Annual Gala Had All Eyes Smiling as Murphy Received Ireland Fund Award

An Irish mist seemed to diffuse the light in the Omni San Diego ballroom Friday when John Murphy--by popular consensus, San Diego’s best-loved Irishman--jigged to the stage to accept the 1988 Community Achievement Award given him by the local branch of the American Ireland Fund.

The mist moistened many an eye--not only when Murphy accepted his award, but throughout the evening, as the non-Irish contingent of the 550 guests seemed to turn green with envy at the thought of a heritage missed.

Chairman Mike Cavanaugh named the organization’s annual ball “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” not so much in honor of the song as in anticipation of what would happen when a crowd of people with names like Casady, Lynch, O’Malley, O’Sullivan, Reidy and Rooney lifted their glasses together under the same roof. That the Omni’s roof remains intact is a tribute to the hotel’s builders, since these jovial children of Eire did their very best to blast it right off the building.

The American Ireland Fund has held gala fund-raising dinners in San Diego every year since 1983. But because this one anticipated St. Patrick’s Day and paid tribute to a couple of local favorites--Murphy, a former president of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce and the Scripps Memorial Foundation, shared the role of honored guest with Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who was named Southern California Irishman of the Year--the turnout was especially large and the mood especially merry.

To make certain that the tone never grew too peaceful, Cavanaugh even called in the Marines (both honorees are graduates of the U.S. Marine Corps), in the form of the dress uniformed MCRD-San Diego Color Guard and former USMC commandant Gen. Paul X. Kelley.

Right from the beginning, it was rather hard to avoid the gist of the evening. Bagpiper Campbell Naismith and a costumed St. Pat greeted guests outside the hotel and handed them over to a troupe of Irish dancers in the lobby; upstairs in the ballroom foyer, the In Case Trio relentlessly offered up such favorites as “Harrigan, That’s Me,” and “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral.”

The cocktail scene was enthusiastic to say the least. John Murphy explained his glowing grin by saying, “My name is Murphy, my mother’s name was Murphy and my father’s name was Murphy. It’s felt beautiful to be Irish for 68 years.” One wit turned to Jane Murphy and commented, “This can’t really be an Irish party--there hasn’t been a fight yet.” The honoree’s wife smiled cheerfully and responded, “Don’t worry, the evening is young.”

Chairman Cavanaugh spent a lot of time smiling, too, possibly because the ball proved such an easy sell. “John Murphy has to be everyone’s favorite Irishman,” he said. “When we planned this party, we saw him as the standard for community involvement. If you could pick a model for what this award is all about, John exemplifies it.” Wilson was a popular choice as well; during the formal presentation, Kelley described the senator and former mayor as “a Marine’s Marine.”

The evening progressed in a tandem march of dancing and dining, the music supplied by a Wayne Foster band, and the menu recognizing Ireland with a sherried cockle bisque. The nod to the cuisine of the Emerald Isle was brief, though, since the meal eschewed corned beef and cabbage in favor of filet mignon and zucchini. However, zucchini is indubitably green, no matter how one slices it.

The party had its serious moments, the first of which arrived when Hugh Fraser, a member of the American Ireland Fund’s advisory board and director of a Dublin organization called Combat Poverty, took the podium. After naming several of the charities in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland that benefit from the fund, which declares itself nonpolitical and non-sectarian, Fraser told the crowd: “I bring you a message of hope. Our people are resilient, and they have a desire to lead a normal life style and to build both a better future and bridges between the two cultures on the island.”

Anthony J.F. O’Reilly, the Irish-born chairman of the fund and the chairman of the board of the H.J. Heinz Co., flew in from Pittsburgh to give the audience at least 57 reasons why they should feel proud to support the organization. “Tonight, the unfocused generosity of America focuses for just a moment on that wonderful island from which so many of us came,” O’Reilly said. He also reiterated Fraser’s assurance that the group exists solely to further its stated goals of supporting peace, culture and charity in Ireland.

The guest list included Mary and Dan Mulvihill, Sara and Tom Finn, Stephanie and Bill Tribolet, Dirk Broekema, Chris Holcomb and Mike Corrigan, Alice Cavanaugh, Gayle Wilson, Steve Garvey, Carolyn and Arthur Hooper, Harriett and Ron Fowler, Joanie Palmer, Janne Anderson with Don McVay, Kate and Glenn Kovary, Ann Murphy, Chip Murphy, Janet Gallison, Berneice and Dempsey Copeland, Jane and Lou Metzger, David Casady, and Marilyn and Vince Benstead.

Some Irish eyes smiled so much last week that they stood in danger of crinkling permanently.

The American Ireland Fund was by no means the only gala that anticipated St. Patrick’s Day. Thursday, some 300 souls flocked to the San Diego Marriott for the fourth “A Shamrock Celebration,” the annual dinner-dance given for the benefit of the St. Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center. As might be expected, the guest list read like a roster of the clans of Ireland, and the tone for the evening was set by cocktail-hour entertainment that included bagpipes and jigs performed by the youthful students of the Donna Means School of Irish Dance.

The man of the hour was St. Vincent de Paul director Father Joe Carroll, who confidently explained to one guest why shamrocks sprouted from so many buttonholes. “Everybody wants to be the same when St. Patrick’s Day approaches; they all want to be Irish,” said the Bronx-born priest. “Now just think: If every day was St. Patrick’s Day, we would have peace, because everyone would be the same.”

The gala certainly was peaceful enough; not one person lobbed a potato, even though there were plenty at hand just begging to be cheerfully tossed at a neighboring table. “Shamrock Celebration” chairman Kay Rippee cleverly substituted wooden buckets of potatoes--these were Irish potatoes with Irish eyes, naturally--for the floral centerpieces normally found at such functions.

The spuds served as convenient anchors for the bouquets of emerald balloons, and had a usefulness that outlived the evening, since they later were sent over to the kitchen at the St. Vincent shelter. (To make sure the ‘taters were presentable, committee member Annette Fritzenkotter undertook the unenviable task of giving each a proper wash and brush-up before the party.)

Bishop Leo T. Maher offered the invocation that preceded the dinner of cream of broccoli soup (pastry shamrocks floated in each serving) and roast sirloin. Earlier, Maher commented on the St. Vincent de Paul Center.

“The center offers a very holistic program,” he said. “It’s like self-help, since we teach those down on their luck how to stand on their own two feet. It’s especially marvelous that because of the center, families have been able to stay together and get back in the mainstream.”

St. Vincent board chairman James Mulvaney introduced a brief post-dinner slide show that took patrons on a tour of the center, which has received national recognition for its assistance to the homeless.

The committee included Pat Menke, Mary Brito, Frances Hallahan, Catherine Heissel, Mim Sally, Lee Maturo, Alice Zukor, Pat Lijewski, Mary Shevlin, Debbi Malloy, Lynn Silva and Rita Zorn.

Among the guests were the Rev. George Walker Smith and his daughter, Caroline; Esther Collins; Ernie and Ed Grimm; Helen Ann Bunn with Dr. Ed Sullivan; Howard Carey; Mary Lou and Biff Leonard; Eleanor and Marshall White; Andrea and John Bokosky; Mary and Dan Mulvihill; Tina and Fred Norfleet; Ruth Carpenter; Anne and Michael Ibs Gonzalez, and Betty and John Mabee.