population as “The Young Europeans,” particularly in the U.S. Such efforts lured overseas companies to establish manufacturing operations in Ireland, including Norwood, Massachusetts-based computer-hardware maker Analog Devices Inc. and Toronto-based telecom equipment company Nortel Networks Corp. “Ireland manipulated the European begging bowl very effectively, but at the same time we were bringing in investment,” says Roy Foster, professor of Irish history at Oxford University and the author of Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change from 1970 (Oxford University Press, 2008). “We’ve played both sides of the street very well, being poor in Europe for as long as possible but always looking across the Atlantic.”

Built on Breaks
After debt as a share of GDP peaked at about 112 percent in 1987, the government, unions and employers collaborated on a so- called Program for National Recovery. That year, Fianna Fail Prime Minister Charles Haughey ordered spending cuts, introduced tax breaks to spur the creation of jobs and brokered a three- year agreement to cap salary increases. The rival Fine Gael party, Haughey’s parliamentary opposition, backed the economic reforms.
From the late 1980s, Ireland set out to establish itself as a global financial hub by creating the International Financial Services Centre on the northern banks of Dublin’s River Liffey. The first tenants, including New York-based Citigroup Inc., enjoyed a 10 percent corporate tax rate.
“The international financial services industry in Ireland was really built on the back of tax breaks,” says Brian Lucey, associate professor of finance at Trinity College, Dublin.

No Switzerland
Ireland’s favorable treatment of some companies eventually ran afoul of EU regulations. In 2003, the government complied with continental competition rules and standardized the tax rate for all companies at 12.5 percent. “Ireland is not a conventional tax haven like Switzerland or the Channel Islands,” says John Christensen, international coordinator in London for the Tax Justice Network, a lobby group that campaigns for transparent fiscal rules. “It doesn’t have banking secrecy, so it’s not a major center for private banking involving trusts and similar offshore investment vehicles for tax evasion.” Nevertheless, Dublin became a destination for aggressive profit-maximizing strategies that went badly wrong. Germany’s state-owned banks, for example, set up investment units in Dublin to benefit from the low tax rate and proximity to investors in London. Sachsen LB’s Dublin operation, Sachsen LB Europe Plc, was established in 1999 and loaded up on toxic assets, including subprime mortgages, amounting to more than 27 times the bank’s equity during the next nine years.

Dublin Transformed
The Dublin unit funneled earnings back to Leipzig, Germany, where Sachsen LB was based. After the subprime-mortgage crisis broke in the summer of 2007, Sachsen LB was shut out of the financing market and needed a 17-billion euro emergency credit line from other state-owned banks to avoid collapse. Eventually, the state of Saxony agreed to provide guarantees using taxpayer money of up to 2.8 billion euros to cover losses on toxic assets. The lender, which shut its Dublin unit and was renamed Sachsen Bank, returned to a profit last year.
Ahern lauds Ireland’s success in marketing itself abroad. “Business guys, particularly multinationals, knew we were listening to them,” he says. “People were saying: ‘This crowd of Paddies, they’re up to this. They want to get high growth, keep taxes low.’”
Tax incentives and grants also transformed Temple Bar, a once-derelict district in Dublin’s city center that was reclaimed by restaurants, nightclubs and cultural facilities such as the Irish Film Centre. Wealthy tourists booked into rooms in the Clarence Hotel, a 49-room boutique hostelry that’s partially owned by Bono and The Edge of the rock group U2.

Peace Agreement
Redevelopment efforts created one of Europe’s most generous property tax regimes. Beginning in 1992, for example, the government allowed investors in rundown neighborhoods to write off the purchase price of apartments against other rental income. Financial services, construction and exports nurtured the Celtic Tiger. In 1995, gross domestic output per capita averaged about $17,200, 12 percent below the average in a survey of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Eight years later, it was $33,000, 22 percent above average. In 2008, 44 percent of Irish exports went to continental EU countries, with the U.K. and the U.S. accounting for a further 38 percent of foreign sales. As the economy grew, Ahern worked with then U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair to tackle the divide between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, whose six counties remain part of Britain. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement marked the end of 30 years of sectarian violence and the eventual introduction of self-government to the province of 1.8 million people.

Cycle of Lending
The combination of easy credit, increased wages and tax incentives for real estate spurred the Republic’s property bubble. In 2007, builders in Ireland completed about 18 housing units per 1,000 people, edging Spain as Europe’s construction hot spot, according to Euroconstruct, a building industry research group. In Finland, the No. 3 country, developers built about 6.5 units per 1,000 residents. Total bank lending surged to 392.8 billion euros in the four years to 2008, while the average person was 37,000 euros in debt, the highest level in the euro zone, according to government figures. “The banks gave the money to the developers, the developers paid top dollar and then the banks borrowed the money on a short-term basis to give long-term loans,” Ahern says.

Top of Market
In 2003, in the Cork suburb of Ballincollig, developer O’Flynn bought a site that included disused military barracks from Ireland’s defense ministry for 40 million euros. At its center, he built a shopping mall surrounded by two curving apartment buildings. On a sunny March day, visitors are confronted by a deserted plaza where vacancy signs dot the shop fronts.
Property fever transformed commuter towns such as Maynooth, 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of Dublin. Eamon O’Flaherty, an agent at Brady Property Partners, remembers the scene in 2006 when his firm launched Newtown Hall, a residential development.
“People slept out in their cars,” says O’Flaherty, who sold 49 properties on the first morning. “It was crazy.” It was also, in retrospect, just about the top of the market. Average house prices have plunged 19 percent from their peak in January 2007, according to Irish Life & Permanent Plc. O’Flaherty has since cut prices on a two-bedroom apartment to 195,000 euros, about 35 percent less than the initial price.

Tax Challenge
As Ireland’s government takes on the burden of toxic property loans, it also faces financial pressure from the U.S. On May 4, President Barack Obama said he planned to raise about $190 billion during the next 10 years partly by curtailing the ability of U.S.-based multinationals to write off the costs of overseas units against domestic tax liabilities. “Any tightening up of U.S. tax rules will clearly have an impact on Ireland,” says Ron Davies, professor of economics at University College, Dublin, who specializes in tax competition issues. “But it’s not just disturbing for Ireland. Every other low-tax jurisdiction is going to face the same issues, such as Poland and the Czech Republic.” Ireland will bounce back by rebuilding an “enterprise economy” that values high-tech manufacturing, Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told Bloomberg Television on May 7. “We’re a small, open and trading economy that has performed extraordinarily well over the past 15 years,” he said. “Our manufacturing output is down just about 1 percent in the first quarter -- so there are a lot of silver linings.”

Smart Economy
Cook Ireland, a unit of Bloomington, Indiana-based Cook Group Inc., the world’s largest private supplier of clinical equipment, is one of those bright spots. The company employs some 500 people at its Irish plant, which makes medical instruments ranging from 20-euro catheters to arterial stents that sell for more than 5,000 euros. Many of Cook Ireland’s employees monitor advances in science and health regulations, skilled work that will remain in Ireland, says Bill Doherty, the plant’s manager. “The regulatory and clinical side is not so easy to move to a country like Hungary,” Doherty says. Being smart can be expensive. Ireland’s average manufacturing labor cost was $25 per hour in 2006, five times higher than Poland’s, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.

Salaries Slashed
The economy has shed 13 percent of its manufacturing jobs in the past seven years, as companies from Apple Inc. to Dell Inc. shift production to cheaper locales. In January, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, once Ireland’s largest exporter, said it would cut 1,900 jobs at its Limerick factory and transfer most production to Poland. Salaries are also being slashed as job losses mount. Deloitte & Touche LLP, the New York-based accounting firm, has reduced pay for its 1,200 Irish staff by 5 percent to 10 percent. Leading by example, President Mary McAleese cut her 325,508-euro salary by 10 percent. Martin promised that Ireland will survive the hard times without a bailout. “We will resolve this internally ourselves,” he says. Don’t count on it, says Willem Buiter, former chief economist at the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Test of Faith
“It really depends on whether the markets lose faith in the ability of the Irish authorities to impose the amount of fiscal pain that’s necessary,” says Buiter, now a professor at the London School of Economics. “The Irish are lucky that they’re in the EU and the euro zone, otherwise they’d have been Iceland Mark II.” Ireland’s capital is pockmarked by unfinished construction projects, including an empty lot on the Poolbeg Peninsula, site of one of Anglo Irish’s troubled investments. The bank helped finance a 412-million euro deal in 2007 to buy the land for a 2,000-unit apartment complex scheduled to be built where a bottling factory once stood. By February 2009, the property was worth 30 percent less than its purchase price, according to one of the investors, the government-owned Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
“It’s a fairy tale gone bad, isn’t it?” says Damien Rice, who runs a grocery store opposite the site.
Irish taxpayers such as Rice are now reluctant stakeholders in this and other hobbled projects, collectively paying the price for a decade-long party that ended badly.

Duffy's Cut

2009-04-09T09:30:00.005-04:00

In 1832, Irish immigrant and Willistown railroad contractor Phillip Duffy, while working to build the Philadelphia and Columbia Rail line, went to the docks in Philadelphia and hired 57 Irishmen directly off of a boat from Ireland. To build their lines, Pennsylvania railroads had to tunnel through mountains, cross wide rivers, span deep gorges to lay the track upon which their trains would run. This was hard, physically demanding, low-paying labor and dangerous work. To find men desperate enough to build and maintain their lines, Pennsylvania railroads for generations relied upon foreign workers - Irish and Chinese, and Italians - and slaves from the south.

Duffy brought the men out to the Malvern area to work to fill in a ravine for a track bed. Duffy crowded his work crew into a single hastily built shanty. Largely shunned by the local populace - anti-Irish Catholic riots had broken out in Philadelphia just the year before -the newcomers began their grueling labor in June:

That summer, an outbreak of Cholera swept through the area killing at least 900 in the tri-county area. As they watched their fellow workers fall ill and die, some of the Irish men hurried to nearby homes for assistance. The anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant prejudice was so prevalent, however, that doors were barred tight, and help was refused. Only the blacksmith dared risked exposure in an attempt to save lives.

The Blacksmith led several Sisters of Charity from Philadelphia to the site, but to no avail. The task of burying the Irish workers, who all died from cholera that August, fell upon the blacksmith. There are also theories that some were murdered by anti-Irish vigilantes or even the railroad itself, which the ongoing excavation may prove or disprove. The Blacksmith buried them all in a shallow ditch on the railroad's right of way without ceremony or funeral. Also rejected by the local residents, the nuns walked back to Philadelphia without food or water in the late summer heat.

Although incidents of mass death such as this one at Duffy's Cut were uncommon, Irish immigrant workers on Pennsylvania's railroads suffered from injury and death at a high rate, for they were often viewed by the owners and managers of railroad and coal mining corporations as expendable components, and by "native" Americans as unwholesome and even dangerous outsiders. Often crowded into company housing in out-of-the-way locations, Irish-born mine and rail workers struggled for survival in a frequently hostile environment.

As commerce and industry expanded rapidly in the decades before the Civil War, immigrant workers" efforts fueled Pennsylvania's exploding economic growth. Landless Irish tenant farmers and laborers, dispossessed by the English in their homeland, and then fleeing starvation after the outbreak of the potato famine, fled by the thousands every year. The vast majority wound up in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Some found skilled labor positions, or farming opportunities, ended up doing temporary and arduous hard labor. For those who spoke English or were skilled craftsmen, chances for economic success were greater. Many of these immigrant workers brought with them ideas about labor guilds and fraternities, which would appear in force during the last quarter of the nineteenth century when organized workers challenged the authority of wealthy industrialists. Railroad jobs were be extremely dangerous. In 1881, more than thirty thousand American railroad workers were killed or injured on the job. Many railroads offered no compensation; nor did the courts which ruled that workers shared the blame for their injuries and deaths—even when railroads had the ability to use equipment that would improve safety.

In the late 1800s industrial workers membership in unions in Pennsylvania and across the nation began to afford them some protections against management abuses. But in 1832, the fifty-seven Irish laborers who worked on the Philadelphia and Columbia line were completely on their own. When disease struck, they suffered, and died, alone. No death certificates were ever filed for these non-citizens. Work on Duffy's Cut resumed in the fall.

When the Philadelphia and Columbia was purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1857, the story of Duffy's Cut might have been forgotten had it not been for some local residents who still talked about the gruesome tragedy. In 1870, sympathetic local railroad workers constructed a wooden fence around what they thought was the gravesite. In 1909, a railroad assistant supervisor replaced the deteriorating wooden fence with a stone wall.

Official record of the deaths at Duffy's Cut, remained locked in the vaults of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) until Joseph Tripican, a secretary to a former PRR president removed them after the company's bankruptcy in 1970. In the 1990s, one of Tripican's grandsons, Frank Watson discovered the papers in a file, and began with fellow historian and brother William Watson to research the history. The file had been intentionally hidden by the Railroad from the 1850s until its bankruptcy in the 1970’s.

Professor William Watson of Immaculata University and his dig team, found human bones on the site Friday March 20th. William is a brother Hibernian, a member of Black Jack Kehoe AOH of Delaware County. After consulting with the township and police advisors, William has graciously granted our request for a small religious service at the site of the dig when most, but not all, of the bones are removed. William tells us he expects this to take 2-3 months, putting a possible event in June. Stay tuned for further details.

Irish Themed Movies

2009-04-08T10:14:00.000-04:00

Easter Sixteen
‘Easter Sixteen’ the new feature to be directed by Irish actor Jason Barry (Bog Bodies, Titanic) has announced the film’s cast which includes Guy Pearce (Memento, LA Confidential) and Ian Hart (Finding Neverland) and will begin filming in Dublin in March 2009. Based on the pivotal time in Irish history, ‘Easter Sixteen’ is the story of an unlikely group of would-be revolutionaries, with little in common beyond their desire to see Ireland as a free nation. Confirmed lead cast for the feature are Guy Pearce who will play Padraig Pearse, Ian Hart will play Thomas Clarke while actors Anthony Lapagila, Tony Curran, Alex Etel, Jason Barry. The studio is currently in talks with A- Lister for the role of James Connolly.

In Bruges
Irish caper movie staring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Finnes. After accidentally killing an innocent boy in London, Irish hit men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are sent by their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), to lay low in Bruges. But, uncomfortable in this foreign city, the two professional killers soon get into trouble. Complicating matters further, when the guilt-ridden Ray falls for a girl working on a film shoot, he finds himself confronting the girl's jealous ex-boyfriend. Martin McDonagh's crime comedy was nominated for a Best Picture Golden Globe. While Irish themed, the movie was mostly shot “in Bruges” Belgium.

Hunger
Acclaimed visual artist Steve McQueen makes his feature film debut with this gripping drama (and Independent Spirit Award Best Foreign Film contender) that depicts the events surrounding a hunger strike staged by a group of IRA prisoners during their 1981 incarceration in Occupied Ireland’s Prison Maze (translation: Long Kesh concentration camp). Led by IRA volunteer-poet Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), the strikers waged their six-week-long protest in an attempt to be acknowledged as political prisoners and to improve prison's inhumane conditions. The film follows Sands final 66 days and was shot entirely in Northern Ireland.

Five Minutes of Heaven
A movie to be introduced at Sundance starring Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt and filmed in Belfast last summer. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) the film tells the familiar story of two men who are from the same town but on different sides of the political divide and find that the past is never dead. Based on a true story, the film was written by Guy Hibbert (writer of Omagh)

Leap Year
A romantic comedy to be shot in Ireland in early 2009 is the story of a woman who follows her boyfriend to Dublin in order to propose to him on February 29th, the leap year day. Tradition holds that a man getting a proposal on that day always says “yes”.

2009-03-23T12:10:00.003-04:00

Saint Malachy’s Orchestra Visit 2009

At St. Malachy's in North Philadelphia:

Playing at the Plough & Stars on Saint Patrick's Day:

Concert at Archbishop Prendergast:

All participants expressed warm appreciation for all of the hard work done by the Division, particularly Dan Harrell, Tom Meakim, Joe Roan and all bretheren who contributed to make the visit a success.

2009-02-28T09:02:00.005-05:00

Free Ceili Concert

Saturday March 14th at Archbishop Prendergast High School Auditorium 7PM. The Orchastra from Saint Malachy’s High School in Belfast, Northern Ireland will be playing a concert full of traditional Irish music as well as other selections along with students from Monsignor Bonner’s music program.

The event is being sponsored by the AOH Dennis Kelly Division #1 and the Junior AOH Division of Monsignor Bonner. Admission is free so come out and hear some authentic beautiful Irish favorites the night before the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

2009-02-27T15:04:00.000-05:00

APPEARING LIVE!!!!!
ROUND TOWER

IRISH MUSIC at it’s BEST !

Friday, March 13th-Tip O'Leary’s- 9pm to 1am
300 West Chester Pike, Havertown (next to Kohls)

Bring a gang and start the holiday weekend right!! Saturday, March 14th-Maggie O’Neills- 3pm to 7pm
Pilgrim Gardens Shopping Center Drexel Hill
Springfield after-parade party. Irish dancers and Irish music with Round Tower. Bring the family!!

Tuesday, March 17th-Maggie O’Neills- 12noon to 6pm
Pilgrim Gardens Shopping Center Drexel Hill
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! Irish dancers, bagpipers, live Irish music with Round Tower, leprechauns and St. Patrick Himself!!

Tuesday, March 17th-Caseys- 6pm to 10pm
Lansdowne Ave, Drexel Hill
Irish dancers, live Irish music with Round Tower.
Bring the family and get up with the band and sing an Irish song and win a prize!!

Bring a crowd and enjoy the music!! “Raise a glass” and “Celebrate the Season” with some live Irish music with Round Tower!

Rebuilding Together Philadelphia

2009-01-02T08:40:00.003-05:00

Dear Dennis Kelly AOH Brothers & Friends,

You can help Rebuilding Together Philadelphia (RTP) make essential repairs to a home for veterans in transition-just by lifting your finger! RTP has been chosen as one of eight cities to compete for a $40,000 grant from HGTV for their Change the World-Start at Home campaign. This grant would enable RTP to make critical repairs to a rowhouse that houses veterans in transition in the Frankfort section of the City.

In order to win, we need your help to obtain the most online votes between January 1 and March 2. Anyone can cast a vote EVERY DAY between now and March 2nd. Before you do anything else, please click here and vote FOR PHILADELPHIA today (and every day):
www.hgtv.com/hgtv/home/text/0,,HGTV_32656_82769,00.html
For more information about RTP go to http://www.rebuildingphilly.org/.
Thank you again for your support. Through this campaign, we are certain that RTP will continue to keep homes in the greater Philadelphia area warm, safe, and dry.

Thanks,

Brother Rich Brennan
RTP Official Ambassador

PS - Two quick ideas for helping RTP to get more votes:
Encourage your friends to change their browser home page to:
www.hgtv.com/hgtv/home/text/0,,HGTV_32656_82769,00.html

Add this to your email signature:
Please vote for Philadelphia on the HGTV contest page (vote once a day through March 2, to help RTP win a $40,000 grant from HGTV):
www.hgtv.com/hgtv/home/text/0,,HGTV_32656_82769,00.html

2008-12-23T14:01:00.003-05:00

From the Office of the President

Gentlemen, Brothers, Merry Christmas!
The past year seems to have flown by with remarkable speed. The amazing success of this Division continues, because of your tireless efforts, and support. To the many, who attend most of the meetings, and volunteer for the variety of charitable events, which are held throughout the year....THANK YOU. To those, who attend as many meetings as you can, and support us every year with much needed dues money, THANK YOU every contribution is critical, and appreciated.

Our Division truly made a difference to a countless number of people, this year. The Hibernian Hunger project expanded to more food centers, with donations from more parish schools, than in years past. The Comedy Night was an incredible, and hysterical success. The capacity crowd
which attended, allowed us to send, approx. 40 to 50 boxes of comfort items to our Armed Forces men and women, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our October Féis was a great time. Despite the terrible wind and rain, people came out to show support for the men and women, injured while serving in Iraq an Afghanistan. You should be proud to know that your Division has sent $300.00 checks to 10 different men and women and their families, to help with everyday expenses, and hopefully, this has brightened this Christmas Season for the families of these brave heroes. I join you in wishing that we could have done more. As you can see, we not only helped people here at home, but our efforts have now, reached out around the world. The Christmas Toy Drive and the Coat Drive, which we just completed, was a fantastic Kick-Off to the Christmas Season. Our guest wrappers really are the world's best. There were other donations to families, and organizations, in need, in our area, and it is wonderful to be able to help, where help is needed. We have done a great deal in 2008, but trust me, there will be more to do, in 2009.

We also had some fun this year. There were the parades in Philadelphia and Conshohocken, which seem to get better every year. Last year marked our 5th year in the Philadelphia Parade, and we enjoyed having so many families join us on the walk up Broad Street. Let's make it
greater in the 2009! There was a Phillies game, a Division Bar-B-Que, and a handful of "milk runs". What kind of men would we be, if we didn't keep our houses stocked with milk? Let us not forget the "Bonner to Belfast" basketball tour, and the hosting of our friends from St. Malachy's College. There were great basketball games, on both sides of the pond. With a little luck and allot of work, we may see an Exchange Student Program between Monsignor Bonner High School, and St. Malachy's College, in Belfast. This would be a wonderful experience for students from both schools, and a beautiful feather in our Division's cap, as the facilitators of this program.

I owe special thanks to a growing list of men, and their wives, or girlfriends, and families, for their hard work and support of our Division. I would like to try to name all, who deserve such high praise, but I fear that my inability to name you all, will only be matched by my inability to thank you enough. Please accept my wishes for a very Merry Christmas, and may God continue to bless you, and all those you love, throughout the Wonderful New Year.

Joseph F. Roan, President
Dennis Kelly AOH, Division #1
Havertown, PA

Treasures for our Troops Update

The following is an email sent from soldiers in the field who received some of our packages from our last fundraiser:

To The Men of Dennis Kelly AOH

Mr. Roan,

My name is SSgt Robert Butler. I am an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team Leader at Forward Operating Base O'Ryan. I am writing to thank you for the care packages we received today. O'Ryan is a small FOB with few personnel and even fewer amenities. We do not have access to
a base exchange so the items you sent greatly improve our quality of life. It truly lifts our spirits to know we are appreciated. Also, neither of us had ever heard of AOH until we received your packages. We looked you guys up on the AOH website and were quite impressed with your charitable activities. We thought it was quite ironic that your packages were delivered to a three person team who all trace their ancestry back to Ireland. Again, thank you.

Robert G. Butler, SSgt, USAF
O'Ryan EOD
Team Leader

And thanks to brother Joe Goldhan for finding a news story on SSgt Butler at:
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1053

Injured Solider Fundraiser

A benefit for Kevin McCloskey, a North Catholic Grad injured in Iraq, will be held on January 4th from 1:00 to 4:00 at the Egg's Nest Sports Bar. The address is 7605 Roosevelt Blvd. The contact for information is John Lambert and the phone number is 215-423-7111. The cost is $25 and all of it will go towards Kevin's recovery.

Wreath Laying

Thank you to Division President Joe Roan for laying the Irish Wreath
at the Grave of Division namesake Dennis Kelly:

Coat and Toy drive

Mountains of Coats, gloves and wrapped toys were collected at the December Division meeting, wrapped by our "junior" members and subsequently delivered to Saint Francis De Sales parish for distribution to the needy. A thank you to all involved in this worthy project.

Next Division meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, January 14th. Doors and Bar to open at 7PM, meeting to start at 7:30.

Dues

If your dues have not yet been paid for this coming year, please send your $25 check payable to AOH, to the AOH at PO Box 1606, Havertown PA 19083

.

2008-12-09T12:34:00.003-05:00

Irish Christmas Traditions

Ireland, like most countries, has a number of Christmas traditions that are all of its own. Many of these customs have their root in the time when the Gaelic culture and religion of the country were being suppressed and it is perhaps because of this they have survived into
modern times.

THE CANDLE IN THE WINDOW

The placing of a lighted candle in the window of a house on Christmas eve is still practised today. It has a number of purposes but primarily it was a symbol of welcome to Mary and Joseph as they travelled looking for shelter. The candle also indicated a safe place for priests to perform mass as, during Penal Times this was not allowed.

A further element of the tradition is that the candle should be lit by the youngest member of the household and only be extinguished by a girl bearing the name 'Mary'.

THE LADEN TABLE

After evening meal on Christmas eve the kitchen table was again set and on it were placed a loaf of bread filled with caraway seeds and raisins, a pitcher of milk and a large lit candle. The door to the house was left unlatched so that Mary and Joseph, or any wandering traveller, could avail of the welcome.

THE WREN BOY PROCESSION

During Penal Times there was once a plot in a village against the local soldiers. They were surrounded and were about to be ambushed when a group of wrens pecked on their drums and awakened the soldiers. The plot failed and the wren became known as 'The Devil's bird'.

On St. Stephens day a procession takes place where a pole with a holly bush is carried from house to house and families dress up in old clothes and with blackened faces.In olden times an actual wren would be killed and placed on top of the pole.

This custom has to a large degree disappeared but the tradition of visiting from house to house on St. Stephens Day has survived and is very much part of Christmas.

DECORATIONS:

The placing of a ring of Holly on doors originated in Ireland as Holly was one of the main plants that flourished at Christmas time and which gave the poor ample means with which to decorate their dwellings.

All decorations are traditionally taken down on Little Christmas (January 6th.) and it is considered to be bad luck to take them down beforehand.

TRADITIONAL GAELIC SALUTATION

The Gaelic greeting for 'Merry Christmas' is:
'Nollaig Shona Duit' which is pronounced as 'null-ig hun-a dwit'.

Credit Crisis tames the Celtic Tiger

2008-11-19T09:11:00.002-05:00

Ireland poised to launch bank rescue plan: report

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The Irish government is on the brink of launching a multi-billion euro rescue plan for the country's banks, including an injection of taxpayers' money, the Irish Independent newspaper reported on Wednesday. A finance ministry spokesman declined to comment. "It is understood the government has now accepted that it will have to put public money into the banks," the Irish Independent said.

Shares in Irish banks soared after the report, reversing some of their recent heavy losses, with Anglo Irish Bank up as much as 31 percent at one stage. At 4:38 a.m. EST it was 22.7 percent higher at 1.02 euros. Bank of Ireland was up 8.5 percent at 1.01 euros. "It's very much retail investors buying into speculation in the press today of some sort of restructuring of the Irish banks," one Dublin-based trader said, adding that institutional investors awaited detailed news of a rescue plan.

Ireland was one of the earliest to respond to the credit crunch with a guarantee for bank debt worth some 440 billion euros ($556 billion), but it has not bailed out or nationalized any banks, and they have not raised equity themselves. The four Irish listed banks have come under increased pressure to raise their capital ratios to match those of UK peers after a state bailout there.

The finance ministry held talks with the financial regulator and the central bank on Tuesday night, a spokeswoman for the central bank said, declining to elaborate. "The pace of something happening has stepped up a gear," said Anna Lalor, analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers, adding that the regulator may let some of the banks raise their capital ratios gradually, or it could press for faster recapitalization. The Irish Independent said Finance Minister Brian Lenihan had a number of options to recapitalize banks, including buying ordinary shares, preference shares or co-investing with private money.

"Market sources believe the state would prefer to buy preference shares, as this would allow it to take an annual dividend, even as banks scrap a payout to ordinary shareholders over the lifetime of the guarantee scheme," the paper said.

FOREIGN INVESTORS
Prime Minister Brian Cowen said on Tuesday the government was looking into the capital ratios of banks and their business plans, repeating that it did not rule out recapitalization as an option.
"The idea that recapitalization on its own provides the means by which increased access to lines of credit are available to business is not a comprehensive picture," Cowen said on Tuesday.
In another report, the Irish Times said the government was in discussions with a number of international investors, including several private equity firms, about injecting fresh capital into Irish banks following deep falls in their shares.

Private equity investor JC Flowers has been in "tentative" contact with the government about the possibility of buying into a bank, with an investment in Bank of Ireland considered possible, the Irish Times said. A Bank of Ireland spokeswoman said it did not comment on speculation. Spokesmen for JC Flowers in London were not immediately available for comment. Last week Bank of Ireland Chief Executive Brian Goggin said he could not rule out raising equity, but it was not on the agenda at that moment. The government has also received other approaches from Europe and the Middle East about private investment in the banks, the Irish Times said.

October Feis

2008-11-02T20:29:00.009-05:00

And a good time was had by all……. Not bad weather, nor a rescheduled Penn State Football game, or even the Phillies in the World Series kept the crowds away from St. Denis Gym in Havertown on October 25th. With a crowd of over 250 on hand, the Shanty’s provided the music and with the help of some Irish dancing and stand up comedy, the crowds were thoroughly entertained. The event raised substantial proceeds which will be distributed over the next few months to injured troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who could use a helping hand during the holiday season.

The guests of honor at the event were Sgt. Rob Leux and Sgt. Chris Payne, both were injured in Iraq while accompanying Division member Jim McCans and his Cadaver dog Stashe. Below is a picture of all 4 of them, from left to right Jim McCans, Sgt. Leux, Sgt. Payne and Stashe the Black Labrador:

It was the first time the four of them were together since that fateful day. Read more about Stashe and some publicity he has recently received in the New York Post here: http://www.nypost.com/seven/10312008/news/regionalnews/ruff_and_ready_136170.htm
The Wheel of Chance provided many prizes, memorabilia and gifts, which also helped add to the funds raised for the night. Also honored that night were Pat Shea, named Man of the Year for AOH Dennis Kelly Division #1, and Gerry McConnell, the division founder, who was given the prestigious “Founders Award”. Both were recognized for tireless efforts in helping the division to become the success it is today in helping our community. Below is the Founders Award presentation to Brother Gerry McConnell:

Comedy night will take place in spring of 2009. When we have a date set, we will be sure to post it so check back often. It is surely an event not to be missed! Thank you all for your tireless efforts in making the night a tremendous success. Special thanks must go out to those that went above and beyond including Division Brethren: Brian Cleary, Rich Brennan, Christian Kane, Joe Clossey, Pat Shea, Terry Logue, Rich Brennan & Harry Quinn. The Division officers and members thank you for your tireless effort in bringing this considerable event about. Please be sure to check out our corporate sponsors which will be listed on this website for a full year. If you have the chance to do business with them, please help us out and mention that you saw their information here, they were a tremendous help in covering costs for the evening.

Please patronize our Division Corporate Sponsors

2008-10-28T10:30:00.001-04:00

John Hauser’s Drexel Automotive – 518 Burmont Road, Drexel Hill PA 610-623-6679
http://www.drexelautomotive.com/ Full Service Auto Repair * Manufacturer's Scheduled Maintenance * Computerized Diagnostic Service * Auto Inspection and Emissions * Tune-Ups and Oil Changes * Shuttle Service

Defensive Driving Academy – Broomall, PA. 610-353-2047 Headquartered in Broomall, PA, the Defensive Driving Academy, Inc. is committed to saving lives, time and money by teaching the art of ANTICIPATION. http://www.thedefensivedrivingacademy.com

The Fit Stop – 2124 Darby Road, Havertown 484-454-5446 The Fit Stop is a new private personal training studio in Havertown. They specialize in unique and innovative total body training programs that are challenging, fun and extremely effective. thefitstop@comcast.net

Beer Guys – Manoa Shopping Center, West Chester Pike, Havertown PA. 610-446-5576.

Spencer T. Videon Funeral Home – 400 Shadeland Avenue, Drexel Hill PA 610-259-2200. “A Life Celebration Home” http://www.lifecelebration.com/loc-del-videon.html

Calling All Paws Spa & Grooming Salon – 2201 E. Darby Road, Havertown PA 610-446-0999 No fur No paws No service! Calling All Paws is a full service pet grooming where pets can experience a free roam environment during their stay at the spa. We don't crate your kids! We cater to pets with special needs. We have appointments available Tuesdays thru Saturdays. We also offer 'play dates' call for more details! http://www.callingallpaws.com/

Kevin Kane, Financial Advisor Raymond James Financial Services – Office Address: 633 North Easton Road, Glenside 215-887-9990. Kevin offers experienced professional financial planning for individuals, families, endowment funds and charitable organizations. Kevin is also our Vice President, a Havertown resident and a trusted financial advisor for over 12 years. In these difficult and uncertain times, a free second opinion is never a bad idea. Email Kevin.Kane@RaymondJames.com

Delco Postal Credit Union - 1400 Bywood Avenue Upper Darby. 610-734-3356 Delco Postal Credit union is happy to invite members and relatives of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Dennis Kelly Division #1 into our membership. http://www.delcopostal.com

Heroes Homecoming Fund

2008-09-25T14:55:00.003-04:00

A good friend of the Division, Sgt. Chris Payne, was injured by a landmine while on patrol while escorting division member Jim McCans and his cadaver dog Stashe. In the photo above, Sgt. Payne is receiving the keys to a new home to live in with his family while continuing his recovery and rehabilitation. Lockheed Martin was one of the major donors to construct the new facility. Below is the write-up from the article in their nationwide company newsletter:

Lockheed Martin has pledged $1 million as the lead sponsor of Operation Homefront Village – DC, which is part of the Corporation’s “United In Gratitude” initiative to support U.S. troops and veterans. A ceremony in July launched the program, which provides rent-free housing for U.S. military service members who are unable to find affordable housing following a disability leave, discharge or retirement from active duty. The ceremony officially opened an apartment complex, and each week through October, a military family will receive keys to a new home where they can live while a family member is being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or Bethesda National Naval Medical Center. Lockheed Martin volunteers are assisting families with the moving. The photo shows the first family to move in: U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Chris Payne stands next to spouse Nathalie and son William while son Christopher accepts a ceremonial key from Mark Smith, CEO and president of Operation Homefront. At right is Bill Hansen, vice president of Government Relations at Lockheed Martin Washington Operations.

Hibernian Hunger Project

2008-09-03T08:36:00.008-04:00

Thanks to the efforts staff and students of the eight other participating Catholic elementary schools in the Delaware County vicinity, members of the Ancient Order of the Hibernians Dennis Kelly (Division 1 – Delaware County) Division were able to distribute approximately 4,000 lbs. of canned food and dry goods to three local food distribution charities.

These charities include:

The Blessed Virgin Mary Parish Food Cupboard in Darby, PA
The Upper Darby Food Center Inter-Faith Coalition in Upper Darby and, The Philadelphia Comfort House at 41st and Baltimore Ave, Philadephia.

Mr. Dan Gallagher at the BVM food cupboard told us that they had turned away needy people that very morning due to a lack of contributions. The food donated by our schools would keep them in business for some time.

The Philadelphia Comfort House is a temporary residence operated for the benefit of Veterans and family members who require temporary housing while being treated at the Veterans Administration hospital in Philadelphia similar to the Fisher houses operated around the country. As stated by the AOH Dennis Kelly president Joe Roan “this facility that provides such an important service to our veterans, especially in our back yard, will surely be part of the program for the foreseeable future.”

“No one appreciates the need to fight hunger more than the Irish” said Division Vice President Kevin Kane. “Many of our ancestors did not survive An Gorta Mor (the Great Famine) in the mid 1800s in Ireland and many were forced to migrate to the US and other countries for survival.” It is estimated that 1 million Irish died in the great famine and an additional 1 million emigrated.

All in our Division are extremely thankful for the opportunities that this country provided our ancestors and have endeavored in this way to partner with the following Catholic Elementary Schools during the 2008 Hibernia Hunger Project to give back:

St. Dennis, Havertown, PA

St. Gabriel’s, Norwood, PA
Annunciation BVM, Havertown, PA

St. Dorothy, Drexel Hill, PA
St. Margaret, Narberth, PA

St. Andrew, Drexel Hill, PA
St. Pius X, Broomall, PA

St. Anastasia, Newtown, PA

Please keep the 2009 Hibernian Hunger Project on your Calendar for March of 2009 so that we together may continue this important work.

Pictured are several member of the Dennis Kelly AOH making deliveries to the Philadelphia Comfort house including Dan Harrell, Rich Brennan and John Tomosky and Students from St. Anastasia’s assisting in the collection.

October Feis Corporate Sponsorships now open!

2008-08-25T10:46:00.003-04:00

We have 4 corporate sponsorship spots left. Sponsorship is still just $250 and you receive the following:

- Only 1 corporate sponsor from each industry will be accepted, so your logo will not appear on the sponsorship banners next to your competitors.

- As one of only 8 sponsors, your color logo will be professionally digitally printed onto a 4 X 10 foot banner and prominently displayed at our upcoming October Feis fundraising event in front of 400 Havertown area consumers and again at our comedy night next Spring in front of 300 local consumers.

- During the event, the Emcee will both thank the corporate sponsors repeatedly, mentioning each one, and recognizing you if in attendance. The emcee will also will ask all attendees to patronize our important donors who have supported an organization and cause so near to their hearts.

- Full page ad in our Ad book that will be distributed at both events and at all events and festivals that our Division takes part in for a full year, we expect to distribute over 1000 copies to local consumers.

- A link to your company website will appear on our high traffic website in our “corporate sponsors” section for a full year. Our website, www.aohdenniskelly.com averages over 1,000 unique hits per month.

For more information, or to reserve one of the few remaining spots, contact Kevin Kane at kevin.kane@raymondjames.com

2008-08-24T19:37:00.001-04:00

Summer Barbeque

A sincere thank you to all that made our first annual AOH Dennis Kelly Division #1 summer picnic. The weather was great, the fellowship and camaraderie was even better. We have significant momentum heading into the fall and hope for our largest turnout ever for our September Division meeting, on Wednesday September 10th. Attention is refocused on our October Feis and we need all hands on deck. See you in September!

A Thank you from the Jesuit Mission in India

2008-07-29T13:17:00.004-04:00

Dear Rich:

In the name of Fr. Greg D'Silva and myself I wish to thanks you and your AOH buddies for all the things, rosaries, prayerbooks, school items, etc. which you sent to help our poor tribal children in the village parish of Pandabir.

Also thanks for the kind letter which you sent through those who came here. We had a great visit with them. -- I am proudly wearing your A.O.H. shirt as I write this. I have always been a fanatic Irishman. My parents were both children of recently arrived immigrants from Ireland. Every year at Christmas a big crowd of Irish born relatives would come to our house after an early supper, someone would bring a fiddle, and there would be Irish dancing until late at nignt.

My father's family was from the Fanad area of Donegal, my mother's people were from Tyrone, near Dungannon.

--- May God richly bless you and all the members of your Dennis Kelly A.O.H. #1 Division for the kindness you showed to us and our people .

With much gratitude,

John Deeney, SJ

Irish News

2008-07-19T16:26:00.000-04:00

Policing Board member Ian Paisley Jnr today urged the PSNI to shoot republican militants on sight following an abortive rocket attack in County Fermanagh at the weekend.
His comments provoked a storm of criticism and raised questions over the proposed transfer of policing powers from London to Belfast.

Throughout the conflict, scores have died -- including many civilians
-- under the British policy of shooting suspected IRA and INLA Volunteers in cold blood.
Paisley Jnr said people in the North would support the return of the shoot-to-kill policy to "wipe out" groups such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA.
Mr Paisley was speaking days after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a PSNI patrol in the border town of Lisnaskea on Saturday. Three members of the PSNI escaped serious injury when the grenade failed to detonate.

Mr Paisley claimed people would now support state killings to crush the remaining republican resistance.
"Sooner or later there will be a murder of a police officer unless the police are able to deploy ruthlessness in tracking down and wiping out these dissident members," he said.
"I believe the community will accept such measures and if dissidents are shot on sight, the community will accept that it is a necessary use of lethal force to prevent dissident republicanism from growing.

"Finally, given the seriousness of this most recent murder attempt, I believe the (Stormont) executive ought to ensure that a full discussion on the security situation must take place with a view to ensuring every encouragement is given to the police and army in the eradication of dissident republicans."

SDLP policing board member Dolores Kelly described Mr Paisley's remarks as "dangerous" while Sinn Fein's Daithi McKay also hit out at the comments.
"Clearly Ian Paisley Jnr hasn't learnt anything from the history of the last 40 years," he said. "This is the type of corner boy approach to politics we have come to expect from Paisley Og."
"What unionist leaders, and in particular the DUP, need to demonstrate is they're prepared to share power with nationalists and republicans on the basis of equality rather than appealing to lowest common denominator."

2008-07-07T08:15:00.000-04:00

Summer Barbeque

When: Saturday, August 23rd 1PM to 7PM

Where: American Legion Post #338 2200 Grasslyn Avenue, Havertown PA

Who: All Dennis Kelly Division #1 Brothers, families and prospective members

What: Summer Barbeque - Irish Style

Cost: Free

Fun and games at the adjacent township park for the kids, food, refreshments at the Legion post. Beer, soda, water, burgers, dogs, etc... Should be a great time for all. We still have room for you, to RSVP please respond to Kevin Kane at Kevin.Kane@RaymondJames.com if you plan to attend along with the number of adults and kids attending. Don't forget to invite a prospective member and their family as well.

For the Membership that have already reserved yes, here is the “to bring” list:

2008-07-01T08:19:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends & Family,

Each year, more than 200,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer and almost 40,000 will die. Men may also be diagnosed with this disease. Approximately 1,500 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and about 400 will die from this disease.

On October 17th, 18th & 19th, I, along with five other moms from Havertown, are going to walk 60 miles for breast cancer. You may be wondering why we are doing this. Well, we decided to walk and raise money for all the women and men who can not walk. We are walking for all the children who have lost their moms to this deadly disease. These women are someone’s friend, wife, sister, grandmother, aunt and mother. We are walking because we can! We are healthy and are blessed that each day we can run, play and hug our loved ones!

We have been walking since April to build up our strength to walk 60 miles in October to not only raise money but the awareness of this deadly disease. I will not see my children for three days and will sleep in a tent rain or shine, hot or cold! As crazy as this may sound, I am looking forward to this challenge. However, I need your help. In order to participate in this walk I need to raise $2,200. Any contribution you can give is greatly appreciated to help me reach my goal. The main site is http://www.the3day.org/.
However, for your convenience, please copy and paste the following link that leads right to my donation page: http://08.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/PhiladelphiaEvent?pg=personal&fr_id=1186&fr_id=1186&px=1820745 (Jennifer Brennan - Team Havertown Moms). I hope that by walking they will come closer to finding a cure.

Thank you in advance for your generous support!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Brennan (Wife of Brother Mike Brennan)

Havertown Moms

Bonner to Belfast Tour 2008

2008-05-07T08:38:00.003-04:00

For the Bonner to Belfast Irish Tour 2008 between April 16th till April 23rd, brothers (Denis Brennan, Ted Donnelly, Dan Harrell, Tom Meakim, & Joe Roan) from the Dennis Kelly A.O.H. Division #1 Havertown accompanied parents and boys from Msgr. Bonner High School to St. Malachy's College to participate in a basketball tournament hosted by St. Malachy's and to tour Ireland in and around Belfast. The Dennis Kelly A.O.H. Division donated and presented the following items to Dr. John Morrin, president of St. Malachy's College:

* Signed NCAA Basketball by the Philadelphia Big 5 university coaches in a display case with the coach's names and universities:

- Phil Martelli, Saint Joseph's University
- Fran Dunphy, Temple University
- Dr. John Giannini, LaSalle University
- Jay Wright, Villanova University
- Glen Miller , University of Pennsylvania

* 2007/2008 Media Guides from all of the Philadelphia Big 5 universities and the Big 5 Media Guide;

* Autographed & Signed Books:

- Don't Call Me Coach A Lesson Plan for Life by Phil Martelli;
- Tales from the Hardwood Saint Joseph's University - The Hawk Will Never Die by Jack McKinney;

* Other Books:

- Jameer - by Jameer Nelson (former SJU player, 2003/2004 NCAA National Player of the Year, NBA Orlando Magic professional player);
- Palestra Pandemonium - A History of the Big 5 by Robert Lyons;
- The Big 5-0 The Big 5 Turns 50 by Philadelphia Daily News Sports Staff;
- Philly Hoops - information on the college and profressional game and players in and around the city of Philadelphia;

* DVD Media:

- The Philadelphia BIG 5 - A History of Palestra Pandemonium Hosted by Al Meltzer;
- The Palestra - The Cathedral of Basketball;

Fleadh an Earraigh at the Irish Center

2008-04-15T09:20:00.002-04:00

A message from our brothers at AOH Joseph E. Montgomery Division 65:

The Ancient Order of Hibernians, Joseph E. Montgomery Division 65 is hosting the 2nd annual Fleadh an Earraigh at the Commodore Barry Club in the Irish Center. This year we will honor Jim Kilgallen and Paul Phillips for their service and dedication to AOH Division 65 and the Irish Catholic communities of the Philadelphia area.

We are also proud to announce the 1st Annual Joseph E. Montgomery award. This year’s recipient is AOH National Vice President Seamus Boyle.

Last year’s Fleadh honored our President Emeritus Joseph E. Montgomery. The event was a huge success and we thank all of those that came to honor Joe. We hope you will again support this year’s event and make it equally as successful.

The date is May 4th, 2008 from 4 to 8 P.M. Our musical guests are Fitch and Round Tower. Catering will be provided by Mickey Kavanaugh and Una Mullen. The Irish Center will provide a cash bar. Tickets are $35.00 and can be purchased by contacting Jim Mullen @ 610-299-1772 or by e-mail at j.j.mullen@comcast.net. An ad book form is also included in this package. We will also have raffle items and a silent auction.

Please remit payment for tickets to AOH Div. 65, 4 Old State Road, Box 165, Media, PA 19063

McDade Dancers Irish Night

2008-04-04T09:17:00.003-04:00

The McDade Parents Association will host Irish Night, Saturday, April 5th at 8 PM at Saint Denis Gym in Havertown, PA. Tickets are $30 and include salad, dinner, dessert, beer, wine and soda.

Live Irish music by Jimmy and John McGrory, Brian and Karen Boyce, Tim Trahey and stars of other local Irish bands.

Irish dance performances by the McDade School of Irish Dance.

For tickets or more information e-mail smfo@msn.com

Bertie Ahern announces resignation as Taoiseach

2008-04-02T09:06:00.001-04:00

As reported in the Irish Republican News:

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has announced he is resigning as the Prime Minister of the 26 Counties and as the leader of Fianna Fail.

Surrounded by his colleagues in the Dublin government, Mr Ahern addressed media outside the Dail parliament in a surprise news conference.

Ahern, who has beeen Taoiseach for almost eleven years, said he would resign on May 6. The date will allow him to go ahead with a "lap of honour" address to the joint houses of the US Congress and Senate in Washington on April 30.

The announcement follows further scandalous revelations centred on Ahern from the Mahon tribunal into political corruption.

Ahern had been expected to address the Dublin parliament this afternoon to tackle the issue of myriad cash payments, including British sterling, deposited to his and his family's bank accounts while he was Minister for Finance in the 1990's. The amounts of the payments under investigation by the tribunal amount to over a quarter of a million pounds. Ahern was under unprecedented and increasing pressure and his departure had been expected as some point later this year.

Some of his colleagues appeared emotional as Ahern said the work of government has been overshadowed by the work of the Mahon tribunal and he referred to "the barrage of commentary" and "incessant publicity" on the tribunal.

He claimed that he had never sought to pursue 'personal interest' during his time in office.

Ahern refused to take questions following his statement.

Comedy Night Is Back!

2008-03-31T20:43:00.003-04:00

AOH Comedy Night is April 11th
Tickets are just $20 per person

To Benefit "Treasures for Our Troops” - Shipments of daily essentials and comfort items for our troops fighting overseas! All individual packages will be assembled, packaged and shipped by our Division to individual troops for the lowest possible cost and maximum shipment.

Sponsored by:
Dennis Kelly Division #1 Havertown
Friday, April 11 7:00 PM
The Palombaro Club (map)
2632 East County Line Road
Ardmore, PA

Come out and see Irish music and stand up comedy at its very best and help a great cause! Irish music by Oliver McElhone and comedy from the likes of Joey Callahan, Ed McGonigle and other nationally known comics.

A cash bar of domestic and imported beers and spirits will be available.

For Tickets email or call:

Kevin Kane
Kevin.Kane@RaymondJames.com
C 267.625.6515
H 610.789.3541

Rich Brennan
RBrennan53@comcast.net
610.416.7013

Joe Roan
Joseph.roan@wachovia.com
H 610.394.5144

Gerry McConnell
McConnell2941@msn.com
H 610.449.2758
C 610.207.4286

Remaining tickets will be available at the door.

About the AOH

2008-01-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

The Ancient Order of Hibernians in America was founded May 4th, 1836 at New York's St. James Church, to protect the clergy, and church Property from the "Know Nothings" and their followers.

At the same time the vast influx of Irish Immigrants fleeing famine issues in Ireland in the late 1840's, prompted a growth of various social societies in the USA - the largest of which was, and continues to be, the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

Active across the United States, The Order seeks to aid the newly arrived Irish, both socially and politically. The many Divisions and club facilities located throughout the U.S. traditionally have been among the first to welcome new Irish Americans. Here, the Irish culture -- art, dance, music, and sports are fostered and preserved. The newcomers can meet some of "their own" and are introduced to the social atmosphere of the Irish-American community.

The AOH has been at the political forefront for issues concerning the Irish, such as; Immigration Reform; economic Incentives both here and in Ireland; the human rights issues addressed in the MacBride Legislation; Right-To-Life; and a peaceful and just solution to the issues that divide Ireland.

The Order has also provided a continuing bridge with Ireland for those who are generations removed from our country. The AOH sponsors many of the programs associated with promoting our Irish Heritage such as the IRISH WAY PROGRAM.

You may further seek admittance to the FINEST Irish Catholic Organization in the World -- all we would ask is for you to live our motto of: "Friendship, Unity, and Christian Charity.

Membership in the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Inc. is confined to men 16 years and older who are practicing Roman Catholics of Irish birth or descent and who are citizens of the United States of America or who have declared their intentions to become citizens of the United States of America.