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For 600, ‘Willie Week’ is in session

By Billie Dunn

EAST DURHAM — Schools all over the region are closed for summer vacation, but in East Durham classes are in session. The 14th Annual Catskills Irish Arts Week is under way, and this year more than 600 students are attending.

“We’re blessed to be able to work with the students; they’re talented and intense, and they’re happy with what they get here. We have a tremendously talented staff,” said Artistic Director Paul Keating.

Keating is a New Jersey resident and a New York City native, and he’s been working with the event since the beginning. He was originally a dance consultant and a teacher — teaching ceili — a traditional Irish social dance. Five years ago he became the Artistic Director, and he says that since it began in 1994, Irish Arts Week has grown.

According to Keating the first event attracted 65 students — this year there are over 600 — many hail from 39 states, including Alaska and Hawaii, others come from Ireland and Canada.

Keating’s parents were from County Clare in west Ireland, and when he was 12 years old he visited an uncle there. It is on that trip that Keating says he was “bitten by the bug” — it reaffirmed his Irish identity — an identity that he works hard to impress upon younger generations.

Irish Arts Week is fashioned after the Willie Clancy Summer School — an annual program held in memory of Irish uilleann piper Willie Clancy. For one week each summer more than a thousand students descend on County Clare, and attend daily music and dance classes taught by experts. The event, which began in 1973, is often referred to as Willie Week.

Approximately 70 classes are taught daily during Irish Arts Week, including traditional dance and music classes, wood and stone carving classes, and lectures on a variety of topics. The event, which is hosted by the Michael J. Quill Irish Cultural & Sports Centre, takes place at a variety of locations throughout the area, including the Weldon House, Cairo-Durham Middle School, the Inn at Leeds, and the Shamrock House.

“The school and town have been exceptionally cooperative working with us,” said Keating. “They always are.”

In addition to attracting students from all over the North America an Europe, 20 percent of the event’s teachers travel from Ireland for the event.

One of this year’s guest speakers is Dr. Mick Moloney — an Ireland native who came to America in 1973 to study folklore and musicology at the University of Pennsylvania. He was only planning on studying in the states for two years, but he decided to stay. Moloney earned his Ph.D. in folklore and folk life from the University of Pennsylvania, and has taught folklore, Irish Studies, and ethnomusicology courses there, as well as at Georgetown and Villanova Universities. He currently teaches at New York University in the Irish Studies program.

He delivered a lecture on Friday afternoon about Green Fields of America — an ensemble he helped form in the 1970s to promote traditional Irish song and dance in the United States.

This is Moloney’s first time attending Irish Arts Week, and he plans on coming back.

“This is an amazing festival. There are Irish here, Irish Americans, and neither — and there’s a multiplicity of ages,” said Moloney. “Everyone here is a master of their craft, and the setting is a community setting.”

Greene County Legislator Kenneth Dudley says that the Irish Arts Week is an elemental component of preserving the area’s Irish history. “This is really a pristine event that has been going for years and years,” said Greene County Legislator Kenneth Dudley.

Dudley is the president of the Michael J. Quill Irish Cultural and Sports Centre, which hosts a number of Irish heritage events throughout the year.

Irish Arts Week will end with its signature Andy McGann Traditional Irish Music & Dance Festival this afternoon at the Michael J. Quill festival grounds. The festival will feature workshops, programs for children, and traditional song and dance.

“We’re keeping the tradition alive,” said Dudley.

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