Monsignor Steve Duggan - The King of Second Avenue

They don’t make them like Steve Duggan anymore. The question is – did they ever?

The Monsignor was like many immigrants – neither here nor there. His heart was back in Ireland, while his soul was firmly entrenched on 2^nd Avenue.

He lived for the present with a hawk-eye on the future. He rarely dwelt on the past, except on long drives, when it would come pouring out in a darkly humorous torrent.

He was no saint, nor did he ever claim to be, like many of us he delighted in the company of rogues - the merrier, the better!

He never spoke about his education, but he could have been a great mathematician, for I never knew a man with such a command of the comings and goings of money.

An acclaimed right half forward for County Cavan, yet one of his rare regrets was that he could have been a star soccer player had the times been different. 

 

He had been a greyhound trainer, a bookmaker, and most importantly, he co-owned and successfully promoted dances in the Cavan Sports Center Ballroom.

While Country and Irish was the most popular dance music in the 1970’s Steve recognized the pent-up local demand for the harder-edged pop showbands.

 

He also promoted Horslips and other Celtic Rock groups out of Dublin, like Spud. Thus did he become friends and associates with Paul McGuinness who would go on to manage U2.

In the end though, rural Ireland was too repressive and unaccommodating for larger-than-life individuals, and Steve joined the exodus to New York in 1983. 

With Paddy Reilly and manager Jim Hand, Steve opened Paddy Reilly’s on the corner of 2^nd Avenue and 28^thStreet.

Their idea was to create an upscale lounge bar, but that concept gained little traction in the swinging 80’s. Eventually, the pub settled into a sedate neighborhood center for darts, and Reilly’s team was formidable. 

Steve continued to book Paddy Reilly around the US along with other acts managed by Jim Hand, one of Ireland’s great showbiz characters.

Contrary to popular lore, Steve did not book Black 47 at Reilly’s, his head bartender, Monaghan’s Dympna McDonald did after discovering us in The Bronx. We were causing an unfavorable stir up there back in early 1990, because of our insistence on playing originals and a refusal to accept that “the punter is always right” - seditious behavior at the time.

Reilly’s was just what we were looking for, an open space - as I once stated in an interview, “the place was doing so bad, even the cockroaches were leaving.”

From playing the various boroughs, we had amassed an audience of music aficionados, ne’er-do-wells, and Irish Republicans, who brought a very different vibe to Reilly’s.

Steve could read cash registers better than anyone and recognized that Chris Byrne and I had come up with a very different take on Irish music and weren’t shy about sharing it. The Monsignor’s genius was the realization that if this could work in Reilly’s, it could take off all across Irish America.

And thus, with a little help from Leno, Letterman, O’Brien, and EMI Records, Black 47 became a national phenomenon. Steve masterfully handled all the Irish pubs & festivals, while The Agency Group looked after the rock clubs and colleges.

Within months we had lines around Reilly’s block, and soon Joe Strummer, Matt Dillon, Danny Glover, Brooke Shields and a slew of celebrities arrived. 

In short order, Steve became King of Second Avenue with a beaming smile and a welcome for everyone. He booked great bands like Spéir Mór, Paddy A-Go-Go, Rogue’s March, Eileen Ivers, Joanie Madden & Séamus Egan, Tony DeMarco’s Seisiúin, and The Prodigals who still play Reilly’s on Friday nights.

Steve was an amazing booking agent. Should there be a problem all we had to do was dial his number, and the offending  promoter would blanch at the thought of verbal combat with this ferocious Cavan competitor. 

There were no deals - every cent had to be collected. As he once put it, “What owner gives you a bonus on a good night?”

Actually you did, Steve, occasionally.

Some weeks back we laughed at old times, despite Steve being sorely tried by the recent death of his son, David.

Good night, old friend. We changed the way Irish music is listened to in America, and from humble monsignor you went on to become King of Second Avenue.

LANKUM - A GREAT IRISH BAND!

There are bands, and then there are great bands. What makes a band great?

Well, obviously, the members, particularly if one, or all, have a vision. Drive, curried with a dash of defiance, doesn’t hurt either, because inevitably you’ll have to make light of the barbs of critics - official and otherwise.

Treasure your fans privately but beware of acknowledging each one on social media; while that may help with likes and clicks it’s time consuming, besides greatness demands a measure of distance and mystique. Ask Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

Where you come from is important. It would be hard to imagine The Beatles exploding out of Kiltimagh; on the other hand, Seán Ó’Riada hailed from rural County Limerick, far from the concrete fields of Liverpool.

U2 are a great Irish band and yet a friend once noted that they might as well have been from New Haven, there’s so little trace of Irish roots in their music.

What’s really important is that you sound unlike anyone else. There’s a Dublin band that fits that bill to the utmost; still, I wasn’t bowled over 10 years ago when I first heard Cold Old Fire by Lynched. 

The song was somewhat mournful, sung in an off-hand manner, and I wasn’t sure what it was about. The lone guitar accompaniment was understated, even unremarkable. I soon forgot all about it. Yet a strange melody had taken up residence somewhere in the alcoves of my addled brain. 

One Sunday morning I played Cold Old Fire on Celtic Crush/SiriusXM and instantly identified my persistent earworm. The second time I played the track I began receiving emails begging for mercy, as listeners couldn’t banish the tune either.

Intrigued, I located the lyrics and discovered that Cold Old Fire is about the aftermath of the Celtic Tiger. It’s an extraordinary original folk song with a distinctive point of view. 

 

Born to live and die in embers

Of a cold old fire nobody remembers

They hand the ashes back to me 

Down the button factory, we’re cattle at the stall…

 

Lynched, whose members were the brothers Ian and Darragh Lynch, Cormac MacDiarmada, and Radie Peat, soon after changed their name to Lankum.

Each member had decided not to emigrate in the exodus caused by the collapse of the Celtic Tiger. Instead they sang and played for pints at Trad sessions around Dublin in the deep recession years that followed.

Each had listened to a wide variety of music, and collectively they began to incorporate these earlier roots with the traditional songs that they performed at pubs like The Cobblestone in Smithfield.

To my ear their harmonies reflect their urban surroundings, sometimes harsh, even grating, but always very present and so probing.

But it’s their use of drones that sets them apart. A drone – often a bass to low-middle note – played on Hurdy-gurdy, Didgeridoo, Pipes, and Synthesizers - is common to many kinds of ethnic, and even modern art music, but there’s a majesty in the way Lankum employs the drone to highlight their haunting folk tales. 

Using up to 30 instruments, synths, and tape decks they often surprise themselves by the overtones they create onstage.

Listen to the sonic landscape the band lays down around Radie Peat’s stunning vocal on Go Dig My Grave. I don’t use the word “masterpiece” lightly but surrendering yourself to this 8:49 minute track is an experience akin to mixing two great bands of the 1970’s: Pentangle and Van Der Graf Generator, and then some.

Talk about sounding different than anyone else; from track to track, Lankum often sound different from themselves. Take Daffodil Mulligan written by Harry Donovan, and popularized by the legendary Jimmy O’Dea, Lankum’s version grabs you by the scruff of the neck and casts you back to a 1930’s Dublin variety hall. 

So there you have it, one could argue that Lankum conjures up the complexities of modern Ireland, or could it be they capture stray echoes from the country’s haunted past.

But as someone who has been humming Cold Old Fire since I began writing this column, I offer you two choices – inure yourself right now with some inconsequential pop confection or face the consequences of a trip through the heart of darkness that surrounds Lankum, a wonderfully unique band from Dublin.

MALACHY MCCOURT - FRIEND AND WARRIOR

I first encountered Malachy McCourt at a sparsely attended Irish-Americans for McGovern meeting in the fall of 1972. He was accompanied by Brian Heron, grandson of James Connolly; thus was I introduced to American politics.

The campaign was already a sinking ship, and we didn’t help when we released a statement in Senator McGovern’s name calling for a united Ireland.

But an introduction had been made, and soon thereafter Mr. McCourt requested the services of Turner & Kirwan of Wexford to play at an Irish rally in Sunnyside against the War in Vietnam.

Malachy’s theory was that protesting in Greenwich Village was superfluous - we had to shift our offensive to conservative Queens.

Turner and I were tasked with warming up the audience for Malachy’s big speech, so we began with the Woodstock anthem, Fixin’ To Die Rag, which we assumed would be a crowd favorite. A beer bottle whistling through the air and smashing upon the stage put paid to that notion.

Sizing up the situation, Malachy waltzed on stage and coolly advised, “Gentlemen, I believe it’s time for a strategic retreat.”

And so we sped back to The Bells of Hell to lick our wounds and plot new ways to resuscitate the radical heart of Irish-America.

Ah, the Bells, Malachy’s saloon on West 13^th Street in the Village! Was there ever a better watering hole? For an eclectic celebrity clientele, unbridled conservation and wild imaginings, I doubt it. There was only one rule – Thou shalt not bore thy neighbor – and this, Malachy enforced with his customary wit and good fellowship.

There’s no denying the man had flaws, particularly his perverse refusal to pay Con Edison for their services. This led to a lack of lighting and refrigeration on occasion, particularly one long hot summer when one had to request a candle to navigate one’s way to the bathrooms.

Was Malachy political? Very much so, but he was not ideological. He often cast in his lot with anarchists, radicals, socialists and the like, but his real drive was to get everyone a fair shake economically.

He did loathe war and the “patriots” who promoted it – and he found it no coincidence that the children of the rich rarely serve. It’s sometimes forgotten that his gadfly run for New York Governor in 2006 was primarily a protest against the War in Iraq.

He believed in free speech – to the utmost. His radio shows on WMCA, and with John McDonagh on WBAI, were uproarious for he had scant respect for sacred cows. His wit could be corrosive, but it was always aimed at people well able to defend themselves.

Ironically, he is sometimes associated with Paddywhackery  and stage Irishness, but Malachy abhorred such behavior. The guy didn’t even like jokes. His humor was original and often self-deprecating.

He was, in fact, a deeply serious person. He had been raised in a grim, class-conscious Ireland and had faced grinding poverty. The local Catholic theocracy, with its emphasis on faith rather than hope or charity, had little time for his kind. 

Malachy was made to feel deeply ashamed of being poor and this scarred him and many others of his generation. Is it any wonder, he had little time for organized religion.  “I’m an atheist, thank God” summed up his theological stance.

Reading was his salvation – it opened up worlds beyond the bigoted back lanes of Limerick; eventually he would find sanctuary in the Republic of New York and become an accomplished author, actor and social commentator.

But at his core, Malachy was a humanist. He cared about people and inequality. That’s why he had little time for conservatism. The world, as he saw it, was neither good nor fair enough to preserve. Change was the only hope.

He had a huge influence on many of us, and we merrily joined him in a host of battles. He didn’t expect to win but, oh my, how he savored each small triumph. That smile of his and the glint in his eye was our reward, and a treasure to behold.

He was what they call in Irish, togha fir, literally, “the choice of men.” He was a rock to those who gathered around him, pain had made him fearless.  

A legend long before his death, that legend will undoubtedly grow, but those who knew him will cherish the memory of a lovely man, humble and caring, beneath all the accolades.  

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

On one day a year, they congregated outside St. Patrick's Cathedral off Prince Street in New York City and marched in celebration. To some of these "Famine Irish" and their American born children it was a religious occasion, but to most the gathering was an affirmation of their right, not only to survive, but to thrive in their adopted country. That's what I sense on St. Patrick's Day - an echo from a time when the Irish were despised outsiders. And that's why I go along with the raucous energy, the excitement and even the green beer, the plastic shamrocks and the ubiquitous leprechaun.

I didn't always feel that way. When I arrived from Ireland, these manifestations of Irish-America were at best embarrassing. Back home, our own celebrations were rigid and religious; we did sport actual sprigs of shamrock but there was no beer, green or otherwise, on this gloomy church holiday. The Parade up Fifth Avenue and the ensuing bacchanal seemed downright pagan by comparison.

 

I had other immigrant battles of my own ahead. Black 47 was formed to create music that would reflect the complexity of immigrant and contemporary Irish-American life, and to banish When Irish Eyes Are Smiling off to a well earned rest at the bottom of Galway Bay. This idea met with not a little resistance in the north Bronx and the south sides of Boston and Chicago; but when irate patrons would yell out in the middle of a reggae/reel "Why can't yez sing somethin' Irish?" I would return the compliment with, "I'm from Ireland, I wrote it! That makes it Irish!"

 

With time and familiarity, Irish-America came to accept and even treasure Black 47, probably more for our insistence that each generation bears responsibility for solving the political problems in the North of Ireland, than for recasting Danny Boy as a formidable gay construction worker. I, in turn, learned to appreciate the traditions of the community I had joined along with the reasons for the ritualized celebration of our patron saint. And now on St. Patrick's Day, no matter what stage I'm on, mixed in with the swirl of guitars, fiddles, horns, pipes and drums, I hear an old, but jarring, memory of a people rejoicing as they rose up from their knees.

 

Our battles, for the most part, have been won; Anti-Irish sentiment, not to mention Anti-Catholicism, is a thing of the past. But a new breed of uninformed nativism threatens our Republic.  Such views are on the wrong side of hope and history, for we are an inclusive nation - that's what makes us great. We close the gates and pull up the ladders behind us at our own economic and spiritual peril. And we must always honor the memory of those who paved the way for us.

 

Part of that responsibility is that we never forget the new immigrants from other lands. Many, like our forebears, are fleeing tyranny and are striving to feed and educate their families. It would be the ultimate irony if an Irish-American were to look down upon the least of them; for, in my mind anyway, there is no place in the Irish soul for racism, sectarianism, homophobia or even dumb old Archie Bunker type xenophobia.

 

I once heard Pete Hamill ask: "What does the Pakistani taxi driver say to his children when he gets home after 12 hours behind the wheel?" I can't answer for certain, but I'll bet he echoes many of the sentiments of those "Famine Irish" who gathered outside St. Patrick's Cathedral so many immigrant tears and years ago.

ALL THE RAGE - THE INFORMER

 One of the joys – and occasional banes – of writing a regular column is that it engages you with your readers. A recent column beginning with Frank McCourt’s advice to would-be writers caught the eye of many.

In it I described a method I personally employ to get a writing project started. One piece of advice I neglected - never write about something you’re not totally invested in, for you will spend a long time in its company.

 

It took over ten years to get Hard Times/Paradise Square from the Cell Theatre on 23^rd Street to Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 47^th.

 

The pandemic interfered, of course, but during that year of “silence, exile, and cunning”, I conceived two other projects, which means I’ve already put years of work into both.

 

However, in this merry month of March, each will have a showing when I, and an audience, will be able to judge their progress.

 

I had always wanted to write a 2-person musical – the better to really delve into the characters, for as was stated in the McCourt column, “from character comes story.” 

 

I had a vague idea of the plot which would center on a romantically involved couple who break up and are thrown together years later. Can they overcome time and change, and rediscover love?

 

As I began to take notes soon after the lockdown in March 2020, I still had no idea of the setting, but on that first day the face of an old friend surfaced - Ric Ocasek of The Cars. 

 

He had died some months earlier, alone in his mansion near Gramercy Park. We had co-produced Black 47’s album, Fire of Freedom, and became close during long talks about bands, the Punk/New Wave scene, and the nearby East Village.

 

While remembering Ric, my own life in the 70’s and 80’s NYC music scene came back in a rush. And suddenly, I had my setting – my old apartment on seedy  East 3^rd Street, overlooking a pristine urban garden.

 

It was then easy to place the two characters in a New Wave band of that era, to pinpoint the turbulence that both cast them apart and eventually reunite them 20 years later.

 

I had lived that life, and almost instantly shards of songs came to mind, about what it was like to be a rock musician - not in the usual dumbed down, treacly Hollywood or MTV portrayal - but in the real life drama of trying to “make it” on the drug-infested streets of the Lower East Side.

 

It’s called All The Rage and will receive a staged performance reading on March 12^th in the 28^th Street Theatre, NYC.

 

Some months into the pandemic, Bobby Moresco, the Academy Award  winning writer of the movie Crash, got in touch, wondering if I was familiar with Liam O’Flaherty’s  novel, The Informer.

 

Was I what? I’d seen John Ford’s movie 3 times while still a boy back in Wexford. Bobby wondered if I’d be interested in writing a stage version.

 

I re-read O’Flaherty’s dark novel in a feverish weekend. I had a long-standing ambition to write a drama about the Irish Civil War, and wondered if Gypo Nolan’s betrayal could be re-oriented in that direction.

 

As it turned out, it took a re-imagining to adapt the story without creating an anodyne period piece. For, to keep the spirit of O’Flaherty’s book relevant, you can’t ignore the 50 years of more recent Troubles.

 

But I also had another ambition – to gather together a cast of New York’s finest Irish-born actors and harness their distinctive voices and talents to bring a new, large ensemble piece to life.

 

We did that in 20 minute increments by Zoom, all through the pandemic, courtesy of Bobby Moresco’s weekly online Actors Gym. And what a cast and director we had!

 

We’ll see the results on March 23^rd when The Informer will receive a staged reading at the opening of the 1st Irish Festival at the American Irish Historical Society courtesy of new president, Elizabeth Stack, and Michael Mellamphy of Origin Theatre Company.

 

It will take even more time to get first class productions of these projects on the boards. That’s the nature of the game, just make sure when you begin your project your story is worth living with.

 

Tickets for All The Rage, March 12, 28^th Street Theatre, 15 W. 28^th St. NYC  bit.ly/ATR-TIX

 

Tickets for The Informer, March 23, at AIHS, 991 5^th Ave. NYC  www.origintheatre.org

A NEW IRELAND - NORTH & SOUTH

 Michelle O’Neill’s elevation to become Northern Ireland’s First Minister was a momentous event, full of hope and possibility. 

Even in the glory days following the Good Friday Agreement such an outcome was the stuff of dreams; and that the First Minister be not only a member of the Sinn Fein Party but a woman, well, that would have smacked of a fairytale. 

  

I’ve always loved Belfast. Had that something to do with the link between the Wexford 1798 insurrectionists and the Northern Presbyterian United Irishmen, or perhaps it was hearing the slashing guitar intro to Baby Please Don’t Go by Them?

It’s hard to tell, as my life has been a blur of politics and Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Belfast had both in profusion.

I was not unaware of the sectarianism, barely skin deep in the city, after all I had red hair, freckles, and a “Free State” accent. Still, at the worst of times, there’s always been a zest for life curried by a black sense of humor that knows no divide in this city of churches, chapels and evangelical shop-fronts.

Twice on a rainy night during the 1981 Hunger Strikes I came close to Armageddon: first while straying witlessly into a Loyalist pub, and later when alarming a very nervous British Army unit.

Those days are gratefully long gone, and about a dozen years ago I noticed a thaw in the streets, specifically while bringing people on a tour of Van Morrison’s once forbidden East Belfast – there you go, Rock ‘n’ Roll again!

That thaw continued to accelerate, until last October at a rip-roaring party in the Europa Hotel I realized that I hadn’t even considered who might be Catholic or Protestant - in fact, the only such mention came from Terri Hooley of Good Vibrations fame when he made a scathingly funny remark about his own Methodist background.

What happened? Travel, the broad vistas of the Internet, or the realization that “we’re all in this together” and that while you may live and breathe your cherished background, you can’t eat it.

I have little doubt that the daylong strike of 150,000 public sector workers was the major catalyst that caused the foot-dragging DUP to go back into government. And now it’s up to Sinn Fein to deliver equal pay with other areas of the UK, along with better health care and other long neglected needs.

A united Ireland will come in its own inevitable post-Brexit time, for as my Republican grandfather always pointed out, “In the long run, Unionists are more interested in the half-crown than the crown.” 

Besides, there are not a few nationalists in no particular rush to become citizens of a 32 county Republic.

And what of the South? Is this the same country I grew up in and left for adventure and greener hills?

With the steady, and sometimes oppressive, hand of the Catholic Church removed, the country has cast off much of its old stodgy conservatism and appears to be flourishing.

Ireland’s secondary school students are the most literate in the EU, while Ireland is now on par with Scandinavian countries in its levels of tolerance for ethnic and LGBTQ+ minorities.

On the other hand, the cost of housing has skyrocketed, with many young people feeling that they’ll never afford a home. This is leading to a renewed surge of emigration mostly to Canada, Australia, and other EU countries.

No one even considers emigrating here anymore; under current laws it’s almost impossible, but there seems little urge to come illegally either.

This has already affected Irish-America. The only relevant bridge between the two societies now seems to be the semester of foreign study in Ireland that many US colleges offer.

Apart from trips to Disney World and Taylor Swift concerts, tourism is one way, with the Irish-American demographic traveling to Ireland tending towards middle-aged and senior.

There is definitely overall goodwill between the communities but the cultural gulf continues to widen.

Take a look and listen to Bambie Thug from Macroom in rebel County Cork, Ireland’s entry into the Eurovision Song Contest with “Doomsday Blue.” Though the Eurovision often tends towards banal Pop, nonetheless, it can offer a glimpse into a country’s soul.

Perhaps the Irish people – North and South - are coming into their own and no longer need to look overseas? Does our fractious, sundering society have something to learn from them?

LUCY BURNS, DOROTHY DAY, "KAISER WILSON" & THE SILENT SENTINELS

 They were called The Silent Sentinels. Members of the National Woman’s Party, 33 of them were sentenced to prison in November 1917 for protesting outside the White House.

Their mission was to convert the US into a legitimate democracy by gaining votes for women, though they were not without sympathy for the many disenfranchised African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans in various states.

The National Woman’s Party (NWP) had broken away from the more conservative National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and called for direct action to gain the vote.

Led by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, they began their campaign on March 3,1913 - the day preceding the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson - by marching through Washington DC.

 

They were attacked by spectators on Pennsylvania Avenue, 100 women were hospitalized, and eventually cavalry troops were summoned to restore order. Ironically, a decade later, the Klu Klux Klan held a huge DC march without incident.

Born in Brooklyn to well-to-do Irish-American parents, Lucy Burns was tall, flame haired, and a devout Catholic. She was studying at Oxford University in 1909 when she met Alice Paul in a London police station. Both had been arrested at a suffragist protest.

They bonded and worked together in the British Suffragist movement for some years before moving back to the US.

Here they gathered a formidable group of fearless women, including Dorothy Day, a young writer from New York with many admirers in bohemian circles, including Eugene O’Neill. Described back then as “a frail girl,” she had indomitable will and would go on to found the Catholic Worker Movement.

By 1916 nine states had granted women the right to vote but President Wilson opposed a federal amendment.

Paul and Burns resolved to force his hand. In January 1917, as Wilson was about to begin his second term, the NWP called for women to picket daily outside the White House, regardless of the weather or Wilson’s displeasure.

They wore distinctive gold, white and purple sashes and were at first tolerated as a curiosity. Wilson often smiled at them as he passed, though like many he disapproved of their “unladylike behavior.” However,

Fueled by patriotic fury, onlookers attacked the silent protesters and ripped up their signs and placards.

By mid-summer the women were being arrested, but usually released without charge. Eventually the courts sentenced them to short prison sentences. The silent women fought back by carrying more aggressive signs that labeled the president as “Kaiser Wilson.”

Paul was arrested in October and sentenced to 7 months in Occoquan Workhouse. She went on hunger strike, was brutally force-fed and detained in the psychiatric ward.

Burns and Day were among 33 women brought to Occoquan on November 14^th – since known as The Night of Terror. 

They demanded to be treated as political prisoners, but instead guards dragged them down the hallways and threw them into filthy, dark cells.

Lucy Burns was shackled, hands outstretched above head, and forced to stand all night. 

Dorothy Day, the “frail girl”, was twice slammed down onto an iron bench, and various others were either knocked unconscious or injured – one suffered a heart attack.

Many of the women went on hunger strike but their demands for political status were ignored.

However, word leaked out about their brutal treatment, and by the end of November all the protestors were released.

The oldest, Mary Nolan, 73, who had also been injured during the guards’ assault, published an account of the night and national outrage ensued.

President Wilson, sensing the change of mood, demanded legislative action and Congress passed a federal suffrage amendment on June 4, 1919. The 19^th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, and women were finally granted the right to vote.

Lucy Burns retired from public life soon after to raise an orphaned niece and lived quietly in Brooklyn.

Dorothy Day’s reputation as a leader of Catholic social action continues to grow. Though a confirmed feminist with left-wing and anarchist influences, she is being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church.

And the indomitable Mary Nolan, who refused to be silent, is buried in Jacksonville FL. Her tombstone contains her own quote “I am guilty if there is any guilt in a demand for freedom.”