Programs Schedule

Irish Cultural Society

of San Antonio Texas

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Promoting Awareness of Irish Culture

March 2010 - Annual St Patrick's dance

February 2010 - Irish Heritage Day

January 2009 - Little Christmas Dinner (Tom Macken’s group can perform possibly)

December - Storytelling with Jane McDaniels

15 November 2009, Regular Monthly Meeting
Program: "The Little-Known Parallels Between the Histories of Ireland and India"

WHO IS Milo Kearney - -

Milo Kearney lives in San Antonio. He attended our March 2009
St. Patrick's Day Dance.
He is Professor Emeritus of history at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
He has a B.S. in geology from the University of Texas at Austin, and a
Ph.D. in history from the University of California at Berkeley.

He is a Fulbright Scholar; Woodrow Wilson Fellow; Minnie Stevens Piper Professor;
and earned the UT Chancellor's Outstanding Teacher Award.

He has written 20 books, including:
Border Cuates: A History of the U.S.-Mexican Twin Cities
Boom and Bust: The Historical Cycles of Matamoros and Brownsville
Stories Brownsville Told Its Children: A Child s History of Brownsville
The Indian Ocean in World History
Medieval Culture and the Mexican American Borderlands
World Saviors and Messiahs of the Roman Empire
The Role of Swine Symbolism in Medieval Culture
The Historical Roots of Medieval Literature
and
Border Walls: A Musical About Redbeard of the Rio Grande.



October - Possibly music from Sally Garden or a presentation

September 20, 2009 Regular Monthly Meeting
Program to be Jim and Maggie Fox
Click the band picture for more details.

June 21, 2009, Annual General Meeting
Program: "Its a Long Way from Kildare"

WHO IS Kelly Niemiec - -
Kelly Lives in San Antonio and expects to start college
in the Fall of 2009. She is the 2009 winner of the Irish Cultural
Society's Scholarship Award with an essay on "A Person of Irish
Heritage and Their Contribution." She will present her winning essay
at the Annual General Meeting and it has been published on this
web site. Kelly's essay faced stiff competition from other
applicants, and was judged by a very competent committee.
Congradulations to Kelly Niemiec.

May 17, 2009 Regular Monthly Meeting
Program: History of the Irish in San Antonio Tx

Please join us for an elightening afternoon of local Irish History
presented by Joan Moody.

Joan Moody has a BA degree in History and English from Incarnate
Word College. She has given presentations on the Texas Irish in
New York, Chicago, and to schools in both San Antonio and
Comal ISD. She has written on the Texas Irish experience in the
Irish American News out of Chicago, the Old Irish Advoctae out of New York, The Irish
Emigrant out of Boston. She was profiled this year in the Express-News. She has also
contributed articles to the Irish Voice and Irish Echo. Joan Moody is an Irish Texan
with roots that came from Ireland to Texas, She has held the title Irishman of the
Year from the Harp & Shamrock Society, and is the current President of that organization.
Her presentation is based on material from her bachelor's thesis and is continuously
updated and enhanced.
The Irish in San Antonio
Irish Natives of Ireland were among the first settlers in Spanish-ruled Texas, and
the story of the Irish in Texas is in many ways coincident with the founding of the
republic and the development of the state. In 1767 Hugo O’Conor, First Governor
ad Interim of Texas rebuilt the fortifications of San Antonio against Apache attacks.
As of 1776, 75 years before the Great Famine in Ireland, more than 300,000 Irish had
immigrated to the United States. They were professionals and laborers of every sort.
Many fought in the Revolutionary War on land and on the sea. Philip Nolan, a native of
Belfast, Ireland, was said to be the first Anglo American to map Texas. Whatever his
real mission in Texas, Nolan's activities so aroused Spanish authorities that he was
killed by a force sent to arrest him in 1801. In San Antonio 11 Irishmen died with
Travis defending the Alamo. During the Civil War San Antonio provided Irish units in
Confederate Service. Many know that the Irish helped build the railroads that come
through San Antonio. A quick survey of street names will show that many of the
politicians, business men, and founders of San Antonio were Irish. The Irish flats,
and Irish politics of San Antonio are stories all by themselves. The Irish also
contributed their fair share of lawmen and outlaws.

Joan Moody has prepared an informative and exciting fact filled presentation that
will leave you with a new pride in being Irish and being from San Antonio.
We hopeto see you there.

February 15, 2009 Regular Monthly Meeting
Program: Poety & Music
By Nora Olivares
Please join us for a wine and cheese party and an afternoon of poetry
and song presented by Nora Olivares and Lou Kelley. Everyone will
have an opportunity to participate.

Nora Mahon Olivares, was born and raised in Longford, Co. Longford,
Ireland at a very young age. She has spent over 30 years in San Antonio, Texas, where she
lives with her husband , daughter, and grandchildren. She is a past-president of the Irish
Cultural Society of San Antonio, and ran the society's scholarship program for many years.
Her work has been published in several anthologies of poetry. She has presented workshops
on writing and poetry, and has been nominated six times for the Piper Award for teaching
excellence at San Antonio College.

Taken From Burials, Bridges, and Blessings

Lou Kelley is another past-president of the Irish Cultural Society.
We hopeto see you there.

November 16, 2008 Regular Monthly Meeting
Program: Belleek China
By Helena Ryan


History of Belleek in Ireland

In 1849 John Caldwell Bloomfield inherited the Castlecaldwell estate, which encompassed
the village of Belleek, from his father. Mindful of the plight of his tenants in the
aftermath of the potato famine he sought to provide some form of worthwhile employment.
An amateur mineralogist, he ordered a geological survey of his land. To his delight it
revealed the necessary raw materials to make Pottery - feldspar, kaolin, flint, clay
and shale.

The village of Belleek, especially the part of the village known as Rose Isle was a natural
choice for the business. This small isle provided the best opportunity to leash the power
of the River Erne to drive a mill wheel strong enough to grind components into Slip, the
term applied to liquid potter's clay.

Bloomfield acquired partners in the venture, he pulled strings, and lobbied for the
Railway Service to come to Belleek. and on Thursday 18th November 1858 Mrs Bloomfield
laid the foundation stone. Thus began one of the world's most famous manufacturers
of the world's finest pottery and china.


Belleek Homepage at: http://www.belleek.ie/CompanyInfo1.aspx?pagecode=3

October 19, 2008 Regular Monthly Meeting
Program: Authentic WWII Background
By John Kerr From his book Cardigan Bay.

Cardigan Bay is at once a romance and an espionage thriller, set
during World War Two. The story is woven from several threads, some
of them fairly well known - such as the elaborate and ongoing planning
for the Normandy invasion by the Allies, the work of the top-secret
code-breakers at Bletchley Park and the plot by anti-Nazi German
military officers to assassinate Hitler.

John Kerr is a former attorney and investment banker. He will remain
active on the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research board after
his retirement in a few months, and two companies he's practically
midwifed, Azaya Therapeutics and Evestra Inc., will keep him busy.
So will the $15 million expansion of the National Museum of the
Pacific War in Fredericksburg, which Kerr is spearheading as chairman
of the Admiral Nimitz Foundation. And, the persevering writer is
polishing the final draft of his latest novel, set in Texas after
the Civil War.

The Houston native's first published novel - he says he has four
others ready for press - was released this summer by San Antonio's
Corona Press. Cardigan Bay is a meticulously researched historical
tale set in World War II, told in the measured voice of a historian.

Book Review at: http://www.bloggernews.net/117612

February 17, 2008 Regular Monthly Meeting
Program to be "The Values Divide" by John Francis Burke, Ph.D
Dept of Political Science at University of St. Thomas.

John Francis Burke is a political theorist who focuses on the
challenges posed to democracy by multiculturalism in the
U.S. Southwest. The author of Mestizo Democracy: The Politics
of Crossing Borders (2002) and several articles on the subject,
he has been engaged for over a decade in fostering interchange
between Houston's diverse cultural, linguistic, and racial groups,
especially in religious communities.
"The Values Divide" presentation will consider how "values" have
characterized American politics starting with the election of John
Kennedy, up to the present day, and some notes on Irish-American
Political Patterns.

November 25, 2007 Regular Monthly Meeting
Program to be Jim and Maggie Fox
Click the band picture for more details.

October 21. 2007 Regular Monthly Meeting

Miriam Gallagher,Irish playwright, novelist & screenwriter,
was born in Waterford.
Since 1983, over twenty of her plays have been performed
in Ireland, Europe, USA & Canada and work translated into
Irish, Dutch, French, Finnish and Russian. Her film Gypsies,
screened at Irish Film Centre, Galway Film Fleadh, Foyle
Film Festival, New York's Lincoln Center, Plaza cinemas,
San Francisco & at International Children's Film Festival
at Hyderabad, India.

She has received several international awards and in 2000 was invited to
present work at the 5th International Women's Playwrights Conference in
Athens & Delphi.

Miriam has served on committee of the Irish PEN, and as its vice
president. She has also served on the Irish Writers Union committee,
on the council of the Society of Irish Playwrights and as a judge for
the O.Z. Whitehead Play Competition. She has served as a member of the
Awards Panel for Arts & Disability Forum. She has given scriptwriting
courses, worked in professional, prison & community theatre, given
readings, creative writing courses, and has been a visiting lecturer
at universities in Dublin, Galway, Athens, New York, Boston & Pretoria.

October 15, 2006
Regular ICS meeting
The Highland Pipers
Their website is
harleypipers@sbcglobal.net