Christmas as we know it today is partly the creation of entertainers such as Gene Kelly: pre-rock ’n roll crooners and hoofers whose music was as wholesome as a yule log and as cosy as a seasonal jumper. Their jingle-all-the-way, 1950s Hollywood take on December 25th has helped shape the myth of the perfect white Christmas – an ideal towards which, consciously or not, we all aspire today.
But if Kelly’s folksy persona gave off a comforting glow of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, he was a significant figure in the history of 20th-century Irish America, too. Born Eugene Curran Kelly, he was the grandson of Irish immigrants, and the fascinating documentary Gene Kelly - Réalt an Rince (Christ
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