Departments
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17 July 1998 |
Vol. II, No. 2 |
Feature Article
Irish scouts bring an evening of music to BU
Boston University will host an evening of Irish entertainment performed by a top Boy Scout brass band from Northern Ireland on Saturday, July 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the George Sherman Union conference auditorium. A reception will precede the concert at 7 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.
The 60-strong band of St. Michael's Catholic Scout Unit, made up of scouts ranging in age from 11 to 20, is based in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. The lakeside town endured one of the worst atrocities committed during the Troubles, the Remembrance Day bomb blast in November 1987 that killed 12 people taking part in a wreath-laying ceremony.
Boston University Trustee Marshall M. Sloane (SMG'49), chairman of Century Bank and Trust Company and a member of the national executive board of the Boy Scouts of America, helped organize the scouts' visit.
"Scouting in Ireland has served as a safe zone for young people in an otherwise turbulent region," he points out. "It provides for a relatively peaceful coexistence between Catholic and Protestant because today the young people really aren't interested in what religion their colleagues belong to, only in scouting activities."
The scouts represent both the north and south of Ireland and will be accompanied by Bernard O' Connor, scout director for the Catholic Boy Scouts of Belfast and Joseph Lawlor, chief scout director for the Catholic Boy Scouts of Dublin. The band plans two other Boston-area performances and three in New York.
Sloane's commitment to the Boy Scout movement has been lifelong. He started as a young boy in Troop 18 in Somerville and served over the years in a number of capacities on the local council and at the regional level before joining the BSA national executive board.
The tour has been organized jointly by the Boy Scouts of America, the Boston Minuteman Council, and Scouting Ireland.