Around the Irish Scene

Below left: Irish Mams NOR celebrating Christmas

Below: Happy 50th Birthday to the man himself, editor Lloyd, pictured with daughter Molly

Left: Former presidents of the Irish Club of WA Frank Smith and Paddy and Lena Costello.

Above: Paddy Cannon and Terry O’Leary at the Irish Club seniors Christmas Lunch

Above Left-Right: PJ Malone, Bob O’Shea, Lilly Rea, Jim Egan, Miv Egan and Moira Malone celebrating Below: Happy 70th birthday to Noel O’Neill

If you would like to be featured in the next issue, please send your photo/s to irishsceneperth@gmail.com along with a short description

Left & below: The Irish Perth Choir brought on that festive feeling in bucket loads with a double (matinee and evening) showing of “A VIRISH CHRISTMAS CONCERT” at the Irish Club in early December. The choir also spread Christmas joy further afield with another performance at Perth Children’s Hospital just before Christmas.

A LOVELY KENNEDY MOMENT Right: America’s new nomination for ambassador to Australia – announced by President Joe Biden (who has Irish roots in Co. Mayo) in mid December 2021 – is Caroline Kennedy. The 64 year old lawyer and diplomat is the daughter of the one and only JFK, who naurally had strong Irish heritage and whose 1963 visit to Ireland left a deep and lasting legacy on the island nation. As well as a deep connection with Ireland the Kennedy’s have an interesting history with this region of the world. A Japanese destroyer sank Kennedy’s PT 109 boat in the Solomon Islands in August 1943 and exactly 70 years later Ms Kennedy became her country’s ambassador to Japan. Politics and history aside Irish Scene spotted this brillant and happy photograph of Caroline Kennedy as a child with her dad on RareIrishStuff.com and wanted to share it with our readers as a way of welcoming the diplomat with an amazing life story.

MASS GATHERING OF IRISH MEDICOS Above: Some 150 Irish doctors in Western Australia – and another forty or so who were there but not in the picture – marked Christmas Day the traditional Aussie way, by heading for the beach, in this case Cottesloe Beach. Eoghan O’Leary tweeted this photo and a message on December 25 for the occasion.

LA BELLA LUNA Right: The Palace Hotel in Southern Cross – run by Dubliner Liz Sheehan – has a new mascot of sorts. Just before Christmas a tiny six week old kitten was found in the hotel’s carpark and handed in. Liz said she would try to find a decent home for it but if not she would keep it and take care of it. In any case Liz has given the cute little thing a name, Luna. “I named her after the moon as all the constellations and stars have male names and I felt her name should be related somewhat to astronomy seeing as we are in Southern Cross where every street is named after a constellation or a star.”

A LOTTO OF ROTTO Left: Declan Page and Elaine Davidson and their daughter Clodagh Page enjoyed a few days post Christmas break on Rottnest before launching into the difficult task in this market of trying to find a new place to live for their family.

MUMS THE WORD FOR THE DEVITT BOYS Right: Belated applause for Marcus Devitt, originally from Ballybough, Dublin, who ran his first full marathon around Neil Hawkins park in Joondalup to support research into Ovarian cancer last October. About the same time his brother Alan in Naas, Co. Kildare took part in the London virtual marathon. He covered 42.2km in laps around the local lake in a respectable 3hours and 52 mins, which he was very happy with. His two boys Callum and Ryan showed up at the finish line to cheer him on while other mates, including Dave (in Blue) from Tallaght and Bryn Tester (in black) did the same. The brothers were running and raising funds for their late mum Geraldine Lynch Devitt (right) who died in October 2016, just 28 days after being diagnosed with the disease. Marcus raised money for the Christie Charity Manchester Hospital where his wife’s family are from and the Mater Hospital Cancer Foundation in Dublin.

OH NO HE DIDN’T, OH YES HE DID Below: Irish Scene editor Lloyd Gorman got up close and personal with Cinderella’s obnoxious sisters played flawlessly by Stephen Lee and Ron Arthurs.

PRAYING FOR DIVINE – OR DIVING –

INSPIRATION Above: Limerick man Jimmy Flannery looks like he is either praying or preparing to dive straight into his first pint of Guinness in two years. In any case he looks happy! LAST BUT NOT LEAST Left: This edition of Irish Scene will be the last one our talented graphic designer Caris Grant (pictured with husband Clayton at the Galway Hooker) will be involved with. When we took over as the publishers from Fred and Lilly, Caris was instrumental in designing a new look and style for the magazine and in putting it together for printing and publication, which is no easy task. Most of the positive comments and feedback we get about how much people like the magazine is because of her creative efforts. Throughout the last two and a half years or so, Caris – who has Irish heritage through her mother – has been professional, hard-working and innovative and probably best of all patient! She is going down a new career path and we wish her all the very best with what ever comes next. We would like to thank her for helping to make Irish Scene the fantastic and well produced publication that it is. ☘