EILIS COURTNEY who is now President of the Irish Women’s Network was honoured as Irish Woman of the Year in 2009.

By EILIS COURTNEY
President, Irish Women’s Network of BC

VANCOUVER – There is no doubt that the Irish Women’s Network of BC would not have got off the ground in 1998 nor would it have survived and grown in the early years without the support of The Celtic Connection.

Having conceived the idea of an Irish Women’s Network after chatting with some other Irish women (members of an earlier incarnation of the Ireland-Canada Chamber of Commerce), Mary Monks Hatch knew that the only way to get the word out to the wider Irish community was through The Celtic Connection, and so she sent a paragraph to Maura to include in the paper.

The response was enthusiastic, and with a meeting arranged, Maura obligingly published details, ensuring a very encouraging attendance at the first gathering as well as subsequent meetings.

The women attending our very first meeting had agreed that no fee would be charged for membership to ensure that lack of funds would not be a barrier to participation.

This meant, of course, that there was rarely a budget for communicating to our community.  However, Maura and Catholine saw the value of the IWN within the community and did everything they possibly could to encourage our efforts and activities.

Throughout the years, they supported us in every way by promoting all our initiatives in the paper, often patiently waiting for us to provide articles when we were late for the deadline!!

They would attend as many events as they could, bringing their camera to capture the places, faces and fun.

In the days before everyone had smart phones, the photos that Catholine and Maura took for the paper created a wonderful record of the activities coordinated by the IWN and indirectly created an archive of our network events.

On top of that, they would also often generously provide gift baskets for any fundraiser we were running and support all community philanthropic initiatives.

Its hard to imagine the community without The Celtic Connection – I personally always looked forward to receiving my hard copy paper in the mail and reading it at my leisure.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end and on behalf of myself, past presidents Mary Monks Hatch and Deirdre O’Ruairc, the IWN executive committee and all the members, past and present of the Irish Women’s Network of BC, I want to sincerely thank Maura and Catholine for their incredible work for our community and wish them well in the future.

Learn more about the Irish Women’s Network of B.C. at: www.irishwomenbc.net

By PAT CHESSELL

VANCOUVER – Ever since I was a young boy, I remember a copy of The Celtic Connection being around the family house.

A YOUNG Pat Chessell with his dad Bob at Culpepper’s in 1999.

I’ve been lucky enough to appear in it many times over the last 20 years and both my father (Bob) and my oldest brother Shawn have contributed articles in the past.

I still remember the first time my name was in the paper for a gig I was doing with the legendary Danny Burns and I was over the moon to see my name in print for the very first time.

Just the other day I found an old article with a picture of me and Roger Buston from 2001 – it’s hard to think that is 19 years ago already.

Roger shared it on Facebook and instantly all the comments and memories came flooding in of Vancouver’s past. The article was about the last night at Culpepper’s, the West Broadway bar run by Jacquie Metzler.

Some of the best memories of my life are in that place. I learned the art of designing a show by Danny Burns, did my first paid gig there, and met some fine folks along the way.

The Celtic Connection has been there all along the way for this community, sharing these memories and providing a time capsule for some of the best nights I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of –  as I’m sure many of you have too.

They were there when the Vancouver Easter Rising Committee, led by the also legendary Bernard Ward, hosted the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising at the Hilton Metrotown in Burnaby, an event which many say will go down as one of the greatest nights in the history of the Irish Canadian community in Vancouver.

PAT CHESSELL is now leader of The Pat Chessell Band, one of Western Canada’s top Celtic acts. He released his third album “I Confess” in 2018.

They were there for the many “Feed the Hungry” benefits at the WISE Hall, Culpeppers, and the Wolf and Hound.

Catholine, Maura, and everyone involved have covered your favourite bands, sporting clubs, pubs, funerals, weddings, and divorces: they did it all and they did it magnificently.

To know that I’ll walk into a pub and not see an issue of The Celtic Connection sitting on the bar is a sad feeling but as the old adage goes: all good things must come to an end.

So Maura, Catholine, and all the contributors, delivery drivers, and everyone else involved in production of the paper – thanks for helping us remember all the good times!

May your troubles be less and your blessings be more and nothing but happiness come through the door.

Cheers!

Pat Chessell

ELFAN JONES was first featured in The Celtic Connection in November 1996 as part of a U.K. trade mission to Canada.

By ELFAN JONES

BOURNEMOUTH – To everyone at The Celtic Connection, thank you for allowing me to contribute to the paper for the last eight years, although my association with The Celtic Connection goes back much further.

In 1996 I organised the first Celtic Trade mission from Britain to Canada and the following year was asked to lead a second.

I still have a copy of The Celtic Connection piece written by Catholine Butler headlined ‘Celtic Trade Mission a Huge Success’ (November 1996).

In 2006, I repaired a chip on my shoulder by enrolling in London University on a four-year part-time basis to study history and obtain a degree.

I discovered that I enjoyed writing, so having obtained what is known as a Sportsman’s or beer drinker’s degree (2:2), I followed it up with a writing course and, having completed it, had absolutely no idea what to do next.

AUTHOR and columnist Elfan Jones published his first novel ‘Let Sleeping Dog Lie’ in 2009.

Many years ago there was a regular feature on BBC radio entitled Letter from America by Alistair Cooke so I thought a short piece of nonsense about events in the UK might appeal to readers abroad.

I wrote a thousand words and emailed them to 15 newspapers around the world, including The Penguin Express in the Falkland Islands.

Several answered with polite “Don’t call us we’ll call you” replies and The Aucklander paper in New Zealand would have published if I was from Auckland.

Then, you emailed saying that you liked my sense of humour and wanted 800 words. You gave me the confidence to carry on.

I am under no illusions of being the next Ernest Hemingway but I’ve had a good laugh and thanks to you have written a published novel and am 20,000 words into a second.

Thank you, and I wish you all the very best for the future.

Kind regards

Elfan

MARY HATCH [centre] was presented with the first Woman of the Year Award in 1999 in recognition of her work as founder of the Irish Women’s Network of B.C.

VANCOUVER – Over the last three decades, whenever I felt an impulse to write, I have invariably found a generous response from Maura De Freitas.

She always accepted and made space for me in The Celtic Connection, whether it was an article about a visiting poet or author, an emerald ball, a golf outing, a visit to Flander’s Fields, Queen Elizabeth in Ireland, or the start-up of the Irish Women’s Network.

She even tolerated my ill-informed and heavy-handed attempts to help with editing her precious newspaper before I took my professional writing diploma and cringingly discovered the difference between proofreading, copy editing, and the sort-of slashing of copy that I had lapped up in such TV shows as Lou Grant or Saints and Sinners (1962; you wouldn’t remember it!)

What brought me here in 1991 was a whirlwind romance. The term evokes images of exciting love at first sight spiced, perhaps, with a tinge of recklessness or promises of happily ever after.

MARY HATCH as a newlywed with her husband Paddy shortly after her arrival in Vancouver in 1991.

Or perhaps, when it involves people aged 44 and 58, suggesting midlife madness.

What I did not anticipate, however, was what an isolating experience it would be to journey 7,156 kilometres from Dublin to Vancouver with a man with whom I had very quickly fallen in love but whom, in reality, I barely knew.

Nor did I anticipate that Vancouver would seem so very different from Dublin.

When you go through life with people who are the same as you, have the same type of education, the same religion, the same ethnicity and social norms, you expect the rest of the world, the western world anyway, to be much the same.

Back in 1991, communication with family and friends back home was either very expensive or very slow: 80¢ a minute for phone calls between midnight and 8 AM, twice that much during the day, and 10 days for letters or Saturday’s Irish Times to make the journey.

And there was the eight-hour time difference another huge factor in my separation.

I remember often waking at 8 AM and realising that everyone back home had almost finished their day’s work.

All the radio and TV news was local; there was very little international or even British, never mind Irish news

There was nothing in the phone book (remember phone books?) under ‘Irish’ or ‘Ireland’. The closest I could get was when I blocked out the first letter of a company called Tireland.

So when my husband-to-be brought home The Celtic Connection, I was euphoric. There actually were Irish people here, and Irish groups, and I didn’t have to be totally cut off any more. An immediate bond was created with this publication and it became my lifeline.

As the years passed and I became involved with activities of the Irish community, I came to rely on the fact that The Celtic Connection was always there to support and encourage the activities of groups and individuals, and to facilitate the sort-of communication vital to the functioning of the Irish community.

So when, on a visit home in 1997, my sister told me that a group of blind people planned to cycle across the Rockies to Vancouver and asked if could I arrange a get-together for them, I said “of course.”

I pictured a small group of visitors who could be entertained one evening at an Irish pub, and that The Celtic Connection would oblige with photos and a couple of paragraphs. After all, how many blind people would be so reckless as to cycle across those towering giants!

Actually, 200 people were going to make that journey (on tandems with a sighted cyclist in front), and they wanted a welcome reception as well as an awards presentation dinner.

The Tánaiste (deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney) would attend. I was already committed and totally out of my depth. But the Irish community was there, via The Celtic Connection.

The late great J.J. Hyland of the Irish Sporting & Social Club was hugely resourceful and very supportive, as was Marie Morris of Stage Eireann.

Patricia Ryan of the Irish University Graduates’ Association single-handedly arranged an enthusiastic welcome reception in BC Place, with Hedy Fry MP as a special guest. The Ireland-Canada Chamber of Commerce (1994 edition!) also lent invaluable support.

As always, Maura and Catholine were supportive and encouraging, allowing me to get the necessary information to the people I needed to learn of it, and then giving the event generous and fulsome coverage.

Now, as I feel once again the impulse to write, that impulse is tinged with sadness and a feeling of personal loss.

For this newspaper has been my constant companion throughout my time in Vancouver. Its first edition appeared very soon after I arrived here. And now, as I am preparing to depart, so, too, is this very special publication.

HARRY-McGRATH is our correspondent from Edinburgh. As the former Coordinator of the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, he brought a unique Scottish/Canadian perspective to his column.

By HARRY McGRATH

EDINBURGH – It’s hard to put into words how much I will miss writing my column for The Celtic Connection or how much I appreciate the fact that Maura gave me the opportunity to do so.

I filed my first column soon after I returned from Canada to live, again, in Scotland.

Since then it has provided a regular opportunity to explore the connections between the two countries that have dominated my life and to assuage the familiar ache of being in one place while missing another.

The loss of my old Simon Fraser University email address, prevents me from checking what my maiden column was about, but I think it opened with the tale of a wee whisky I had in Blackfriars Pub in Glasgow with my friend Donald Paton, another who splits his life between Canada and Scotland.

From there it became a kind of stream of consciousness thing ending, as I recall, with a hike on Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.

Over the years, my columns became a bit more thematic.

GRAEME MURDOCH and Harry McGrath chat with Claude Bouchet, Canada’s Deputy High Commissioner and Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond before the St. Andrew’s Day reception at the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh on November 30, 2009.
Photo Credit: Andrew Cowan, Scottish Parliament

A rich source of multiple columns was a trip I took across Canada with my friend newspaper designer Graeme Murdoch to complete a project called ‘this is who we are’, part of the Scottish Government’s Homecoming 2009/ten years of devolution celebration.

We began our search for Scottish connections in Inverness, Nova Scotia and ended it as guests of the Lil’wat Nation in Mount Currie, British Columbia.

Many in the Lil’wat community share the iconic Scottish name Wallace which, our host Stan Wallace explained, was probably imposed on them by an Indian Agent who “either didn’t want to or couldn’t be bothered writing down our real names.”

The removal of their names begat the removal of everything else, including their culture and their children.

And yet we, from the land of Wallace, were welcomed into the Lil’wat community in ways that I will never forget. And even if I did, I have a CC column to remind me of the experience.

Stan Wallace is, sadly, no longer with us. Neither is Canada’s first female foreign minister Flora MacDonald who invited us to interview her in her apartment overlooking the Rideau Canal in Ottawa and was the subject of a subsequent CC column.

Neither is Dennis MacLeod who helped save the project after the current President of the United States (I am not making this up) failed to deliver the match-funding we thought we had been promised during a surreal phone call with Trump Towers in Chicago.

Dennis’s legacy is too vast to detail here but his Highland Clearance statues – one in his home town of Helmsdale, the other in Winnipeg – both featured in a CC column about him.

There are other friends who have passed since I left Vancouver and I will always be grateful to the CC for giving me the opportunity to remember them in print.

One was Professor Ian Ross who worked with me to bring high profile visitors from Scotland to SFU’s Centre for Scottish Studies. Ian wrote the first full biography of Adam Smith in 100 years.

Another was Ron MacLeod, one of the founders of the Centre. Ron’s family emigrated from the Isle of Raasay to Tofino and I wrote in the CC about how I walked across Raasay in search of his family’s roots. The column formed the basis for Ron’s obituary which appeared in the Herald newspaper in Scotland when he died in 2015.

Occasionally, one of my CC columns would find a wider readership in Scotland.

In 2015 I noticed that Scotland’s National newspaper and the Toronto Star ran simultaneous headlines about Syrian refugees, one said ‘Welcome to Scotland’, the other ‘Welcome to Canada’.

The column was noticed by Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Isles) MP Angus MacNeil who read it on his cousin’s balcony in Burnaby and was kind enough to promote it on Twitter.

Last year’s column which argued that the Burns statue in Stanley Park, erected in 1928 and unveiled by Ramsay MacDonald, was as much about power and politics as it was about poetry, stimulated some debate on this side of the pond.

In short, I wrote 100 plus columns for The Celtic Connection, the vast majority not cited here. I am grateful for every one of them, for the CC supporters and volunteers who made them possible and for Maura’s Job-like patience when I contacted her (too often) to say that I might have to file a day or two late.

The news about the CC has left a wee hole in my heart as I am sure it has for countless others in a community that loved it. Thanks Maura, thanks Catholine.

Gura math a thèid leat! (if I had a Phoenix emoji I would insert it here).

SHARON BROWN is a dedicated bibliophile and cinephile. She offered her unique perspective on countless books and films she reviewed for The Celtic Connection over the years.

By SHARON GREER BROWN

VANCOUVER – I will always remember St. Patrick’s Day of 1991. A friend had asked me to attend the celebrations at the historic and elegant Heritage Hall on Main Street.

Maura McCay (now De Freitas) was at one of the tables selling beautiful Celtic design jewellery and after being introduced we became instant friends.

Over nearly 30 years of camaraderie we have shared all the joys and pains in both our personal lives and the incredible history of the newspaper The Celtic Connection.

I have always known Maura to be someone who is fearless in taking risks in life. Always living her existence to the fullest despite the many adversities she has lived through.  She is an extraordinary person and I feel very fortunate to be a good friend.

Within a very short period of time, Maura expressed her aspiration to undertake the publication of an Irish/Celtic paper and then promptly persuaded me that I could write a book review column because of my interest in Irish literature.

And so began one of my most remarkable journeys in life as a contributor to the paper through all these many years.

My first book review was on Nora Barnacle the wife of the legendary Irish writer, James Joyce. Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce by Brenda Maddox is an amazing story that revealed more about James Joyce than about Nora.

But that was only the initial analysis of many reviews, mostly books, but sometimes Irish films or music.

In fact, I had great fun also writing under my grandfather, grandmother and great-grandfather’s names when I wrote articles on subject matter that might be too sensitive within the Irish community.

Writing this piece brought so many memories rushing back to me. Like the time we ran out of alcohol during one of the many fundraisers for the paper.

It happened at the Croatian Cultural Centre and took all of my diplomacy to control the ‘mob’ who were demanding bar tickets immediately.

Have you ever faced down a thirsty Irish crowd?  Luckily it didn’t take too long for someone to get to a liquor store and purchase more spirits.

I think back on all the articles and interviews with people like the amazing button accordionist Michael O’Brian, also known by the title of ‘Fastest Fingers’ whom I met in The Coachman’s pub in Kenmare, Co. Kerry.

Or Paul Durcan, the intense Irish poet that Maura and I met up with at the Vancouver Writers Festival on Granville Island to discuss his book of poems, A Snail in My Prime.

Or Peter Behrens who I met one rainy evening in 2006 at the Irish Heather’s shebeen. This Canadian writer won the 2006 Governor General’s award for his debut novel, The Law of Dreams about the Irish Famine of 1845-49 and its connection to the coffin ships that arrived in Canada from Ireland.

Or being chastised by that judge at Island Court on Inis Mor for taking notes on an article I was writing for the paper.  I hadn’t realized you couldn’t take notes in Irish courts.  She had a Garda confiscate my jottings.  I wrote the article anyway.

Without a doubt though my most cherished memory and one of the best highlights of writing for the paper was the one when I was fortunate enough to interview the celebrated Irish writer Maeve Binchy.

I even made the centrefold of the paper in the December/January 1992 issue. Binchy was one of the loveliest people I have ever met in my life.

I was a nervous wreck before going down to the Hotel Vancouver for our meeting. It was incredible the way all my anxiety vanished as soon as I saw her lovely, kind face crossing the lounge to meet me.

My experiences in writing and volunteering for the paper have enriched my life in ways that weren’t always obvious when I was actually living these moments.

Having this opportunity to reflect on the exceptional adventure I embarked on those many, many years ago has enabled me to appreciate, savour and treasure all the memories of interviews, events, reviews and delightful people I have encountered over a long period of time.

But best of all is my friendship with Maura who remains to this day a true friend – my best friend, who yet again is venturing on a new journey into the unknown. I know she will excel in anything she chooses to undertake with great enthusiasm and passion.

CYNTHIA WALLENTINE, a long-time contributor is known to readers for her much loved mythology column. Her most recent visit to Vancouver was to participate in a panel discussion for the St. Brigid’s Day Festival: Celebrating the Creativity of Women in February 2020.

By CYNTHIA WALLENTINE

As is right, we gather  round The Celtic Connection at twilight. An end, a beginning, and ever an in-between.

For more than a quarter of a century I have had the privilege of knowing Maura as a friend and publisher.

I have watched astonished as she, Catholine, and a very talented cadre of people spun gold, silver, and green to create a community newspaper with American and European circulation.

Through personal and professional travail, financial hardship, and intense work, Maura crafted a paper that became a community touchstone, offering support, news, congratulations, and condolences.  The stuff of Life.

For my part, I was blessed to have space to put down words with which to regard, touch, and hopefully reveal mysteries.

My mandate was always to hang it up when I could no longer take it deeper. I calculated that if I could do my own work, over time, there would always be a new way to see things.  I hope I did not disappoint.

I had the sincere privilege to attend the Lá Fhéile Bríde Festival in February of this year the first time I had returned to Vancouver in 20 years, where I used to live.

It was the last event before a virus shuttered the world.  I was grateful to be there, and to have the chance to meet kindred souls, some who knew my column.

Thank you to Maura for giving me that space for all those years, and to those who may have tumbled over its words now and again.

Yet it is twilight, and The Celtic Connection is moving into the gloaming, energetically returning to ground, to tree, to sky.  And let us remember, the Celtic day begins at twilight, so day end is always just the next beginning.  Blessed Be.

Cynthia blogs about life and times at https://dustycrossroads.com.

MARIE BRUCE has shared her travel adventures around the world with readers of The Celtic Connection. She also worked as volunteer in our office in our early wild and crazy days.

By MARIE BRUCE

VANCOUVER – I was really sad to read your letter with the news of your decision to say farewell to The Celtic Connection in print. I know it must be a heart wrenching decision.

It was your dream and your energy who got it up and running and nourished it  along every month.

It never made you rich or even provided a monthly salary but it brought all the Irish  together and established an active community spirit with events, sports, lunches, dinners and lots of music events.

Prior to The Celtic Connection there was no way to connect with the wider Irish influx of immigrants.

We were  lucky and blessed to have a paper with all the latest news and events about home and here. You encouraged writers and artists and musicians. There was no voice for them elsewhere.

I wandered into your office sometime in mid-1992 or thereabouts, Catholine was typing away, the phone ringing off the hook and people  were dropping in and out.

I offered to volunteer for a few hours a week. My job was to try and collect the money owing to you, it wasn’t easy and people were very slow to pay up. Of course there were a few excellent clients but the majority lagged behind.

It seemed to me back then all your callers at the office wanted something – be it a writer,  an artist or a musician.

You listened patiently to all the requests and tried to accommodate as many as you could and at the same time kept ploughing ahead with mountains of work.

I remember thinking that woman has the patience of Job. I know you worked late most nights but you held on to your dream and it was never easy.

I remember Jack Wallace your editor. He was a wonderful man who helped and taught you the ropes.

When Jack arrived into the office, it was always down to the wire in production time and the paper had to be ready for layout and printing.

When the delivery people came we were all excited to see the paper on its way to the wider Vancouver area in libraries all over the city and beyond.

Then, of course, you had to turn around and start on the next month’s edition.

Oh! Maura and Catholine, I think you both deserve the Order of Canada and every other accolade for doing such wonderful work and bringing pleasure to so many people.

The Celtic Connection was  an exceptional little paper – eclectic, interesting, and full of news and events and photos. It will be a great loss to the cultural life of Vancouver.

COLLEEN CARPENTER with Catholine Butler in 2002 as she is presented an award for her work and dedication

By COLLEEN CARPENTER

VANCOUVER – In the late Nineties I took a course in desktop publishing and in order to graduate you had to intern for two weeks.

I had read The Celtic Connection about a year previously and thought since I had an interest in Ireland that I would ask my teacher to enquire there.

After I graduated I kept volunteering at the paper and was eventually asked to join the staff.  Little did I know that the adventures would soon begin.

First of all, with a newspaper you can be working mornings, afternoons and late into the night depending upon the deadlines and the presses’ availability.

One night, after Maura had been up for several days working on the paper, she passed out. Horrors! The paper had to be at the printers in a few hours. So we lovingly shoved her into the shower to “freshen up.” Luckily she revived enough to get the issue to press.

Catholine scheduled her knee surgeries around the paper’s convenience, not hers.  She recovered with the phone in one hand and her knee propped up on a pillow.

I, suffering from a bout of bronchitis, ended up having documents delivered to my house so I could proofread. Wearing gloves and a mask I was careful not to spread the germs.

Forget the show must go on, in the newspaper biz unless you’re dead you better be there for the deadline!!

Despite these and many, many more roadblocks, we always got the paper to the printers on time.

In the years before the paper was uploaded in digital format, Maura would have to drive late at night to get the page layouts to the press. Tom (Catholine’s husband) and I would sometimes take over that task.

Late at night we would wind our way through the ladies of the night on Pandora Street to reach the back door to deliver the layout flats to the printers.

We would return early the next day to pick up the bundles of printed papers for distribution – no ladies in sight by that time. There are interesting sights in the middle of the night!

The day that Maura was able to send the paper electronically to the printers cut down on delivery time but also cut out our late night voyages.

I would proofread the paper, and I mean the whole paper, in a few hours (so please excuse any lapses of concentration that let a few typos appear).

I would sit in a chair with the pages to be proofed on my lap and before I knew it I would have a cat or a dog, or both deciding that I should be petting them and generally paying them attention.

Lola (the cat) would somehow know exactly what paragraph I was reading and would sit right on those words. If I gently moved her she would take offense and let me know with claws and teeth that no one upsets the queen – the title she had given herself.  No danger pay though.

My furry co-workers were one of the great pleasures of my proofing job.

As the years went by we became a tight little team.

After Tom passed away, José (Maura’s husband) stepped up to the plate and would go to the printers to pick up the bundles of papers for distribution.

Our volunteer and professional drivers would be able to make thousands of papers virtually disappear in a few hours.

These papers would find their way all over the Lower Mainland and down to Seattle. Our drivers were always so dependable in making sure the papers were delivered.

Papers destined for our subscribers would all be labelled by the ever-efficient Arlyn and then delivered to the main Canada Post office where they would be sent around the world.

The new depot in Richmond provided some adventures, like the time the security gate started closing while the car was only half way through. Luckily, Catholine was able to put on some speed and we squeaked through.

I will miss the interviews that Catholine set up.

I would go with her to write down names etc., but it was Catholine who did the interviews, took the pictures, and spoke to the owners of shops, pubs, small businesses, artists and sports figures etc.

It was always interesting to meet the people behind the names as I would often send them correspondence.

Then, there were the St. Patrick Day parades. I’m sure there are many who remember Tom O’Flynn as St. Patrick.  Mark stepped up to portray St. Patrick in later years.

And, of course, there was the ever-effervescent Miguel who played the leprechaun distributing sweets to all the children.

OUR ANNUAL fundraising golf tournaments were a lot of work and Colleen was always working behind the scenes to help make them such a great success.

The annual fundraising golf tournaments were also a lot of work but always enjoyable.

Catholine would bake her famous brown bread which was one of the attractions of the tournament.

It was always a great day and so heartening to see so much community support from the people who donated prizes, the golfers and the visitors who came out to enjoy the day.

There were also countless fundraising dances and events that helped to keep the press running for us…….ah, the good old days!

THE ST. PATRICK’S DAY parades were a lot of fun (and also a lot of work) and Colleen was always there helping to distribute copies of The Celtic Connection along the parade route.

Over the years, the paper won two major awards and we were all so proud.

I met a lot of great people working on the paper and there was such loyalty from all who were involved.

The people who wrote articles for the paper always kept us informed about local events and news happening around the world.

It was amazing how much I was able to learn about what was going on in the U.K. and Ireland. My friends who live there were always surprised how much I knew about their part of the world.

Maura and Catholine are more than bosses, they are a part of my life. We’ve shared joy, heartache, and all the funny things that went wrong.

José was always there to lend support and kept us going late into the night with tea and cookies.

I will miss the cycle of the paper.  I will miss all the problems that popped up for us to solve.  I will miss knowing how the many people whom I met through the paper are doing.

The Celtic Connection wasn’t just pieces of paper folded together – it really was the heart and soul of the Celtic community.

People I would meet – both friends and strangers – would often tell me how much they enjoyed the paper.

Maura and Catholine, thank you for letting me be part of your ‘Excellent Adventure’.

DEIRDRE HALFERTY, the Honorary Consul Ireland, Southern Alberta & Saskatchewan, with Jim Kelly, Ambassador of Ireland to Canada at a reception in Calgary.

Dear Maura and Catholine,

CALGARY – I am so sorry to hear about the difficult decision you have had to come to. The new normal has been hurting a lot of businesses unfortunately.

Thank you both for all your years of service to the Irish/Celtic community at large.

You have made an absolutely tremendous impact on the Celtic community throughout western Canada and indeed much further afield and into Seattle as well.

The Celtic Connection has been a staple – the detailed articles, reviews of concerts and great journalism on different events in different places have always brought comfort.

Through The Celtic Connection, we knew there was always someone promoting the Celtic/Irish culture and that people everywhere are equally as proud to be Irish. I will miss that connectivity.

Hopefully, you can present some form of the newspaper via your website, although the challenges of that are probably quite technical and convoluted these days too.

At a personal level,  I have thoroughly enjoyed working closely with you both but especially with Catholine as she would always be the one to come up to Calgary.

You were always so amenable to publish any Consular and Embassy of Ireland highlights. Thank you both for your years of service.

The world is changing at a dramatic pace in many regards and sometimes we just have to accept it. Hopefully, some good will come out of all this.

Le Ghrá Mhor

Deirdre Halferty

Honorary Consul Ireland

Southern Alberta & Saskatchewan