Eileen Dahill/N. America/Minnesota
A Monday Night Christmas Party
I was asked to bring a few Irish Dancers in for Malarkey – radio with an Irish Accent party. Malarkey is broadcast on a public radio station KFAI in Minnesota. David from Kerry and Siobhan from Louth are the hosts of a weekly half hour broadcast. They are the perfect foil for each other. Even if they didn’t have weekly guests, I’d tune in for the lively banter. It’s hard to get dancers out on a school night. They all have holiday jobs that want them to be “Merry and Bright’ for minimum wage. But as soon as we walked in we knew it was going to be the great night out of the season.
Some Serious Tunes
Daithi Sproule from Derry and several other musicians donated their time for this fundraiser. Two well known box players from Ireland – Paddy O’Brien (Offlay) and Martin McHugh (Roscommon) also showed up. I once sent Martin a Christmas card that said –
Martin McHugh
Home from America
Box Player
County Roscommon, Ireland
And it got to him!
The Auction
I never win anything but bid and WON the tickets to a local theaters production of Annie.
My Irish Dancers wore Holiday sweaters and added a tinsel of glamour to the event.
And a true Kris Kringle came to add a bit of Christmas Spirit to the night with a little girl named Gracie who came from Ireland for a special visit with her family. He already knew that Gracie had been a good girl to come this far away.
The Seal of Approval
At the end of the evening we were sorry to go. We instinctively knew our other Christmas obligations will be joyful but the craic was on this special night. As my mom said as she left – “Oh this was very Irish”.