Is buaine port n glr na n-an, Is buaine focal n toice an tsaoil.
(A tune is more lasting than the song of the birds, And a word more lasting than the wealth of the world.)
– Old Gaelic proverb
There is an old saying that on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17), everyone is Irish.
Ironically, St. Patrick was born in Scotland to a high-ranking Roman family. At the age of 16, he was captured by a band of Irish raiders, taken to Ireland where he was sold into slavery.
The history of Irish settlers in Maryland began in 1688, when the Carrolls arrived. They were the first wave of Irish immigrants who settled in what is now Carroll Country.
Today, Irish Americans living in Carroll County compose about 18 percent of the population. Many of them can trace their ancestral roots to Ely O’Carroll, an Irish prince, who fled the tyranny of Oliver Cromwell in England.
It is no wonder that descendants of the first Irish settlers in the area are proud of their heritage, history, culture and the part they played in the founding of the United States. Paul McLaughlin, Dolores “Del” Perkins and, Paula Doyle McCauley who were born in Ireland and later settled in Carroll County, consider themselves Irish first and Americans, second.
McLaughlin, a bartender at O’Lordans Irish Pub in Westminster, born in Ireland, made the decision to move to America about nine years ago. That was not his first experience with this country. His connection with America began much earlier.
“The first time I came to America was 1986. I stayed with a family in Louisiana,” he said. “It was through an organization called the Ulster Project that I came over with. They brought kids who lived in troubled parts of the north, (Northern Ireland). I just kept coming back. I stayed in 16 different states.”
McLaughlin said he began traveling at a young age because of political unrest in Northern Ireland. For a year he lived in Louisville, Kentucky, while on a scholarship to Spalding University. Every state he visited, he said, had something different to offer.
“I got hired here as a bar manager in February of ’05,” said McLaughlin, who has a degree in business management and information technology. “This was one of the many bars I’ve worked at. I started as a bartender back when I was 18 years old.”
McLaughlin was hired by the owners of O’Lordans to assist in creating an authentic Irish pub.
“I’ve met quite a few (recent Irish immigrants) in the four years I’ve worked here,” he said. “O’Lordans makes them feel at home. We have traditional Irish music the second and fourth Wednesday of every month.”
Dolores Perkins, A friend of McLaughlin’s, was born in Dublin. After she married her husband, Ray, the couple built their first home in Howard County. Later, they moved to Carroll County because they liked its rural setting.
“I met a couple of Irish girls here,” she said. “When I come here if feels like Ireland.”
Paula McCauley, who manages Starbucks in Westminster, was born in Dublin and moved to the U.S. when she was 18. After a short stay, she returned to Ireland and lived there for six months. When she turned 19, she emigrated to the States. That was when she met and married her husband, Kevin.
“I actually talk to my parents every day in Ireland,” she said. “I also know some other Irish girls, like Del. Even though I have lived here for 20 years, I still consider myself Irish. I doubt that will ever change. My kids even say they are half Irish and half American. They hold passports from both countries.”
McCauley said she goes home to Ireland and visits family often. Ireland will always be her home, she said.
Irish Music
Whether they have recently emigrated or are descended from the first wave of settlers who came to this country, Irish Celtic music is one way that Irish-Americans celebrate their heritage. Wherligig, an Irish Celtic band, composed of Ken, Stephanie and Ryan Koons, a father, mother and son team are just one of the Irish-themed musical groups that call Carroll County home.
“These days we play traditional Celtic and Nordic music,” said Ken Koons. “Each of us plays a couple of instruments – hammer dulcimer, Celtic harp, fiddle, nikle-harpa, guitar, tin whistle, hurdy-gurdy, the bodhra’n É and a few other ones. I build instruments.”
Koons said the majority of the music they play is centuries old. In high school, Koons was a member of the federally-funded Youth Conservation Corps (YCC). For a summer, he lived in the Catoctin Mountains, in Frederick County, where he worked building trails and on other projects.
“In the evenings they had classes we could take,” said Koons, who has worked as a photographer for The Carroll County Times for about 30 years. “I took a class on Appalachian dulcimers and I built this lousy little Appalachian dulcimer, but it really caught my attention. On weekends, the YCC also had different cultural events. A couple came and performed some traditional Appalachian music.”
From that beginning, he began researching traditional American and Celtic music. It became his obsession, he said. When he met his wife, he had just finished building a dulcimer. His wife learned to play and they began performing. When Ryan was 10, he picked up the tin whistle and began to play and has performed with his parents ever since.
While Ryan attends classes at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, Wherligig is on slight hiatus. The band plans to work around Ryan’s schedule and perform again, Koons said.
“We offer two things in a performance: one is traditional music,” Koons said. “The other is unusual instruments. You combine those two and that really piques the audience’s interest.”
Jo Morrison is another Carroll Countian who performs Celtic music. She plays the Celtic Harp.
“My husband, (Wayne), plays bagpipe,” said Morrison, who is a classically trained musician who has played piano for 20 years. “I fell in love with Celtic music.”
The Celtic harp is smaller than the classical peddle harp most people know. Morrison, who majored in theater at the University of Maryland, said that the instrument she plays weighs about 12.5 pounds, compared to the classical harp that weighs in at about 80 pounds. Thousands of years ago, bow-shaped harps were used in Mesopotamia, she said. The harp has evolved over the millenia.
“Celtic harps have a much more mellow sound,” Morrison said. “The very first triangle-shaped harp we have record of came from Scotland. The first drawings of harps found in Scotland date back to 780 A.D. They showed up in Ireland hundreds of years later.”
Some of the traditional Celtic music she performs was composed by Curlough O’Carrolan, an Irish musician who lived in the latter part of the 17th and early part of the 18th Century, said Morrison. O’Carrolan traveled Ireland, entertaining families who provided him with lodging while he composed his music, she said.
Morrison, who released her first CD collection of Celtic music last year said she plays both Scottish and Irish Celtic music.
Irish Football
Gaelic football is another way that Irish Americans celebrate their heritage. Ryan Foley, a first generation Irish-American, said he began to play the sport because of his father, Tim. The game, Foley said, is something akin to a combination of soccer and rugby.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Foley. “It’s a great sport. I started playing in Ireland while studying in Galway over the summer.”
Foley is a graduate of West Virginia University, and traveled to Ireland for a summer abroad program through Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, where his father is a faculty member.
“Sports in Ireland are huge,” he said. “I studied Irish economics and their social and governmental systems. When they [the Irish] can’t play sports, they watch them.”
The Mason-Dixon Gaelic Athletic Association makes Westminster home. The team practices at the Gateway School, said Foley, who is the project manager of the Atlantic Biomedical Company in Baltimore.
“It’s a very complex sport,” said Foley. “We are a fledgling group, although we have won our first championship.”
Foley compares the physical contact to hockey, except that only shoulder-to-shoulder checking is allowed. The team’s members range in age from 18 to 45.
“We are a young club,” said Foley. “Because we are in the junior level, we don’t play at the higher level. We are just learning the sport. I encourage people to come out and try. I wouldn’t have been able to go out and play if people had not been patient with me.”
Gaelic football provides an active link to Ireland. Although the team is composed entirely of Americans, the sport serves as a network for Irish natives planning to emigrate to the U.S., said Foley.
“Carroll County provides us a home for our football club,” he said. “In turn, twice a year, we bring in three clubs, take them into downtown Westminster and show them the city.”
For more information: O’Lordans Irish Pub, www.orlordansirishpub.com; Wherligig, www.wherligig.com; Jo Morrison, www.triharpskel.com, and the Mason Dixon Gaelic Athletic Association, http://mason-dixon.northamerican.gaa.ie/index.html.
