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  Villanova University’s Irish Studies Program is marking the ancient Irish feast of Samhain (which was observed on Nov. 1 to mark the end of the harvest and the beginning of the long winter) with a series of modern events that demonstrate the thread that links Irish ancient, traditional and modern arts.

   On Saturday evening, Nov. 6, singer and folklorist Mick Moloney and some very talented friends open Samhain with “An Evening of Irish Traditional Music and Dance.” The performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. in St. Mary Chapel of St. Mary Hall on the University campus. Tickets are priced at $20.00 ($15.00 for members of the Villanova University community) and can be ordered in advance by calling (610) 519-4630. They also will be available at St. Mary the evening of the performance.

    Mick Moloney combines the careers of folklorist, arts presenter and advocate, and professional musician.  He is an accomplished singer and mandolin and tenor banjo player­ and possesses a vast storehouse of songs and instrumental pieces from the Irish and Irish-American tradition. He has recorded and produced over fifty albums and has participated actively in the great revival of Irish music in the United States. He has hosted three nationally syndicated series of folk music shows on American Public Television; was a consultant, performer and interviewee on “Bringing it All Back Home,” a participant, consultant and music arranger in the 1994 PBS documentary film “Out of Ireland” and a performer on the 1998 PBS special “The Irish in America: Long Journey Home.” In 1999 he was awarded the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He currently teaches in the Irish Studies Program in New York University.

    Among the performers joining Moloney are Robbie O’Connell and Bill McComiskey. O’Connell is one the finest singer-songwriters in Irish music in America. Now living in the Boston area, he originally comes from County Tipperary where he learned much of his early repertoire from his illustrious uncles The Clancy Brothers. He went on to explore other repertoires and started writing his own songs in his teens. Before long, O’Connell blossomed into one of the most inventive songwriters and arrangers in the folk scene and he is now one of the foremost singer-songwriters in American as well as being an excellent singer of traditional Irish songs. He has toured nationally on many occasions with the Clancy Brothers and also with Mick Moloney, Jimmy Keane, The Green Fields of America and many other musicians. He has recorded and performed on scores of CDs.

    Bill McComiskey, All-Ireland champion accordionist, grew up in Brooklyn and learned much of his early repertoire and style from the late Sean McGlynn, a native of Tynagh, County Galway. McComiskey played in the Washington D.C. area with the noted group, The Irish Tradition, for over a decade and for the last several years has been a member of the group Trian where he plays with fiddler Liz Carroll and guitarist Daithi Sproule. He is widely considered one of the most skilled and inventive virtuoso musicians in Irish American music. He has a prodigious repertoire of tunes learned from the greatest Irish musicians of his generation. He has toured nationally with the Irish Tradition and The Green Fields of America and was one of the featured performers in the prestigious Eigse na Laoi -- a major Irish traditional music festival in University College Cork which celebrated the disapora of Irish traditional musicians worldwide. He is a celebrated ceili musician as well as a solo player and is widely in demand as a musician for Irish social dances all over the Eastern United States.

    On Monday, Nov. 8, at 4:30 p.m., Galway poet Moya Cannon will give a reading in the Bryn Mawr Room of the Connelly Center. Admission is free and open to the public.

    On Tuesday, Nov. 8, Prof. Nicholas Grene of Trinity College Dublin will present a lecture titled “Pigs and Pastoral: The Butcher,” This lecture, which also is free and open to the public will begin at 4:15 p.m. in Room 300 of St. Augustine Center for the Liberal Arts.

    “A Celebration of Samhain” will close Friday evening, Nov. 12, when Macdara Mac Uibh Aille will take over St. Mary Chapel, for a dramatic performance titled, “Peacefire: No Freedom without Justice.” Tickets are $10.00 per person, and are available either in advance or at the performance. 

    Set in the unrest of 1980s Northern Ireland, this “Peacefire” tell the story of an 18 year old boy named Colin McNall. After enjoying some success at petty crime and car theft, this product of public housing finds himself wanted for questioning by both the Irish Republican Army and the British security forces. He enters a local church, tries to claim sanctuary. He is rebuffed and winds up becoming an informer for the hated (by the Catholics) Royal Ulster Constabulary. He becomes a marked man and has to make a terrible choice.

    Mac Uibh Aille a youthful looking 31 year-old, was born in Armagh, Northern Ireland, studied drama and the Irish language at the University of Ulster. This one-man show, and an earlier work, “Closing Time,” on the writings of author Flann O’Brien, were staged in New York.  He also wrote “Angelus,” which was performed in Irish, was produce ten years ago at the Dublin Theatre Festival and won three of five awards.  A second play, Voice of the Sea” also was staged in New York City. Mac Uibh Aille currently is working on a film version of “Peacefire.”