By Katherine Ball-Weir

Jeff Meade, chairman of CCÉ Philadelphia-Delaware Valley, is joining the 2024 Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame. 

The Hall of Fame dates back to 2001, when Tommy Moffit, the late, great Philadelphia Irish musician and longtime radio host—and 2002 Mid-Atlantic Comhaltas Hall of Fame honoree—became its first member.

Jeff is being recognized largely on the strength of his editorship of irishphiladelphia.com, a blog he co-founded with friend and longtime reporter and editor Denise Foley. (Most of the blog now resides as an archive at irishinphilly.com.) The blog has published hundreds of stories and well over 22,000 photos. Since 2006, Jeff has covered countless events, large and small, in the Philadelphia-area Irish community, from parades to Gaelic athletics to festivals, feiseanna and the area’s longtime Easter Rising ceremony. 

Through his writing, Jeff has profiled—and often memorialized—some of the community’s leading lights. He was never happier than when he was able to find some obscure aspect of Irish life—for example, the Philadelphia session fiddler who also was also a sitar virtuoso or a local man’s efforts to bring professional baseball to Ireland. He has interviewed or photographed countless Irish musicians, including Mary Courtney, Winifred Horan, Mick Moloney, Paddy Moloney, Kevin Conneff, Eileen Ivers, and more.

In 2013, Jeff produced a CD, “Ceili Drive”—a word play on Philadelphia’s Kelly Drive—both as a fundraiser for the blog and as a way of bringing together and recording many of the area’s Irish musicians for posterity. The CD didn’t raise much money, Jeff says, but it succeeded wonderfully in its second objective.

It was music that drew Jeff into the world of Irish culture in the Delaware Valley. Jeff, a longtime drummer, was a member of two Irish bagpipe bands, starting in 1999 as drum sergeant for Irish Thunder Pipes and Drums and later as snare drummer for the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band, which competed at Highland games throughout the Mid-Atlantic states.

“I had played snare drum in high school, but since that time I hadn’t so much as picked up a drumstick,” Jeff says. “Instead, I beat out rhythms on anything that happened to be at hand. My wife Diane used to say I played first chair steering wheel.”

One summer weekend, while attending an Irish festival—something he had never done up to that point—he heard the Irish Thunder band performing. “My wife said to me, ‘You know how much you miss drumming. Why don’t you give that a try? Well, I was immediately entranced by the tight regimental stye of pipe band drumming and the distinctive high-pitched sound of pipe band snares—though I had some trepidation about wearing a kilt.”

Jeff joined the band. He learned to love the kilt and performed in parades and on the competition circuit for more than 20 years.

As much as he loved the music, playing in an Irish pipe band opened up a whole new world of Irish culture for Jeff. He found himself performing for Ancient Order of Hibernian functions, festivals, ceilis, the Friendly Sons and Daughters of St. Patrick, G.A.A. games, St. Patrick’s Day parades, and much, much more. (A highlight of his pipe band career was when the Emerald band accompanied The Chieftains onstage at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center.)

“I never knew all of that Irish culture was out there, and it occurred to me that there had to be many more people of Irish heritage who didn’t know about any of it,” Jeff recalls. “I’d been a reporter, writer, editor for more than three decades at the time I joined Irish Thunder, so I had all those skills to apply toward bringing that world to light. So, I approached my friend Denise with the idea of producing a blog. She was deeply interested in genealogy and her Irish ancestors, so the idea appealed to her. And so, in 2006, irishphiladelphia.com was born.”

Jeff has applied his web-building skills to a number of Irish-oriented projects, including CCÉ Philadelphia-Delaware Valley, the Philadelphia Ceili Group, the Commodore John Barry Arts and Cultural Center and Mid-Atlantic Comhaltas.

When he learned that he had been nominated for the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame, Jeff confessed to being humbled by the honor. “And a little bit gobsmacked,” he adds. He credits his wife Diane and daughter Sarah for all those days and nights he spent away while pursuing his passion. “To my mind, they share the honor. I could not have done anything I’ve done without their love and support.”

Until becoming chairman of the CCÉ Philadelphia-Delaware Valley branch in 2023, Jeff served as its public relations officer. He is also PRO for the Mid-Atlantic region. His extensive network of contacts within the Irish community has significantly bolstered the branch’s efforts to promote and preserve Irish music, dance and cultural programming. He has demonstrated exceptional leadership and a genuine passion for fostering collaboration among various organizations, ensuring that our cultural heritage continues to thrive and reach new audiences. 

The Hall of Fame banquet will be held at the Commodore John Barry Arts and Cultural Center—informally known as “the Irish Center”—in late November.

Katherine Ball-Weir is vice chairman of the Philadelphia-Delaware Valley branch.