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Natural makeup brings out your genuine beauty
The end of the year is filled with activity; a feis every weekend, dance classes in between, holiday parties, and family gatherings. Looking your best is important, especially when oireachtas rolls around.
When should a performer begin to use makeup? Is too much too little? Is too little not enough? There seem to be two shcools of thought: one says that to be modern you must have the most and the best, which is relative to your financial resources. The other thought is that a natural beauty can prevail ... perhaps with a soft accent on certain features.
According to Drs. Robert and Elizabeth McCarter, contributing authors of The Life Science Health System, "A healthy skin sings of a well-nourished body, of systemic equilibrium, of sound living practices, of a clean, free-flowing unobstructed blood-stream, and of organs functioning saliently and efficiently in a body at peace."
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Volume 1, Issue 2
Mae Whlan Duffy, ADRCG: A Millenium Celebration
Walking into Mae and Jim Duffy's house is like walking into a museum. Their modest home in East Hartford, Connecticut, is filled with memorabilia documenting the 41 years Mae has taught Irish dancing. Our curator, Mrs. Duffy, ushered us to the living room sofa next to Mr. Duffy's easy chair, where we made ourselves comfortable for what would be a journey back in time and through the recorded history of an Irish (American) family.
A framed letter documents her TCRG certification in the United States in 1966, although she had started her school in 1959. Thirty-five years ago An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha (Gaelic Dancing Commission) was in its infancy and was inviting teachers to take an exam. Mrs. Duffy was going on a vacation back to Ireland.
"It was a nine-day boat ride back then," she said. Airlines were just beginning to become the transportation of choice. Her exam consisted of answering questions, dancing, and teaching a small class, observed by a panel of three. She passed her exam and was given her certificate. It was later, in 1971, that she became a certified adjudicator. She told us that when she took the exam she hummed her own music as she danced because a musician was not available.
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Volume 1, Issue 2
Back in Black
Ireland legend Mary Black performs at the One World Theater in Austin, Texas
Thomas Miner
I've been around for donkey years," said Mary Black, introducing herself to the audience at the One World Theater (in Austin, Texas). Her self-depreciating humor woke the intimate crowd of 300 up with a cackle. A legend in her homeland of Ireland, Mary Black has long held the attention of the followers of Irish music as one of the finest vocalists in tyhe world. The craft of the singer-performer is practiced and celebrated in contemporary music. But the old-fashioned art of song interpretation - taking a writer's work and reading its pue, inhabiting it, putting your indelible stamp on it is a whole other skill. If you have an appreciation for traditional Irish music, then seeing Mary Black in concert is what seeing Willie Nelson is to country music fans: a must-see. She can take a song and make it hers and hers alone.
Her homespun humor and appreciation for writers' skill continues to bring some of Ireland's best contemporary writers into the spotlight, interpreting the songs of personal favorites such as Shane Howard, Noel Brazil and for the first time on Speaking With an Angel, two new songs from Steve Cooney. Her new album will not be available until January 18. A decision by the recording company not to release the album to coincide with her tour gives new meaning to an album release tour.
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Volume 1, Issue 2
Soft Days in Ireland:
Four bicycles and a wedding - Chapter 2
by Fred Meridith
The wedding was grand and the reception at the Murphy home was filled with good food and plenty to drink. There were family and friends who also played traditional Irish music including most of a notable band, La Lugh: Gerry and Eithne O'Connor, Siobhan (ShuhVAUGHN) Kennedy, and Jens. Galway musicians Sean and Irene Moloney were there as well. The bride and groom sat in for a considerable time still in their wedding clothes, and Jim Davis was never far from one of his full sets of hamronicas. The nuptials completed, we started our tour of Ireland on bicycles.
August 3. Blackrock to Cork.
It was a soggy Monday morning to be riding to the train station, but after assuring the senior Murphys that we would be fine, we set out for Dundalk in the rain.
The train to Dublin had a special car for cyclists (marked by a bicycle imblem next to the door). It was a little older, but still very nice. I like the idea of tables between facing seats.
In Dublin we rolled out of one train station, biked across town, and caught another train to Cork. Everything we would need over the next two weeks was on our bicycles in four panniers (saddle bags) two each, front and rear - about 60 pounds of gear for each of us on our modified mountain bikes set up for touring.
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Volume 1, Issue 1
You dance because you love it
by Thomas Miner
It was the recent centennial revival and a venue outside of Celtic festivals and competitions that sparked the interest of millions of people not only to see Riverdance — The Show, but also to learn the discipline of Irish dance. Passed on from generation to generation, Irish dance has survived and could soon take its own place in the world of concert dance. Some may argue it already has.
There are many dancers qualified to perform in Riverdance, but only a few will ever experience the floodlights of the stage. I'm sure it is the dream and hope of many aspiring students. As with any art form, a multitude of practice hours are represented by each dancer. It is obvious when watching a line of dancers on stage. the ease and effortlessness that is displayed in the precision of the steps is overwhelming. as I pan the line of young faces, the striking features of all are the smiles and absolute enjoyment of what they are doing. The routine of each number is mechanical, allowing the dancers to move their eyes across the rows of patrons. Pat Roddy said, "If you don't enjoy dancing, then what's the point in doing it? That's something that Mam and Dad drove into me when we were young. You dance because you love it. When the enjoyment and fun goes out of it, then it's time to stop dancing and move on to something else."
Guaranteed to make you more Irish!
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Volume 1, Issue 1
Y2K Feis Lousiaine style
"Laissez les bons temps rouler"
Long ago, at the Hill of Tara in County Meath, Ireland, ancient chieftains would come together in triennial conventions for the good – the feis. Since the founding of the feis some seven or eight centuries before Christ, the sound of Irish music encircled the seat of high kings as Irish men and women came from crossroads beyond to gather. Amid the craftsmen and the artists, the bards and the scribes, historians and gifts of gab all around ... the Irish music lifted the people up to dance.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century, in part, as a re-assertion of Irish identity, the Irish dance world brought back the ancient word "feis" from the tradition of Tara. A new tradition of the "feis" as we know it today would come to stand on its own elevated ground as high as the old hill of Tara.
In that same decade of the last (19th) century, far down south at the mouth of the Mississipi River in America, a grand ball was held at the famous Washington Artillery Hall. It was the very same hall where Mardis Gras' King Rex first held his grand ball pro bono publico in regal shades of purple, green and gold. It was the spring of 1892, and people had traveled from all over the continent for such a celebration as this, long before the convenience of airplanes. So festive was the evening and so memorable the dancing that the local newspapers the next morning heralded the news of the Irish-American history in-the-making. For that night in New Orleans, the people had come together and danced hornpipes, reels, lancers, and jigs.
...
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Volume 1, Issue 1
The Chieftains
by Jennifer Kelly
There is no question that The Chieftains' music is both traditional and innovative. The combination has reached millions upon millions of music lovers all over the world.
The Chieftains' blend of instruments, the expertise of musicianship and the sweet sound of improvisation have moved our souls and feet alike.
The Chieftains began in 1963 with what they thought would be their only recording, The Chieftains. They could not have had any idea how they would change the face of folk music forever and become a staple in album collections everywhere. As an instrumental band in the 1960's, when the folk music movement was centered on vocals, they began forging new ground. Receiving acclaim as an instrumental band started a trend of ground-breaking tradition for The Chieftains. At their start The Chieftains were Paddy Moloney, an Uilleann piper; Martin Fay, playing the fiddle and bones; the tin whistle player, Sean Potts; Michael Tubridy on the flute; and bodhan player David Fallon.
Director Stanley Kubrick caught wind of this fantastic band and helped blast their careers into what is now a twenty-six year stint for The Chieftains. In 1975 they worked with Kubrick on the film Barry Lyndon and received worldwide acclaim, finally playing a live set as a complete outfit. ...
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Volume 1, Issue 1
Four bicycles and a wedding
Story and photos by Fred Meredith
"We're going to Ireland," my wife announced as she poked her head into my study.
"And I'm off-line now," she added.
Though blessed with our own separate work areas and computers at home, Nancy and I still share a common telephone line for our Internet access. She was letting me know I could check my email now. By the same token, since she had just checked her mail, I was not totally surprised to be hearing some "news" — only startled by the nature of it.
"Thanks," I said, "and why are we going to Ireland?"
"Emily and Mark are getting married," she said, as if that explained everything.
"Emily is Emily Davis, Nancy's daughter, and Mark is Mark Murphy, Emily's significant other.
"But they live in Australia. Why would they go all the way to Ireland to get married?"
"They're moving back to Ireland," she said. "They're going to get married in Mark's hometown — Blackrock, in County Louth. Emily is starting to make plans, and we will all go for the wedding [noticeable pause], if you want to."
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Hornpipe Magazine
Irish Dance, Music, Film, and Culture
Guaranteed to make you more Irish!
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