Troubadour trouble

The mix-ups, one at Shannon airport, the other at the U.S. embassy in Dublin, left Donegal chart-topper Mickey Joe Harte stranded and perplexed and prevented veteran singer Davey Arthur from teaming up with his old partners, the Furey Brothers, for their 25th anniversary tour of U.S. cities.
Both performers, along with members of Harte’s supporting band and another Donegal group, the Revs, were still in Ireland this week despite pleas to the embassy from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.
The most immediate effect of the Harte stoppage was the cancellation of a planned Sept. 6 concert at Gaelic Park in the Bronx, proceeds from which were to help defray massive medical costs for Donegal native Michael Duffy, who has been battling a rare form of kidney cancer.
Michelle Thompson, daughter of Michael Duffy, was left the task of notifying
people that the concert had been cancelled. She said that her family is “desperately disappointed” that the concert could not go ahead and hopes that those who had bought tickets would be able to attend a rescheduled event, possibly in early October.
“We thought he [Harte] would make it over, but the paperwork wasn’t
done on time,” Thompson said.
This despite frantic calls on this side of the Atlantic to the office of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and other political leaders and the intercession of at least one Irish government minister as well as former SDLP leader John Hume.
Harte and 13 others in his entourage were stopped at Shannon by a U.S. immigration official because they did not have temporary work visas.
The combined musical groups did not think they required visas and believed that they could travel under the visa-waiver program because they would only be performing at a charity event for which they were not getting paid.
Vincent McNelis, Harte’s manager, said that the groups understood from the U.S. embassy that visas were not required, but that it had been a different story at the airport.
When it became clear that Harte and the others were flying nowhere, baggage for the 14 was removed from the New York-bound plane. This resulted in a departure delay.
“I’m very disappointed, but it’s one of those things, better to laugh than to cry,” Harte, who is 29, said Monday.
Harte was shopping in Derry when contacted on a day he’d believed he would doing the same thing in New York.
Harte — whose album “Sometimes Right Sometimes Wrong” recently reached number one in the Irish album charts — said that the immigration official had been like a brick wall, though he and the others had tried their best to convince him that they would be only in the U.S. for a few days and would not be working for pay.
“We met the wrong fellow on the wrong day. We were told he could have used his discretion, but he was not having any of it,” Harte said.
Harte, a nephew of former Donegal Fine Gael TD Paddy Harte, said that he had been standing at the rear of the line of band members and when the problem first became apparent.
Not all of their luggage was removed from the plane. “But they didn’t take off all the bags. Some of them went to New York and back,” said Harte, who lives in Strabane, Co. Tyrone.
“Worse things happen, but I’m really disappointed. Much work went into this,” he said referring to the Gaelic Park charity event.
Said Vincent McNelis: “There’s talk about having the concert in the first week of October, but one way or another we will be applying for our visas this week. Work visas we don’t need. It all leaves a sour taste. It’s a pity.”
The Furey Brothers, meanwhile, played on without their old partner last Friday night at their opening show in Boston and over the weekend at the Great Irish Fair in Coney Island.
But if the stopping of Mickey Joe Harte and his traveling companions was of a kind and form familiar to many Irish attempting to reach the U.S. in recent years, the problem that faced Arthur was of a particularly bizarre nature.
Davey Arthur’s pedigree is widely known. He is a Scottish-born singer with Donegal parents who currently lives in Kerry.
But as far as the embassy was concerned, his name matched that of a David Arthur wanted by federal law enforcement authorities.
Arthur, the singer, was not given a middle name by his parents and could not present one to distinguish himself from the wanted Arthur when he sat for his visa interview late last week.
The visa was denied as a result, but Arthur was told that his way could be cleared for travel if he submitted himself to full fingerprinting. This he did at the embassy on Monday of this week.
But confirmation that singer Davey Arthur is not a wanted felon could take anything from two weeks to three months. His fingerprints must be checked by the FBI in Washington which then informs the embassy as to the true nature and identity of the prints’ owners.
As the Echo went to press, urgent efforts were being made to speed up the checking process so as to allow Arthur to team up with the Furey Brothers before the U.S. leg of the reunion tour winds up on Sept. 20.
The intervention of politicians, including Sen. Charles Schumer, Reps. Joe Crowley and Peter King, New York State Sen. Marty Golden and, in Ireland, tourism and former justice minister John O’Donoghue, had all been enlisted.
Schumer spokesman Martin Brennan said that the senator’s office had contacted the embassy “multiple times” and was also in touch with the FBI in an effort to “quickly finalize its due diligence” in the matter of Arthur’s fingerprints.
Pat McGill, who had promoted the Furey Brothers and Davey Arthur appearance at the Great Irish Fair, was furious.
“It’s getting very difficult to deal with this American embassy. It’s crazy, they are so arrogant and that’s the whole part that gets you,” McGill said.
Joe McCadden, Arthur’s manager in Ireland, said that the singer had spent long hours on the road between Kerry and Dublin, had lost his paid airfare and was seriously out of pocket as a result of the fingerprint fiasco.
McCadden said he is now trying to get the message across to those who had paid to see the reunion show in America that Arthur’s absence was not the singer’s fault.
The entire affair, he said, was not fair on all the people who were waiting to see Arthur and the Fureys together again.
“We are not looking for privileged treatment and I can understand the embassy being cautious, the official was doing his job, but in cases such as this they could look at it a little deeper,” McCadden said.
He added that the embassy official who had interviewed Arthur was young and clearly had no idea that Arthur was a well-known singer, not a wanted criminal.
“They could have used some good old Irish cop on,” McCadden said. “There were other people in the embassy who could have told the official that they knew who Davey Arthur was.”
Arthur, McCadden said, had traveled around the world for years as a performer. He did point out that Arthur had a lot of Middle Eastern stamps on his passport and wondered if this had been a factor.
“But he’s also been to the States about 20 times,” McCadden said.
McCadden added that the Fureys and Arthur would definitely team up for a tour of Holland and Denmark in a few days and said he hoped the combined group might be able to return to the U.S. next March.
The wait will be too long for some, however.
“It’s all bull,” Pat McGill said.
(Sarah Freeman contributed to this report.)