After surviving a seminary fire that destroyed his instruments (the same site burned down again after being rebuilt), Coen was ordained in 1968. He became an assistant pastor on Staten Island, where for 18 years he organized concerts by visiting artists and gave lessons in Irish singing and taught Gaelic songs to his parishioners' children. One of his pupils, an African-American girl, went on to win first prize in her age division for sean-nós singing at the New York Fleadh competition, and over 40 of the kids would make up the haunting choir heard on his only solo album, Father Charlie (1979, Green Linnet/Innisfree Records). "Some of the students had a reunion concert for me a few years ago, and they all remembered the songs," beams a proud but seemingly stunned Coen.
In 1976 Coen, now back and playing at full force, did something no Irish-American musician had done before: At the esteemed Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann competition he won All-Ireland senior championship titles on three different instruments—concertina, tin whistle, and concert flute. In the following years he took two more All-Ireland titles for concertina and one for sean-nós singing, making him a true legend of the 61-year-old competition. He also toured as a member of Green Fields of America, a Smithsonian Institution/National Endowment for the Arts-backed ensemble led by musician, folklorist, and educator Mick Moloney. Moloney, still a prime mover of the Irish folk revival, also produced The Branch Line (1977, Topic Records), an album by Jack and Charlie Coen. "Mick had a tape recorder he'd borrowed from the Smithsonian," the younger brother remembers. "We recorded the whole album in about two hours at Jack's house in the Bronx." Featuring transcendent solo and duo performances of classic reels, jigs, hornpipes, flings, and polkas, the record, reissued once but now sadly out of print, is a genre landmark and has been hailed by All Music Guide as "real traditional Irish music at its best."
Coen became the pastor of Saint Christopher's Church in Red Hook in 1986, where he gave private music lessons and continued the concert series he'd started Downstate. During its run the series presented some of the biggest names in Irish entertainment, including musical acts Clannad, the Dubliners, Frank Patterson, and Cherish the Ladies and comedian Hal Roach. It was while living in Red Hook that Coen began the now-legendary sessions held on first and second Sundays for 17 years at the nearby Rhinecliff Hotel and Rhinebeck American Legion Post. The soirees at the former site are recalled with particular fondness by the musicians and attendees who were there, one of whom is accordionist Dan Gurney, a former student of Coen's.
"I was seven or eight when my parents started bringing me [to the sessions]," says Gurney, an All-Ireland medalist who recently debuted with Traditional Irish Music on the Button Accordion (2012, Independent). "Back then the Rhinecliff Hotel had cinder block walls, and there was one bare light bulb hanging over the band. It was the perfect environment for Irish music, which isn't about concert halls—it's about people getting together to really be part of the music." The raucous Rhinecliff closed in 2003 but reopened as a renovated bed and breakfast a few years later, and has since hosted occasional Irish sessions by Coen and others.
Father Coen became Monsignor Coen two years before he retired in 2008. "It's just a title given for services rendered over time, it doesn't mean any extra money or anything," he says with a laugh. He now lives in Greenville, which, along with nearby Durham and East Durham ("the Emerald Isle of the Catskills"), is rich in Irish-American culture. For decades the spot has been home to numerous retired New York police officers and fireman of Irish descent, the story being that this particular slice of Greene County's green and rocky terrain reminds them of their homeland. In addition to containing the Michael J. Quill Irish Cultural and Sports Centre and for many years the Irish American Heritage Museum (recently reopened in Albany), every July the area hosts the Catskills Irish Arts Week festival, at which Coen has been a regular performer.