“What a wonderful overview of who you are, and how you unfolded your life tapestry. I especially liked the tender and tasteful way that you dealt with how you almost didn’t get to where you are today, but were saved by the roots you discovered over the years when you brought them together”. (comments on the Roots in Ireland video)

Juel Ulven, Fox Valley Folk Festival

Thanks for watching the Roots in Ireland Video we released last month. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the link. https://www.jamieoreilly.com/videos/jamie-oreilly-roots-in-ireland-a-video-a-musical-journey/

View this Blog as a Mailchimp newsletter here: https://mailchi.mp/jamieoreilly/jamie-o-this-is-it-in-old-chicago-nov-6-chief-oneills-plus-wnur-the-folk-show-radio-oct-24

October E-news
“My songs, my roots, my passions”
A Note from Jamie

This October, I’m focusing on In Old Chicago, the Dublin Salon preview we’re presenting at Chief O’Neill’s Pub in early November. Daughter Nia O’Reilly-Amandes has designed another stunning poster. Chief O’Neill’s Brendan and Siobhan McKinney have shown great support! Joining me, I’m honored to have my older brother Christopher O’Reilly and Judi Cogan Heikes as Readers. The consummate pro John Erickson will be at the piano.

[Note: Covid protocols will be in place: vaccinated adults, and/or Covid-negative recently tested, masked when not eating or drinking. Lighter house to accommodate spatial needs.]

I’m reading, researching and revisiting the In Old Chicago program I did in 2019, adding more stories of my relations: Dottie, Mame, Tex, Nell and Uncle Tuck, with snippets from memoirs of Chicago from the turn of the 20th century into the outbreak of WWI and the early 20s: the newspapers, neighborhoods, union halls, activism, culture and the arts. Whereas my 2019 version of In Old Chicago focused on immigrants, the Irish among them, the “Dublin Salon” preview offers more Irish songs and poetry.

This Concert Salon is a journey in song, interspersed with readings. My classic signature ballads, parlor songs, soaring hymns, and singalongs will be featured, as well as beloved songs by my late musical partner Michael Smith.

I’m recording Sanctuary City, a powerful new anthem to Chicago (casting the city as a woman), written by Anne Hills and Al Power, which will close the first set of the Nov concert.

Sunday, October 24 at about 10:15 am, you can hear me on WNUR The Folk Show, in a Zoom interview with host Sue Kessell. WNUR 89.3 FM and online at https://folk.wnur.org/

Roots in Ireland Project Presents
Sat Nov 6 at 7 PM
In Old Chicago: Stories and Songs of a Beloved City
a preview of Jamie’s Dublin Salon
Chief O’Neill’s Pub
3471 N Elston Ave
Chicago, Il
Buy Tickets here.
https://www.jamieoreilly.com/events/2021-11-06/

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IN OLD CHICAGO – HISTORICAL AND FAMILIAL BACKGROUND
(this also appears on the Roots in Ireland project page)

Chicago’s connection to the Celtic Revival, initiated here by the 1893 World Columbian Exposition, and the Irish Literary Renaissance, is a fascinating time, with international demand for Irish Home Rule, and the emergence of many Irish artists on the world stage. Among them: the über gifted Yeats family, provocative Lady Gregory, and masterful James Joyce, (whose seminal novel Ulysses we will be celebrating in Dublin next June). As the Industrial Revolution took hold, the eight-hour day was furiously fought-for, and a heretofore unseen number of immigrants arrived, the humanities and intellectualism were alive and thriving in Chicago.

The new Art Institute of Chicago acquired its masterpieces, grand museums were built, and lakefront parks were created. My ancestors were feisty activists, writers and artists. Tex and Tuck wrote for newspapers (there were dozens), Tuck and Nell contributed to poetry columns (Tribune’s Line-o-Type among them). Nell attended the School of the Art Institute. Tex fought in foreign wars. My aunts Mame and Dottie taught in public schools… They participated in the Hobo College (offering classes to migratory workers), and Bughouse Square (with its soapboxers). They joined the Dil Pickle Club (spelled that way, a social club for arts, crafts, literature, and science), shared rituals with the Winnebago Tribe, attended Socialist gatherings, and organized for the Chicago Federation of Labor, and Chicago Federation of Teachers, as Chicago became a union town.

And they all sang — hosting salons where music, poetry, politics and philosophy merged in spirited gatherings. These events inspired Roots Salon, which I established in 1993.

“Canopied with trees screened by thick bushes, retired from the street,
Full of odd corners, with odd people as its favored guests;
Spouting poetry and music and youthful philosophy
From all its old pores till the gray hours of the morning;
Harboring many tellers of true but unbelievable stories of the four heavens and the four hells. A delightful, unforgettable house it was.”

Friar Tuck, memoir

(See Jamie’s blog on Geat Aunt Mame’s White Fire letter. https://www.jamieoreilly.com/songnotes-mames-white-fire-she-would-sing-the-kerry-dances/)

Roots in Ireland Project Update page
https://www.jamieoreilly.com/projects/roots-ireland-2022-project/

Roots in Irelad Project Donor page
https://www.jamieoreilly.com/roots-in-ireland-project-donor-page/

Poster photo by Iwona Biedermann
Poster design and logo by Nia O’Reilly-Amandes

c2021 Jamie O’Reilly, J O’Reilly Productions