Bronx street gets Miltown twist

A TRADITIONAL musician with Clare roots will have a street named after her in New York.
Joanie Madden, whose mother Nellie Meade is from Miltown Malbay, “not the shop, Meade’s, the farmer Meades” she clarifies, was named on the Bronx Walk of Fame 2010.
Inductees to the Walk of Fame are announced annually as part of Bronx Week where the borough’s heritage is celebrated with a series of events culminating in a parade. For the first year, the street sign is hung in honour outside the Bronx County Courthouse. Then it is allocated a permanent position on a street along the borough’s Grand Concourse.
Joanie attended the prestigious ceremony with her family at the end of last month. In receiving the accolade, she finds herself in good company. Previous inductees to the Walk of Fame include Scrubs star, Judy Reyes, CSI Miami’s Adam Michael Rodríguez, legendary entertainers, Bobby Darin and Luther Vandross, film director, Stanley Kubrick, and former US secretary of state, Colin Powell.
“It was a big shock to me,” she recalls. “I didn’t know what the Walk of Fame was or understand the concept at first. They give it to a small number of people every year from the Bronx who do extraordinary things,” she continues.
Joanie plays whistle and flute and is the leader of the all-female Irish-American supergroup Cherish the Ladies. The band formed 25 years ago and has achieved success across the world since. It was chosen to represent Irish music and culture at the Official Cultural Olympiad at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Joanie and the group have appeared on television across the USA, the UK and also on RTÉ. The group has played with musical legends James Taylor, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Emmy Lou Harris as well as The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem and The Chieftains.
“It is very special to get this and this year in particular with Cherish the Ladies celebrating 25 years. I can’t believe, they named a street after me. It really is amazing,” Joanie states.
Among Joanie’s other accolades are that she was the first American to win the Senior All-Ireland championship on the tin whistle and is the youngest member inducted into the Irish-American Musicians’ Hall of Fame.
“I am really very honoured. I don’t think there are many other people with Irish connections who have got this award so I am very proud. There has been a whole lot of Irish in the Bronx so it is nice to win it for them,” she continues.
Joanie was raised in Woodlawn near Yonkers and both her parents were “off-the-boat Irish”. Her mum came from Clare and her dad from Portumna, County Galway.
Joanie took after her dad winning an All-Ireland medal for her music and it was from him she took her earliest musical education.
“My father played for the Miltown and Doonbeg dances and all the Clare balls out here. He loved that because they loved to dance the sets. As soon as I was old enough, I was in the band and playing for them too,” she recalls.
“They were well attended. The crowds at them were always ‘mad for the trad’, as they say,” she adds.
Grammy winner Joanie recorded with dad Joe last year before his sudden death. She spent 18 hours in the studio finished mixing the new album, A Galway Afternoon. To unwind, she is paying a visit to Ireland this weekend and hopes to include Clare in her itinerary.
“I come home a couple of times a year. With Cherish the Ladies, we do about 150 cities a year and last year, we were over at the World Fleadh. I love to get over to Clare for Willie Week as well,” she concludes.