Green Tie Celebrates Its Tenth Anniversary

On March 7, 2009 the Tenth Annual Green Tie Event will be held. Proceeds benefit the Ward Irish Music Archives and its mission to collect, preserve, and disseminate Irish music in all its forms.

Entertainment Featuring:

  Tom Sweeney:
For nearly twenty-five years, Tom Sweeney has travelled the highways and byways of Ireland, Europe and North America with his seemingly endless rattle bag of songs, stories, poetry and tunes.

His one man show is replete with the very essence of Irish culture which comes as no surprise when you consider that he has been immersed in the great tradition of ballad singing since he could speak. Tom’s maternal grandmother, Sarah Makem, is generally considered to be one of the greatest sources of songs in the entire history of Irish music and as a boy he learned many of them around his granny’s kitchen in County Armagh.

Tom was delighted to have written the theme song for the 25th anniversary of the world famous Milwaukee Irish Fest. Considered to be the biggest Irish music festival in the world, the 2005 festival saw upwards of 135,000 people over the third weekend of August. The president of Ireland, Mary Mc Aleese opened the event this year and Tom was honoured to perform the song, called “Milwaukee 25? at both the opening and the closing of the Irish musical extravaganza. At the closing, which is known as the ‘Scattering’, Tom sang the song onstage with a veritable who’s who of the Irish folk music world to an audience of 10,000! They all left with the chorus of “Milwaukee, the word makes you smile, You’d think you were in Erin’s Isle…” on their lips and hearts! The song is also included in the Milwaukee Irish Fest’s 25th anniversary CD, “Silver”, a compilation of the many performers who have graced the stages of Irish Fest for a quarter of a century.