There's Always More at the Moore Street Market
By Elizabeth Altman
This year’s Irish Fest signals the return of Irish retailers to Milwaukee.
The Moore Street Market will once again feature a slate of products rich
in arts and culture. Among the vendors coming to showcase them are Irish
natives Joannes Berkery and Jeff Fitzpatrick Adams. They specialize in
Irish Turf Peat Incense and Celtic art, respectively. The market area is
one of several sales areas on the sprawling festival grounds.
Berkery, who had previously worked as a nurse, runs the Turf Peat Incense
business along with her husband, John O Brien. While in the 1980s, the
two had originally immigrated to Boston from Tipperary, they eventually
missed their roots and moved back home. This proved a lucky decision for
the incense and its fans. "We couldn’t make it over there without the bogs,"
Berkery said, explaining how integral the Irish landscape was to their
product. Untreated peat, which forms the base of their operations, is illegal
to import into the U.S.
Having re-established themselves in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary with their
business The Gifted Hand, Berkery and O Brien hit the market with their
incense in 1993. There, with a production team and warehouse, they cut
peat from the bogs and grind it down to incense form. The Gifted Hand can
then legally export the product, a now finished commodity. Berkery and
O Brien today count buyers in Japan, South Africa and the United States
among their clientele.
Berkery attributes much of the product’s popularity to the distinctive
quality of the incense. "It provides the complete natural smell of peat,"
said Berkery. "It’s a very earthy smell; it kind of clings to the air in
Ireland, like an aura, an aroma that’s in the air always. Once you smell
it, you’ll know what it is."
"I love that it’s a product we’ve developed," she continued. "And it’s
a family business even though we have employees."
Among the family involved, Berkery acknowledged her late father-in-law,
Paddy O Brien, as an instrumental force in helping turn the traditional
peat fuel into incense. She went on to mention her and husband O Brien’s
13-year-old son James, who recently started working summers for his parents.
His mother laughingly speculated that in his case though, mounting cell
phone charges as well as free summer time may have sparked his impetus
for taking the job.
Berkery also included the local rehab unit in her work force. She and
O Brien employ the rehab unit, a day care center for people with mild mental
and physical challenges, to take care of packaging.
"It creates and supports a well-being in the community, and they’re
great to have involved. They’re a great team of people," she said. Berkery,
who spoke of the unit fondly, herself goes in every now and then to look
over production. She will ask the team, "What do you know?" reminding them,
"You can’t eat this, it’s brown," just in case they might confuse the incense
with chocolate.
In addition to the pride she holds for her staff, Berkery is also pleased
with the product she brings to customers. That product, specifically packaged
inside a little cottage shaped box, comes in the form of six incense cubes,
or "sods." Turf Peat Incense also includes a stone burner.
Berkery considers her work a support of her homeland, because she helps
bring Irish culture to her customers.
"Our product is rekindling the romance and nostalgia of Ireland all
over the world. It’s there at weddings, funerals, and births. And it enhances
Ireland. People e-mail me after using the incense, saying how much they
love the product, what it’s meant to them," she said.
Berkery is very excited to be involved with Irish Fest. While she first
visited the event three years ago as a tourist and felt impressed with
the "quality of the Irish" presented, she still saw room to grow. Berkery
says the festival was "missing some of the more Irish products. Turf incense
would bring more."
Accordingly, The Gifted Hand sent a sampling of products to the cultural
area organizers and received a spot last year. Berkery now feels eager
for her second showing and to once again experience the city.
"I love Milwaukee," she said. "Coming back to Irish Fest, even though
we haven’t been there long, is a part of me; it feels like I can go back
home." Berkery will be staying with friends in New Berlin for this year’s
festival.
Artist Jeff Fitzpatrick Adams will also exhibit his merchandise at Irish
Fest. Born in Belfast, Adams wasted no time in becoming a worldwide traveler.
Leaving school at 14, he journeyed with the navy to Japan, Bali and New
Zealand. Adams attributed his experience with master carvers there to his
creative growth.
Able to extend their tutelage and technique to Celtic symbolism, Adams
returned to Ireland and worked with a Dublin artist for many years.
Adams, whose travels have also brought him across the United States
and introduced him to his partner, a Seattle native, will this year find
himself at the Moore Street Market. He will present his wood carvings,
as well as his works on goat/calf skin paper and art on vellum.
Excited at the prospects of introducing more people to his work, Adams
hoped to "share my vision for the art to be one day returned to its rightful
sacred place as Ireland’s national art form and to once again outshine
all that is negative in the empirical world of the senses."
He also said, "the most rewarding part of my job is the fact that I
spend a great deal of my time doing something that I enjoy and I have the
opportunity to present the splendor of Celtic art to the public."
Adams first became involved with Milwaukee’s fest fans after meeting
with other artisans. who told him of the importance of Irish Fest and the
fact that it was the largest Irish cultural festival of its kind. Adams
was eager to mingle with other craftspeople and talk with the public.
Both vendors further share plans to inform the Irish about Irish Fest.
Berkery has in fact already pasted a Milwaukee Irish Fest sticker to her
car and has noticed positive feedback around her hometown. With the many
interested locals who will stop her or later call for more information,
she saw that, in addition to selling at this year’s festival, she will
also be buying, saying, "I need to get lots more."
 
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