Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Mid-Atlantic Region

We take a look back at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, through the recollections of those who competed.

Some placed; some didn’t. In the end, though, everyone has warm memories of their time in Wexford – the jitters and the exultation of competition, the fun of busking in the streets, and the joy of playing in local sessions.

Here are some of those memories, in words and pictures. And if you have any stories or photos you would like to share, please email them to me at irishphilly@gmail.com

Jeff Meade

Public Relations Officer

Lauren Tuffy, First Place, English Singing, 12-15

Lauren Tuffy has been singing since she was 2. At 4, she began taking lessons in Irish singing from All-Ireland champion Dawn Dougherty of Westchester, N.Y., and a Comhaltas Mid-Atlantic board member.

Now, Lauren, 15 and competing in the Mid-Atlantic fleadh and the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann for several years, can add an all-Ireland crown to her long singing career. She placed first in English Singing, 12-15, at the All-Irelands in Wexford this past August. She placed third last year in Irish singing, so it’s not her first honor.

“You need to have four songs prepared before you go into the competition,” Lauren explains. “There are two slow traditional songs and then two fast songs. The judge will pick which slow song they want you to sing out of the two. You’re allowed to pick your fast songs.”

The slow song the judge picked was "The Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow,” with a lot of ornamentation and a large vocal range. Lauren says that tune showed off her vocal ability and gave the judge a sense of how well she can control her voice. Songs like that, she says, can be difficult. 

For her fast tune, Lauren selected “Eileen O’Neill.”

“It’s a Kerry song,” she says. “It’s a lively song and it follows the story of a young man who, whenever he walks home from work every day, encounters this young maiden called Eileen O’Neill, and he decides he wants to marry her.”

This being an Irish song, the course of true love never does run smooth.

“The young man goes to Eileen’s father to ask for her hand, and of course, since he’s poor, the father says, ‘you need to pay me if you want to marry my daughter.’”

Long story short, Eileen and her young man steal off and sail to New York together, where they marry and raise a family. Happy ending.

“It’s a storytelling song,” Lauren says, lively and enjoyable, very easy to listen to.”

Given that Lauren has been taking singing lessons, she knows hundreds of them. “Dawn always has us learn them by heart, so if someone walked up to me and said, sing me a song, then I would know it.”

Lauren was up against about 15 competitors, most from Ireland, all very talented. They sing every day with their families, but Lauren does, too. However, the fact that they have the “real Irish experience,” she adds, the competition is stiff.

Over the years, she has made friends in Ireland, and this year was no exception. 

“I participated in the Scoil Éigse program,” she recalls. “I took the English singing classes there. I met a couple of girls in my class. One in particular I’m really good friends with. new would go to lunch every day together and we still connect over social media, and she follows me on Instagram and Tik Tok. So, we still keep in touch. It’s good that I get to communicate with other girls my age over there.”

Lauren, from Yonkers, N.Y., and in 10^th grade at The Ursuline School in New Rochelle, is already setting her sights on returning to the Fleadh next year, when the event is in Belfast.

Her plans for the future? She wants to be a veterinarian.

“I know it’s kind of unexpected, given how much I perform music, but I also really love animals,” Lauren says. “We’re getting a dog next week, and I’m so excited. I can’t contain myself. I want to try and get into an Ivy League school, so I’m working toward that, but I also want to keep up my music. I want to continue in music for as long as I can.”

Mary-Grace Lee, Third Place, Miscellaneous Instrument (Hammered Dulcimer), Over 18

Pittsburgh Comhaltas member Mary-Grace Lee finds herself in a unique category. She never knows what other instruments she’ll be up against, but she was ready, if a bit nervous, when they called her name to play her hammered dulcimer at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Wexford.

The result was gratifying, to say the least. Happily – very happily – she placed third.

“It’s funny, I don’t think they had ever received such a delighted, excited person to win,” she says. “It’s such an odd competition. You’re going against saxophones, tenor guitars, bouzoukis – everything under the sun – and you really don’t know how it’s going to go. You really don’t know how they’re going to judge you. And then they called my name, and I shot up like a rocket. 

"Everyone was laughing. I take that competition really seriously because it's the only one I can do at the Fleadh. I take it so seriously, but it was still a fun time. 

"My goal was to put on the best performance I could do, and it worked out in the end, so I was thrilled. I’m still looking back at photos and my medal, and I think … did this actually happen? I’ll cherish it for the rest of my life.”

Wexford was Mary-Grace’s third Fleadh, though only her second one competing. She previously competed in the Fleadh when it was held in Drogheda in 2018. 

In Drogheda, she didn’t place, but she still felt like she had done pretty well. Placing third this time, she says was thrilling in part because she was able to see how she had grown and matured as a performer and competitor. 

“I’m glad I placed this year instead of back in 2018 just because I think I have a much more mature grasp of the music and what it’s about and how to play it and having proper phrasing. I remember being a little disappointed in 2018, but looking back, I still had so much to learn.”

Mary-Grace, a Catholic pre-school teaching assistant, performs in a Celtic band called Seasons with her five siblings, so she is an experienced performer, and she makes the rounds of local traditional Irish sessions. 

She also teaches at dulcimer festivals and camps. So, in addition to competing, she looked forward to playing out in Wexford. 

Like so many musicians, she spent time busking and playing in local sessions. She brought along a travel dulcimer, about the size of a laptop. 

“So, I went out and played in the streets and it was fun just getting to see people’s expressions,” she recalls. “They’d ask, what is that instrument, what are you doing and what are you playing? It was fun to just represent my instrument and also Irish music and show what the instrument can do in the Irish musical tradition.”

As for the sessions, she says, they were memorable.

“The sessions were the best,” she says. “I think the fleadh is all about community and the tradition of Irish music and bringing people together. So, just going there and finding great sessions was amazing. I met some people over there, and just by chance we kept running into each other and finding the same sessions and connecting online.

" Just getting to hear what tunes they’re playing over there and meeting new friends and getting to play tunes was awesome.”

It’s a wrap for the 2025 Mid-Atlantic Fleadh, hosted by the Mid-Atlantic Region of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. This, a qualifying event for Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Wexford, Ireland, was held on April 25-27 at the Crowne Plaza Princeton, N.J., Conference Center. 

The Mid-Atlantic Fleadh hosted 115 competitors, many of whom are Wexford-bound this August. There were three grupai cheoil and five ceili bands in total, three of which were senior. These numbers are less than in previous years, but it is hoped the number will increase in the future. 

The Mid-Atlantic fleadh had been held for several years in Parsippany, N.J., but this was the first year the fleadh took place in Princeton, just 59 miles to the south. The choice of the new location was, in part, a nod to the fact that the Mid-Atlantic Region is so far-flung, from New York and New Jersey to the north, Florida to the south, and Pittsburgh to the west. The Mid-Atlantic fleadh welcomes competitors from all parts of the United States and Canada, aside from those that reside in the Mid-West region. 

Doimnic Mac Giolla Bhríde, one of the world’s foremost singers in the Irish language, and multiple award-winning flutist and tin whistle player Frances Morton will appear in concert Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Commodore John Barry Arts and Cultural Center (the Irish Center). 

Mac Giolla Bhríde hails from Ghaoth Dobhair (Gweedore) in the Donegal Gaelteacht, an area renowned for the preservation of Irish language and song. He grew up blessed by the wealth of tradition around him. His earliest local influences included Caitlín Ní Dhomhnaill, Mairead Ní Mhaonaigh and his mother Nellie Nic Giolla Bhríde.

In addition to being an award-winning singer in the Irish language, having won the prestigious Corn Uí Riada in 2009, the highest accolade in Ireland for sean-nós (old style) singers, Mac Giolla Bhríde is an accomplished musician on uilleann pipes and piano accordion.

Mac Giolla Bhríde founded Cór Thaobh an Leithid, a four-part Donegal choir, made up of the finest sean-nós singers in the Donegal Gaelteacht. The choir has performed at the Earagail Arts Festival and at the National Concert Hall as part of Dónal Lunny’s St. Patrick's Festival Concert.

Mac Giolla Bhríde has released five highly commended albums to date. His most recent album Sona do Cheird (original compositions and arrangements to ancient Gaelic poetry) won Album of the Year at the NÓS Awards in 2016.

Frances Morton is from Glasgow and currently resides in Ghoath Dobhair. Morton began playing traditional music at a young age and went on to win several titles between in the 12-18 categories at the All Scotland, All Britain and All Ireland fleadhanna on tin whistle and flute. Since then, she has adjudicated at competitions and performed in a range of Irish, Scottish and European festivals with traditional groups. When she is not touring with Mac Giolla Bhríde, she can be found playing in sessions with renowned musicians from bands such as Dervish, Lunasa, Capercaillie and Altan.

Over the past several years, Morton and Mac Giolla Bhríde have made several tours of the East and West Coast, supported singer-songwriter Declan O’Rourke, and recorded for a BBC program, “Innovation in Traditional Music.” They perform regularly with Doimnic’s choir, Glórthaí Uladh, and have played at Fiddlers’ Green Festival, among others.

The concert is being presented by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Philadelphia-Delaware Valley, the local branch of the world’s largest organization involved in the preservation and promotion of Irish traditional music.

Ticket prices are $15 CCÉ-DV members; $20 non-members; and $25 at the door.

There are also two workshops available at 6 p.m. Mac Giolla Bhríde will instruct a workshop in Irish singing, while Morton will lead a workshop in Irish flute. Each is $10.

The Commodore Barry Club is at 6815 Emlen St. in Mt. Airy.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit cce-dv.com.

Friends, family members, and traditional Irish musicians from far and wide gathered for an all-star session June 3 at St. Peter’s Church in the Great Valley, Malvern, Pa., to celebrate the life of Joe Reavy, son of the prolific composer of Irish tunes Ed Reavy, and an outstanding musician and musicologist in his own right. Joe Reavy died January 13, 2023, at the age of 95.

“It was the family’s idea to celebrate in this way. We had talked about it, and it just made so much sense,” says Katherine Ball-Weir, chair of the Philadelphia-Delaware Valley branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, and a friend of Joe. “They had wanted to do something that would be a celebration of Joe and really reflect what was important to him. We first talked about it at the time of his death, and we just knew Joe would have really loved it. It was a wonderful party and a true ‘Celebration of Life.’ We were just wishing he could have been here to be a part of it.” 

A memorial service in the historic church preceded the session. Fiddler Alexander Weir, Ball-Weir’s son and one of Reavy’s many longtime friends, played a slow air at communion. 

Musicians don’t usually wear pajamas to traditional Irish music sessions, but for the kids attending the CCÉ Mid-Atlantic Region Fleadh in May, such casual wear was encouraged. The combination pajama and pizza party was a new feature of the 2023 Mid-Atlantic Fleadh in Parsippany, N.J., part of an overall effort to make the event more kid-friendly, says regional Chair Annmarie Acosta Williams. Williams co-chaired the event together with North American Provincial Chair Frankie McCormick and a dedicated Fleadh committee. 

“This was our first time as a new Fleadh committee, with some people who were on the committee previously, but also with a lot of new blood,” says Williams. “We had a particular vision to approach the Fleadh by keeping things exactly as they were before and to make it familiar for everybody, but to balance that with some obvious changes. We particularly wanted to up the social component for the children, to make it more youthful.”

The so-called “juice box session” was modeled after a youth-oriented program initiated by the Washington, D.C.-area O’Neill-Malcom Branch, with Maisie Lynch heading that effort. “They started the idea of having sessions that are specific for children,” says Williams, “so when I wanted to do something similar for the Fleadh, I reached out to Maisie to ask if she would help. And she did more than help. She and Erin Fitzpatrick agreed to oversee our event, and then I kind of threw in the pizza, the pajamas, and games.”