Seniors: In Gaelic, ‘Bail ó Dhia ort’

Just a wee bit south of Fellowship Hall off Route 114 is the Senior Activity Center where the Silver Circle was also celebrating St. Patrick’s Day on March 16.

Club members, staff and guests feasted on a baked pork chop with stuffing prepared by Angela Corbett for the Nutrition Program’s Meals on Wheels clients. It was deliciously moist and well-seasoned and there wasn’t a crumb left over for Jennifer Bouissey’s chickens She’s the Silver Circle’s intrepid bus driver.

Our guests — Linda Betjeman, Tom Milton, Jack Monaghan and Sy Weissman — volunteered to bring us a program of Irish music and song. Their credentials are impeccable.

• Sy comes from a musical family and says, “He’s driven to perform.” He made his spoon music debut at Camp Quinipet in 2009.

• Linda is the director of the Shelter Island community chorus, minister of music at the Presbyterian Church and director of music at the Union Chapel. “The center’s new keyboard (a gift from Karin Bennett) is much better than the old organ,” she said.

• Although Jack has had no formal vocal training, he was active for many years in the New York City branch of the Gaelic League. He lived part-time in Dublin for about 15 years before coming to Shelter Island in 1997 (he thinks).

• Tom had no formal musical training either although he was exposed to Irish music at an early age. Both Tom and Jack are members of the Shelter Island Community Chorus, the Choral Society of the Hamptons and the Peconic Bay Masterworks Choir.

Their program on the 16th gave each performer two or three solos before the group sing-along. Their audience was small (some club members are on winter break; a few were under the weather that day) but for those of us who were there, the performance added a new color to the rainbow of our lives.

Bail ó Dhia ort (“God bless you” in Gaelic) Angela, Linda, Jack, Tom and Sy.