Comparing Banshees of Inisherin and The Quiet Man among other things
PDX HIBERNIAN INDEPENDENT 4 September 2025
More than an email. Less than a newspaper. Now delivered every Thursday. Published by The Portland Hibernian Society
Next Meeting - September 18 at Kells Restaurant - 112 SW Second Ave. Portland. Dinner at Six P.M. Reasons to attend: Live bagpipes. Honoring Brendan McGloin. Recognizing Lucille McAleese. Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day.
Who will be the tenth President of Ireland?
The waiting game to see who will run is almost over. 3.6 million voters in Ireland can go to the polls to pick their tenth president on Friday October 24 - Election Day. Within 20 days we’ll know who the candidates for that office are. (The PDX HI regrets reporting last week that the election would be held on October 23. Our sources let us down.) How are presidential elections in Ireland different from America's? Let me count the ways. But not right now.
One wannabe is a six-time All Ireland Champion
One interesting development: It looks like the front runner for the nomination of the Fianna Fáil party (one of Ireland’s major parties) will be Jim Gavin, a man who made his name managing Dublin’s Gaelic football team to an amazing string of championships in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. Jim Gavin is best known as the greatest Dublin Gaelic football coach ever but is also a veteran peacekeeper with the Irish military. The whole GAA thing might be tough to grasp for Americans, present company included, but it’s about more than sport, believe me. A Gavin victory in the race for the Áras (basically their White House)would be the first in a while for Fianna Fáil.
'Tis the season locally for GAA Games
Greater Portland’s home for the Gaelic Athletic Association games is Columbia Red Branch. Every Saturday the guardians of Ireland’s indigenous athletic culture in these parts sponsors two hours of hurling, Gaelic football and camogie.
The Quiet Man and The Banshees of Inisherin side by side
Near Galway where his parents were born, director John Ford will be honored this weekend with a film festival devoted to his masterpiece The Quiet Man. Another highly-acclaimed Irish movie, The Banshees of Inisherin, was filmed a few miles away. Coincidence? Nope. Read about the many similarities between the two films in an exclusive at the PHS website.
MORE NEWS FROM IRELAND
"Cover my coffin with the tricolour"
That’s all Seamus McAloran is asking of his local parish priest in Belfast. He was baptized at St. Patrick Church on Donegal Street in Belfast and was hoping to have his requiem Mass said there when he dies. Which his doctors say could be any day now for the well-known republican who served time behind the wire. Problem is, there's a Catholic Church ban on placing the tri color and other flags on coffins inside churches during Requiem Mass has been in force since the 1980s. An exception to the rule was allowed for the funeral of Martin McGuinness (attended by Bill Clinton). There will be no bending of the rules for Seamus McAloran, who attends Mass daily. He has made arrangements to hold his funeral in his home rather than at St. Patrick's.
Young unaccompanied refugee from Ukraine excels in Ireland
Max Reva was 16 and helping out at his parent’s grocery store in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyy in southwestern Ukraine when Russia invaded in 2022. Taken in by a foster family in Ireland (“my Irish grandparents”), he enrolled at St Colmcille's Senior School in Knocklyon and within months was offered a scholarship by the Jesuit headmaster of Clongowes Wood College in Co Kildare. His perfect score of 625 on the national tests resulted in admission to Ireland’s oldest University. “He will now study Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Trinity College Dublin after getting the maximum possible points tally in his exams.” It’s a pretty cool story. For comparison purposes: 1.6% of Irish test takers score a perfect 625. In America 0.7% of SAT test takers score a perfect 1600.
MUSIC FROM IRELAND IN PORTLAND
Irish singer-songwriter in town this weekend
Her name is Grainne Hunt. You can check out for yourself right here what her publicity says. “Her two original records and new live EP, draw from deeply personal experiences, weaving stories of pain, longing and joy, earning her comparisons to Tracy Chapman and Natalie Merchant. You can see and hear her in an intimate setting this Weeknd - Sat. Sept. 6th – Rose City Guitars, Portland.
Biddy on the Bench is back
The old Winona Grange in Tualatin is a local hotbed for traditional Celtic music. Tomorrow night (Friday Sept. 5) S&A Events launches its Fall Season with a Ceili featuring longtime PNW Celtic combo Biddy on the Bench. Deets - Winona Grange 8340 SW Seneca St., Tualatin 97062 Concert: 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm Doors open at 6:45. $15$30. At the door: $20-$35
In memory of Seamus Heaney who died on Aug. 30, 2013
Digging
BY SEAMUS HEANEY (Click here to hear the poet reading Digging)
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
NEXT PHS MEETING SEPTEMBER 18 AT KELLS RESTAURANT IN DOWNTOWN PORTLAND AT SIX P.M.