Pamela Murphy-Egan's life is like a Celtic knot.

In an endless, interconnected pattern, her various interests and endeavors are woven together with one center -- her Irish heritage.

She reads about Ireland's history, follows its politics and preserves its culture. She serves as manager for an Irish folk singer and balladeer and is organizing a food bank benefit with an Irish connection.

She's married to an Irish native, Paeder Egan, from County Clare, the same county from which her great-grandfather, Andrew Aloysius Dinan, one of the founders of Allegheny Valley Bank in Lawrenceville, emigrated in 1884.

Traces of Ireland can be found throughout her Oakmont home -- from the framed original "Help Wanted, No Irish Need Apply" sign to the bottles of Murphy's Extra Stout and Egan's Irish Whiskey, just a few of the historic and family items on display.

There's even a frame with the photos of the seven signers of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic and a facsimile of the document.

"It all describes my Ireland, my passion," says Murphy-Egan, a Blawnox native. "I'm obsessed."

On a trip with Paeder to Ireland, she traveled to Kilmainham Prison, where the seven signers were executed. She is moved by the story of Grace Gifford and Joseph Mary Plunkett, one of the signers, who were married the night before he faced a British firing squad in the prison courtyard.

"I wanted to stand in the very courtyard," Murphy-Egan says.

After slipping away from the tour group, she pinched a piece of slate from the courtyard wall.

"I had to," she says without apology.

Her favorite song is "Grace," the Irish ballad about Gifford and Plunkett's love.

"I tear up when I hear it," Murphy-Egan says. "The hairs stand up on my arm."

That song was part of the road that led her to become manager for Sean McClorey, the rich-voiced Irish singer and guitarist.

Last September, while Murphy-Egan was outside on lunch break from her job in Allegheny County's marriage license bureau, an Irish brogue caught her ear. She introduced herself to Sean McClorey of Dublin, who has been an area resident for almost three decades.

Later, she learned McClorey had been in an interment camp in Ireland because of his political activism in the 1970s.

She invited McClorey to a party she and Paeder hosted in October for two girls -- one Protestant, one Catholic -- they had as houseguests for a program promoting peace through the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh.

Murphy-Egan was in the garage, grabbing some forks, when she heard a beautiful rendition of "Grace" coming from the deck. She dropped the forks and ran up the deck steps -- and made McClorey play it again.

She's been McClorey's manager since late December, booking him in a number of spots around Pittsburgh.

"He sings from the heart," says Murphy-Egan, who has lined up McClorey's busiest weekend with 11 performances this Friday through St. Patrick's Day.

"I like songs that mean something," says McClorey.

Sunday is the release party at The Claddaugh in the SouthSide Works for his new CD, dedicated to the memory of his friend, Hugh "George" Coney, who was killed when the two tunneled out to escape the prison camp.

McClorey, now a banker by day, survived and came to the University of Pittsburgh to study economics on a scholarship sponsored by Pittsburgh Steelers' owner Dan Rooney and Tony O'Reilly, then-CEO of H.J. Heinz Co.

As soon as St. Patrick's Day is over, Murphy-Egan will delve into her next project -- a re-enactment of the Great Hunger March of 1932 led by the Rev. James Cox of Old St. Patrick's Church, Pittsburgh's first Irish Catholic church.

Cox and 15,000 Pitts-burghers marched on foot to Washington, D.C. to ask for relief assistance, building shanties along the way.

The May event, which will benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, combines a social cause close to Murphy-Egan's heart with Irish ties -- and family ones, too.

She recalls a story told by her father about her widowed grandmother sending him to the butcher during the Great Depression to get a bone for soup. Realizing the family's financial plight, the butcher left some meat on the bone.

"My dad was one of the starving," she says. "I think that's part of the reason I'm doing this."