February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Over the past 27 years, only ten Irish or Irish American performers have received a National Heritage Fellowship: sean-nos singer Joe Heaney in 1982, uilleann piper Joe Shannon in 1983, fiddler-teacher Martin Mulvihill in 1984, stepdancer Michael Flatley in 1988, flutist Jack Coen in 1991, fiddler Liz Carroll in 1994, stepdancer-teacher Donny Golden in 1995, singer and multi-instrumentalist Mick Moloney in 1999, fiddler Kevin Burke in 2002, and button accordionist Joe Derrane in 2004. Each of those recipients unquestionably earned this honor.
Before last year, the largest gap between winners was four years. So what accounts for the currently longer gap? Speculation falls along these lines: (1) the “high tide lifts all boats” effect of “Riverdance” and “Lord of the Dance” is over; (2) PBS-TV pledge-drive programming in recent years has featured a rash of treacly Irish entertainment off-putting to folklorists and trad experts and thus has slightly tarred Irish traditional performers with the same broad brush of pandering superficiality; (3) NHF judges now lack a close-eared appreciation of Irish traditional performance or have an ague-like, fatigued reaction to it; (4) other recipients were deemed worthier; and (5) unfamiliarity or ignorance.
Whatever the reasons for omission this year, I hope the following candidates from Irish America get the strongest possible consideration for 2010: Mike Rafferty, Seamus Connolly, James Kelly, Billy McComiskey, Brian Conway, Msgr. Charlie Coen, Joanie Madden, Felix Dolan, and Martin Hayes. There are others who merit NHF attention across the country, of course, and I mean no disrespect to them.
My point is that any one of the nine I named could have easily appeared in this year’s list of winners. The 11 National Heritage Fellows for 2009 deserve their accolade. I’m not proposing a zero-sum approach here.
But I am angry about the lengthening and distressing neglect of eminently qualified, equally deserving performers from Irish America such as the nine I cited. The NEA has stipulated no posthumous winners, so the likes of Andy McGann, Paddy Reynolds, Ed Reavy, and Johnny McGreevy — all of whom were still living at the 1982 inception of the award — will never receive the national honor they so richly earned. No one is guaranteed tomorrow. I just wish the NEA realized that.
Nevertheless, without reluctance, I congratulate the 11 National Heritage Fellows for 2009: old-timey musician Mike Seeger, a cappella gospel group Birmingham Sunlights led by James Alex Taylor, cuatro player Edwin Colon Zayas, zydeco musician “Queen” Ida Guillory, Yoruba Orisha singer Amma D. McKen, Kathak dancer and choreographer Chitresh Das, contradance caller and musician Dudley Laufman, cowboy poet Joel Nelson, Cambodian classical dancer and choreographer Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, Tlingit weaver and basketmaker Teri Rofkar, and German-Russian willow basketmaker LeRoy Graber.