Tucson Region
Opinion by Ernesto Portillo Jr. : Gaelic Society fundraiser for ALS honors Irish singer
Opinion by Ernesto Portillo Jr.
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.23.2007

The Irish baritone voice of Muiris Foley is nearly silent now. The melancholy songs of lost and longing like the haunting "Danny Boy" and the Mexican tear-jerker "La Golondrina" are sung no more by this son of Cork, Ireland.
An absolute life-ending disease has robbed him of his beloved songs and precious movement.
But Foley's eyes continue to sparkle like the early morning dew on the deep green landscape of his beloved Emerald Isle. They dance the way he once did as a young lad trying to impress the lovely lasses. His mind swirls and his spirit flashes like the gray clouds and white lightning of the summer chubascos of his adopted desert home.
Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, has not completely overtaken the 68-year-old Foley. He remains defiant and unbroken.
"The support of family and friends of course is the number one reason why I can continue to enjoy life like I do," Foley wrote Monday in an e-mail after I visited him and his wife, Angela, at their East Side home.
Since a doctor in 1999 diagnosed Foley with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurological disorder that affects the muscles and spinal cord, his body has slowly given in to the incurable disease. People diagnosed with ALS generally have a life expectancy between two and five years.
But Foley, a retired Tucson Medical Center respiratory therapist, has surpassed the expectations. Attribute that to the dedication from his beloved Dublin-born Angela. The couple married in 1970 after meeting in Tucson.
"We discovered we were born in the same hospital," said Angela, 60, an emergency room nurse at St. Mary's Hospital.
To ease the burden created by the disease, the Foleys have been helped by friends and Maureen Lane, the Southern Arizona patient services coordinator for the ALS Association. She guides Southern Arizona families through the exhaustive ordeal of dealing with ALS and finds the expensive equipment they need at home.
Now it's the Foleys' turn to assist the ALS Association.
The Foleys and the Irish American Gaelic Society will hold its annual variety show June 1 to raise funds for the ALS Association.
The Hugo O'Conor Pipe Band and Round the House, a local Irish band, will perform. Irish dancers, including the Foleys' 12-year-old granddaughter, Mary Foley, will step-dance to Celtic sounds with the Tir Conaill Academy of Irish Dance. All the performers donate their time to the ALS fundraiser, now in its fourth year.
"We started it when Muiris got ALS, in his honor," said Winnie Hennessy, president of the Gaelic Society.
The group, which had held fundraisers for other charities in previous years, decided in 2003 its annual event would support ALS patients.
Active in the Gaelic Society, Foley helps keep the green Celtic flame alive in dusty brown Tucson. He used to teach singers to sing songs in Gaelic.
But now Foley is teaching a new lesson, not just to singers of Irish songs, but to all those around him. He is demonstrating how to accept the unthinkable.
Opinion by