Be Irish (& old) and receive over $3,000

Are you an Irish citizen born in Ireland, but living here in Kansas City or elsewhere in the US? Well if you're planning your 100th birthday party then you can now also plan on receiving €2,500 (about US $3,160).

To date the Cenentarians' Bounty has been paid just to Irish citizens living in Ireland, but now the Irish government has approved extending the scheme to all Irish citizens born in Ireland regardless of where they live when they reach 100.

Something Irish for the Weekend?

Are you a weak, pathetic booze-hound who despises every detail of your hellish, pub-bound existence? Then you're clearly not Irish.

Sam Delaney explores the stereotype that is the golden rule of booze marketing:

if you're Irish [heavy drinking] is somehow artistic and glamorous. Alcohol is what drives your burning Celtic soul. It helps you write poetry and informs your heartfelt political convictions. When we drink, we all pretend to be Irish in a bid to stave off the nagging emptiness in our souls. This explains the continued popularity of Guinness despite the fact that it tastes like Benylin mixed with Nescafé and Bovril

Meanwhile going back to the Rising, Karen Fricker reviews Donal O'Kelly's new play at Kilmainham Jail, about the legitimacy and legacy of the 1916 Easter Rising:

Though using a failed-motherhood metaphor undermines the apparent feminist agenda, O'Kelly ends the play on a chillingly anti-heroic note - if his goal was to get people thinking, he has achieved it

Children for Peace in Ireland

Are you looking for:
The Children for Peace in Ireland fundraiser
Gig on June 3? click here

The Children for Peace in Ireland 7th Annual Auction takes place in Lenexa, Kansas this coming Saturday, May 6, 2006.

There are over 150 auction items, including:
• 1-week stay in 4-bedroom, 3 ½ bath home in Kenmare, County Kerry, Ireland
• 1-week stay at a golf/beach resort
• Ride in an open cockpit WWII Trainer Plane
• Irish Crystal • Sports Memorabilia • Hotel Stays

Doors open at 6pm. Pre-auction entertainment by Irish Balladeer Rob Gavin. Food & Beverage by WJ McBride's Irish Pub of Overland Park. Silent auction begins at 6:30pm. Live auction follows.

$25 Admission includes food & beverages

Tickets Available:
WJ McBride's Irish Pub - Overland Park, Kansas
Doherty & sullivan Irish Goods - Lee's Summit, Missouri
Sheehan's Irish Imports - Kansas City, Missouri

Venue: Lenexa Community Center, 93rd & Pflumm, Lenexa, KS

The Children for Peace in Ireland is a project by the Ancient Order of Hibernians Padraig Pearse Division, and you can read all about it and donate here

 

Irish Choral Music & Celtic Underpants

Being ignorant of developments in Irish choral music in the early 1990s I was thinking I needed a severe scolding on the matter, ideally by a Celtic beauty in flowing robes. And in the crypt of an old church.

No sooner had I set this personal target than an ethereal voice sang an introduction to that bunch of dancers in an ad break, and everybody was wanting a celtic whipping in among the drifting robes and dry ice.

Friends of mine who had been attending Anúna performances for years chastized me for my ignorance, but they did so on a lunch break and usually in a bank uniform. The steam of the tea and coffee did not make it a Celtic experience.

The first album by Anúna in five years Sensation, has just been released and the Irish Event Guide has an interview with Michael McGlynn, the director of Anúna, who is in reflective mood on the Celtic rollercoaster Anúna and Irish choral music have been on since that Eurovision ad break:

When we started it was very much to tie in with this idea of trying to express ourselves as Irish people, so there was a real cultural basis, which was how it lead into the involvement with the whole Celtic thing and Riverdance and all that, which sadly I think has made the whole thing over commercialised. Anuna, which had so much to offer has just been stampeded by shows like Celtic Underpants!

If you can't remember their early invovlment in Riverdance, you might know that touring the US at the moment is Celtic Woman, which features Méav Ní Mhaolchatha, a former Anúna singer.

If songs a thousand years old is your fancy - and it should be if you've ever voted in a best of millenium poll - you can listen to four songs on their MySpace page. Go on, get your Celtic rocks off.

Getting Away From Loud Pop Music & Motor Cars

My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose Have you ever listened to that? Finbar Furey, of the Furey Brothers, does a great version, mainly due to his banjo. It's a Robbie Burns rewrite of an old ballad.

That would make it Scottish. Words like Fair art thou, my bonnie lass should be a clue. If it was Irish it would've been something like You're a bleedin' ride, young one.

Ivor Cutler was born in Scotland in 1923, and six years later won a prize in school for singing My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose. It took him almost thirty more years to realize he should sing the songs he had written himself.

One of the things about emigration is that you can talk to people five thousand miles away, and visit all the wesbites you want while listening to countless online radio stations, but you're still five thousand miles away, and you miss things. Like your heroes dying.

You would've found it hard to know what words to use to describe Cutler. For a man who loved the sound of words, gibberish even, that's possibly apt. Poet, songwriter, humorist, performer, just didn't seem to work. Ivor Cutler died last month:

When I do die I shall be glad to get away from loud pop music and motor cars, but I shall miss - insofar as when one is dead one can miss anything - the beautiful kindnesses of those people to whom courtesy comes naturally. Unfortunately there are fewer of those people than of the other kind who deal with their problems in a very anti-social way

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #1

Speaking of Dublin Pubs and all:

-One of these days I'm going to miss getting me hole through having a pint
-One of these days I'm going to miss havin' a pint through gettin' me hole

More conversations >>
 

Vietnamese the New Irish

The Wichita Eagle in Kansas carries a report on the changing make-up of the Catholic Church in America, and worldwide.

At a time when priesthood ranks in the United States have been shrinking -- down 26 percent from 57,317 in 1985 to 42,528 in 2005 -- the number of Asian-Americans in seminary schools is growing, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University

Church officials say Vietnamese and Filipinos make up the largest segment of the Asian seminarian population. And from Australia to Canada, where their numbers are great, Vietnamese priests have been dubbed "the new Irish."

Two main reasons for decreasing number of priests-in-training, given by church leaders, are:
1) the pursuit of consumerism over spiritualism (which I find hard to believe)
2) the scandals of child abuse by priests

But Vietnamese-American religious leaders say there are three other reasons behind the growth in their community:
• Family unity
• A high respect for priests
• An understanding and deep appreciation for Vietnamese Catholic martyrs

-which all sounds exactly the same as Irish reasons, and everywhere else probably for that matter, when their numbers weren't dwindling.

In the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, five Vietnamese-Americans have been ordained priests. And at the top level in America there are now three Asian-American bishops.

Handy Irish Phrase: Deireadh gach soiscéal an t-airgead   (At the end of every gospel is a collection)

FAIQ #6 Where Do You Drink in Dublin?

I drink in Kansas City.

And it doesn't matter anymore. When I go home to Dublin every year - for five weeks last autumn for example - I drink wherever my family and friends are. Usually it means somewhere very big with enormous urns and ferns, all bathed in green light. I'm intending to change my family and friends.

Maybe I'll go on the Luas (tram) and have a drink in Ranelagh, or go to Croker and stop off for a pint in Quinn's, or if I'm really lucky persuade people to go to Toner's, McDaid's, etc., but I'd lose sight of Dublin if I was the one doing the persuading, so I mostly go where I'm told, and complain about it even if the bouncers do let me in these days.

Whatever about where I say I drink, here is exactly where I did drink in just the last 12 months before moving to Kansas City, when it did matter. Just in Dublin that is (I also consumed fine beer in Carlow, Kildare, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham, Essex, Cumbria, France and the US in that last year):

The 51
The Long Hall
O'Neill's of Suffolk St
Doheny & Nesbitt's
Scruffy Murphy's
O'Dwyer's
Bruxelles
The Summit Inn
The Pier House
The Ha'penny Bridge Inn
The Brazen Head
Dunphy's
The Queen's
The Oval
Rumm's D4
Walshe's
The Addison Lodge
The Millmount House
Ryan's of Pargate St
Judge Darley's
The Palace Bar
Hedigan's The Brian Boru
Quinn's (Botanic Ave)
The Shakepeare
Conway's
Fagan's
Kennedy's
The Palmerstown House
The Bachelor Inn
Handel's
Bellamy's
Paddy Cullens
Kehoe's
McDaid's
Neary's
O'Mahoney's Cross Guns
The Magic Carpet
McCormack's
The International Bar
Bowe's
Toner's
The Mercantile Bar & Grill
The Gravediggers
Mulligans of Poolbeg St
The Bridge Bar
The Sackville Lounge

Some of these don't exist any more, and some others should never have existed in the first place.

Looking at the list now I'm surprised I didn't make it to Cafe-en-Seine, Beggar's Bush, Hartigan's, The Flowing Tide, The Anglers Rest, Cassidy's, O'Brien's, Slattery's, The Goalpost, Keating's, The Hole in the Wall,Clarke's, Whelan's, The Stag's Head, or Zanzibar. But hey, I was packing.

But then again I'm pleased to see I didn't go to Break for the Border, The Hairy Lemon, The Long Stone, Messers Maguires, The Barge, Copperface Jacks, Pravda, The Bleeding Horse, Hogan's, or MacTurcaills of Hoggen Green.

And so on.

More Frequently Asked Irish Questions >>

Enter the Haggis new CD, Soapbox Heroes

Enter The Haggis' new CD, Soapbox Heroes will be available off-stage in late May, and available in stores and online July 18 (updated) 2006.

Soapbox Heroes is the fifth Enter The Haggis album and was recently mastered by Joao Carvalho, who was responsible for producing, engineeering, mixing and mastering, the much loved Casualties of Retail by ETH.

Soapbox Heroes Track Available for Listening

At the time of the official release of Soapbox Heroes in late July, ETH are also hoping to launch a new website.

Enter The Haggis are currently touring in New York and the eastern states, and are due to hit the Midwest in late May, when they play the Record Bar in Kansas City.

See Also:
    • Enter The Haggis in Kansas City
    • Celtic Music News Podcast #62
    • Milwaukee Irish Fest
    • Kansas City Irish Festival
    • More Enter The Haggis News

Wild Clover Band at Sioux Falls Irish Fest

Having caught the Irish Fest bug in Kansas City last year, the Wild Clover Band have announced that they are part of the Sioux Falls Irish Fest 2006 entertainment.

The initial line-up is: The 5 ladies of Acabella • The Doon Ceili Band (with Paddie O'Brien) • the Wild Clover Band • Michael and Heather McDonald • Dakota District Pipes and Drums - with more acts to be announced later.

The Wild Clover Band are based in Kearney, Nebraska. Sioux Falls Irish Fest is a one-day festival scheduled for Saturday, July 29, 2006.

Friday Irish Music in Kansas City Area

The big Irish gig TONIGHT is The Elders on their return to an early haunt when they play Paddy O'Quigley's at 119th & Roe in Leawood, Kansas. The Elders take the stage at around 9:30 pm, but I'd be early if I were you.

Earlier from about 6pm, you can see Ireland's Eddie Delahunt and friends in their weekly performance at Mike Kelly's Westsider on Westport Road, KC MO. Again? you say. Well hey, I didn't see you on Wednesday, nor on Sunday - do you really think such great things will always be there for you? And if you were, then you know the set changes every single time.

You'll see Eddie all deservedly a-glow following the news of his new coffee shop, Cafe &. Remember, Eddie says the ampersand is important - you call it "Cafe And".

Also TONIGHT at Kyle's Tap Room at 6825 North Oak Trfwy, Gladstone, MO is Irish balladeer Bob Reeder, at 8:30pm.

Hurray! It's raining!

Learn to play Irish Music from Turlach Boylan

Turlach Boylan has moved to Kansas City and is available to teach music. Turlach will teach flute, penny whistle and banjo.

An All-Ireland music champion from a family of five All-Ireland champions, Boylan plays with Glen Road, who are familiar to Irish music lovers in Kansas City.

Originally from rural County Derry, Turlach Boylan studied with Antrim flute master John Kennedy. After moving from Belfast to Houston, TX, Boylan founded Big Plain Records, to promote Irish Traditional Music in the United States and Canada, and where Turlach's talents can be heard on his solo albums Shame The Devil and The Tidy Cottage

People can contact Turlach through the Glen Road website.

Irishness to Oirishness: The Flatley Dance

Possibly less kind than the Guardian's words on Michael Flatley's Celtic Tiger are today's from another British institution, The Telegraph, reviewing last week's show at London's Wembley Arena:

a near-Nuremberg Rally quality of worship for the mad events taking place on stage. Yet the truth is that, as an evening of high comedy, Celtic Tiger cannot be recommended highly enough

But again we're talking comedy without irony. That stops being funny when it becomes a culture.

It's quite possible with this nonsense, that after being involved in the few minutes of Irishness that some claimed kick-started the confidence from whence the actual Celtic Tiger economy sprang, that single-handedly (and way out from his side) Flatley is returning his culture to the nonsense of Oirishness so much of the world trades in.

One can only wonder what his former Riverdance employers make of it, and if they're about to do the same with their Grace O'Malley musical, Pirate Queen

Immigration: Illegality, Security or Race

Roldy, the Kansas City-based English documentary film maker, throws in his tuppence worth on the current immigration debate in the US.

As a fairly recent immigrant himself, Roldy calls the debate being declared as one of legality or security as spurious, because ultimately it's really about race. And he's not wrong, because the pseudo-debate about violence at the Kansas City St Patrick's Day Parade was similarly really a racial issue.

Read an Englishman's illustration of how race can be a 'social contruct'.

Any talk of keeping America 'American' is just utter rubbish, especially coming from people living in places called Los Angeles, El Paso or San Diego

Read more Immigration Posts
 

Milwaukee Irish Fest

The Milwaukee Irish Fest 2006 entertainers list is updated frequently.

It now includes: The Bridies • Danny Doyle • Dave Rowe Trio • David Munnelly Band • The Elders • Enter the Haggis • The Fuchsia Band • Gaelic Storm • Gráda • Irish Rovers • Le Vent du Nord • Makem & Spain Brothers • Quagmyre • Scythian • Sliabh Notes • Tom Sweeney • Tommy Makem • The Young Dubliners • The "Nova Scotia Kitchen Party" featuring: Buddy MacDonald • Beolach • Mary Jane Lamond • Jerry Holland • Davie Gunning • The Cottars • J P Cormier

UPDATE May 8 Added to the above are the following:

Academy of Irish Music • Athas • Atlantic Wave • Baal Tinne • Bantry Bay • Barry Dodd • Blackthorn • Blarney • Cashel-Dennehy Dancers • Celia Farran • Celtic Keep • Ceol Cairde • Colin O'Brien • Curtis Crossroads • Different Drums of Ireland • Eider • Finbar McCarthy • Fiona Molloy • Frogwater • Gan Bua • The Gleasons • Glencastle Irish Dancers • Green Side Up • Green Tea • Ian Gould • Irish Fest School of Music • Irish Rovers • Jeff Ward Band • John McGivern • Irish Fest Choir • Kinsella Irish Dance Academy • Last Gaspe' • Leahy's Luck • McMenamin Irish Dance Academy • Michael O Suilleabhain & Mel Mercier • Tom O'Sullivan • Public House Ceili Band • Rira • Steel Bonnets • Stone Ring • Theiss & O'Connor • 3 Pints Gone • Trinity Irish Dancers • U2Zoo

Some old and new Irish friends in there. I do wish the Milwaukee Irish Fest would lose that leprechaun though. My main objection to stereotypes is that I am one.

The Irish Fest in Milwaukee will take place August 17-20, 2006.

Luka Bloom: Not Just an Irish Folk Singer

So you're wondering how Luka Bloom's US tour is going? Luka has just played Arizona, and says the tour is going great. In Bloom's longest tour of the US for 10 years, he's playing many places for the first time, though maybe hasn't caught up with just how welcomed some immigrants to the US are.

In a nice question and answer session in the Arizona Republic, Luka is asked of his immigration song, City of Chicago, that captures the search for success in a new land as well as the longing for home:

That is a great song, one I'm tremendously proud of. I wrote it 22 years ago, and my brother [Christy Moore] immediately learned it and recorded it. Now it's a standard. Every Irish band in the United States knows the song (laughs). It's actually part of the curriculum in Irish schools, when they study the famine and the Irish emigration to America.

(City of Chicago) is one of two immigration songs on my new CD. The other being Wherever You Go, There You Are, which takes the opposite view, telling of a Muslim man immigrating to Ireland. My country is currently dealing with immigration in the way America has for hundreds of years. I think it is one of the things that makes America great, how you welcome immigrants.

And on why he grew up a songwriter, and his brother Christy more an interpreter of songs:

I don't think he would object to that comparison. That is one of his talents, making other people's songs his own. He's such a big musical character. Where Christy was drawn to the Clancy Brothers, I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. He's Woody Guthrie, while I'm Bob Marley

In Kansas City you can notice that point about Christy being an interpreter of songs whenever sing-songs take place among the Irish and Irish-Americans. Both Johnny Duhan and Jimmy McCarthy are great songwriters and great singers, but when you hear people in KC sing the words Life is an ocean, Love is a boat or I could never go with you no matter how I wanted to, from The Voyage and Ride On respectively, you'll hear them do it in a Kildare accent. Because of Christy.

Go have a read of Luka. You'll find Radiohead, Nina Simone, and ABBA in there.

More Luka Bloom Posts:

Luka Bloom and Christy Moore
Review of CD, Innocence, by Luka Bloom
Luka Bloom in Irish Festival

Prime Minister Opens Window

Oscar Wilde, Irish anniversaries, Samuel Beckett, socialism, William Shakespeare, Irish art, Prime Ministers, and fashion, are some of the subjects you've seen on Irish KC recently.

Well tying them all together nicely, is the 150th anniversary of (George) Bernard Shaw's birth, and the unveiling by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, of a stained-glass window designed by Shaw to commemorate the Fabian Society, the socialist group which helped form Labour Party of which Blair is the leader.

Ivan Wise, editor of the journal of the Shaw Society, explains Shaw's place in the canon:

He remains the only man to have won both the Nobel Prize for Literature - for Saint Joan in 1925 - and an Oscar for Best Screenplay - Pygmalion in 1938.

Other than Shakespeare and Wilde, Shaw is probably the best-known English language playwright

Famous for bon mots, the Irish playwright once quipped A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic

Robert Verdi at The Legends in Kansas

In my closet I should have?

A great Irish knit sweater,

says Robert Verdi, host of TV’s Fashion Police, who will appear from 2-4pm Saturday, at The Legends at Village West, the new place to shop over there by WJ McBride's Irish Pub & Restaurant in Kansas City, Kansas. You know, Cabellas, and all that malarkey.

Where? Wyandotte County, Kansas, near the I-70 & I-435 intersection.

Robert also says that it’s worth making the trip from Kansas to one of the main places you should be shopping, The Woodbury Premium Outlet in New York. Thanks Robert. Being a man much concerned with dress and appearance, I know I need a new jumper. I wonder if it's cheaper than TJ Maxx?

Note: Irish people are likely to call 'sweaters' other names, like 'jumpers', 'ganseys', or 'stupid'.

Irish Poets in the US

Speaking of Irish poets and dandies, here's a couple who are doing not bad, peachy, corking:

Irish-American poet and raiser of Irish donkeys, Thomas Lynch, is in the news in Arkansas where he'll be doing a reading this coming Tuesday, May 2

Irish poet Dennis O’Driscoll receives the 10th annual Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry of the University of St. Thomas Center for Irish Studies.

Irish Dandies Disliked in Kansas

Kansas' own Fred Phelps, a very funny man, if not quite as funny as, say, Irish dandy Oscar Wilde, is in the news for having a go at an Irish poet and Ireland itself, according to the PinkNews in Britain.

Phelps, of Kansas based Westboro Baptist Church, was reacting to a poem written by Irish poet, Desmond Egan called Understanding God Took Quickly in Topeka:

Mr Phelps told the Irish Independent, The Bible says that the only thing worse than a fag is a fag enabler. He is pushing the fag agenda in his poems and he is on his way to hell.

Mr Egan is married with children, but Mr Phelps called him a fag in denial.
Ireland is a land of sodomite dandies since it joined the EU, although it is not quite as bad as Sweden yet, Mr Phelps added

Dandy? Defined by Princeton's dictionary as: bang-up, bully, corking, cracking, great, groovy, keen, neat, nifty, not bad, peachy, slap-up, swell, smashing (very good) "he did a bully job"; "a neat sports car"; "had a great time at the party"

Handy Irish Phrase: Ná bí róbheag is ná bí rómhór leis an gcléir   (Don't be too small and don't be too big with the clergy)

Eddie Delahunt's 'Café &'

In a very exciting piece of news for the Irish Community in KC, Irish performer Eddie Delahunt has announced he is opening a café in Kansas City, at 45th and State Line in the antique district.

UPDATE Jun 12: And it's open

Situated at 1811 W 45th St, on the site of the former Balsano's Coffee House Café, Delahunt's Café & (read ''Café And'), has a spacious courtyard and a deck, of which we can only drool about summertime Irish music. Expect some interestingly-named coffees, more of which later.

Eddie says Café & will be open 'early June', which is just in time for the 2006 World Cup, as things would have it. A venue for Delahunt where he himself can perform as well as bring talented Irish musicians to, has long been talked of as an ideal for Kansas City's Irish, and this is great news.

Speaking to me last night Eddie said he'll continue his weekly Irish music performances at O'Dowd's Little Dublin, WJ McBride's Irish Pub, and Mike Kelly's Westsider.

See also:
   • And What?
   • And it's Open
   • Eddie Delahunt on irish KC
 

Celtic Music News Podcast #67

Celtic Music News Podcast #67 was released a couple of days ago, and it features Green Man, Ceili Moss, The Lash, Wolfstone, and Spirit of the West.

Now I haven't forgotten CMN #66, it's just been kind of a busy Irish (& English) time, what with Eddie Delahunt at the Westsider and O'Dowd's last weekend, a session led by Mike Dugger, some Irish friends (& English), a big St George's Day party, and a wonderful evening at Bloomsday Books for Shakespeare's in Love.

I have a review of Celtic Music News #66 almost finished somewhere, so I'll post soon. You might be pleased to hear that there's no Runrig this time. I'm missing them already.

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #5

-May I join you?
-It's not taken
-You don't say much
-I don't know you
-You're British
-I'm not, no
-Where are you from?
-Ireland
-My father is part Scandinavian and part Welsh
-Ok
-My mother is part Belgian, part Italian, and part German
-Ok
-What are your observations?
-About what?
-America
-I don't have any great wisdom
-All the best
-You're leaving?
-Well you don't seem very talkative
-Ok
-Are you talkative?
-I can be; I go through phases
-I'd be happy to talk to you, but you won't talk
-The music - I'm just listening
-What are your observations on America?
-What are yours?
-That it's obviously a neo-nazi facist imperial state
-I see
-I propose a topic and then we can have a conversation on it
-Is that it?
-No, I propose: The Nation State and Why do we Need it?
-Ok
-Well?
-No, your idea; you start
-We don't need it.
-Ok
-What do you think?
-I have no wisdoms
-Well that's one
-Is it?
-You seem like a sensible person


Handy Irish Phrase: Is minic a bhíonn ciúin ciontach   (The quiet one is often guilty)

More Irish Conversations >>

 

Wednesday Live Irish Music in KC & KC

Scheduled Irish performers TONIGHT in Kansas City:

Bob Reeder at 7:00pm in WJMcBride's Irish Pub in KC, Kansas
Eddie Delahunt at 8:00pm in O'Dowd's on the Plaza in KC, Missouri

Choose your Kansas City. Choose an Irish Pub. Choose your State. Choose friends. Choose a whopping big musical instrument. Choose cars, bicycles, MP3 players and segways...choose hardware stores and wondering if you're Irish, Scottish or American. Choose sitting on your couch watching Feet of Flames and Riverdance. Choose your route. Choose an Irish beer. Choose a Renaissance costume. Choose an Irish singer. Choose your favourite song. Choose life.

Handy Irish Phrase: Is annamh earrach gan fuacht   (Seldom is Spring without cold)

KC Blogger's Irish Trip

Katy, KC author of Fallible, managed a quick post yesterday before heading to KC's airport for Ireland, and she promised to update us directly from her Irish trip.

True to her word, she was barely out the door of Shannon airport when an update came from Ennis early this morning (KC time that is, not so early on Irish time).

You may remember that there was a post on Irish KC about the genealogical story of Katy's Irish Grandpa, Bernard McKenna, and the Monaghan townland of Feebaghbane where he was born, and then a follow up when Katy made some discoveries about her family's Irish history. It's clearly a very personal story and a poignant one, and we wish Katy well with her quest.

Téada at Southern Illinois Irish Festival

Téada, familiar to Kansas City from the last two Irish Fests, are in Michigan right now, and finish their current US Tour this Saturday, at the Southern Illinois Irish Festival in Carbondale, Il.

Headlining the Illinois festival as it celebrates its 10th anniversary, is the nearest to Kansas City Téada are scheduled to get in 2006. It's just like driving to Killarney. If you lived in Dublin that is. And if Ireland was double its size.

Or you might wait for next month when the lads have a new CD/DVD scheduled for release.

Scottish-based Irish Dancer Faster than God

James Devine, an Edinburgh-based Irish tap teacher, is upset with Michael Flatley, the Irish-American Bondage Lord of the Dance.

Mr Devine claims he set the world record of 38 taps per second in May 1998, a feat recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records, but that the website (Don't go there) of Flatley's show, Celtic Tiger, claims the oily-chested wonder is the world's fastest tapper with his 35 taps per second.

When you have people claiming something they don't officially have, it gets a bit annoying, said James. Guinness confirmed. And the Celtic Tiger obliged.

Here are 38 words from reviews of Celtic Tiger, I typed up in just one second:

sparkling technique · powerhouse physicality · glitzy Irish · brash and brilliant · cheesy blockbuster · camp details and detours · bombastic bit of eroto-religiosity · glorified video arcade game · deafening noise and blinding flash · overblown posturing · trashy sentiment · flag-waving excess · Gladiator crossed with Liberace

Or you can take the Guardian's 11 words on Friday's Celtic Tiger in London: "mutant hybrid of Riverdance, the Wizard of Oz and Rocky Horror". And although that sounds great, it isn't. Trust me. And I speak as a man with more than one bottle of baby oil in the house.

A Day Without Immigrants: May Day

The Socialist Worker is excited about the renewing of the traditions of May Day for the first time in over 60 years on US soil, as International Workers Day is celebrated on May 1 with a national day of protests for immigrants' rights:

There is nothing new about the modern immigration debate except the legal terminology. Immigrants have not been welcomed in the "land of opportunity" since the first wave of Irish immigrants landed on U.S. shores in the late 1820s. No distinction existed between documented and undocumented immigrants before broad immigration controls were imposed in the 1920s. All immigrant labor was used to compete with white, native-born workers--as were disfranchised African Americans.

Go on, read it. I dare you.

Read more posts on the US Immigration debate

O’Neill’s Restaurant & Bar, Prairie Village

The Kansas City Star reports that O’Neill’s Restaurant & Bar, at 4016 W. 95th St., in Prairie Village, Kansas has a new catering division for special events, meetings, reunions, weddings, and family and business gatherings.

The menu includes many of the restaurant’s favorite offerings, such as Irish pot roast, steaks, club sandwiches, pasta, jambalaya, grilled salmon and its signature dessert bread pudding

I haven't eaten here, but I am quite hungry.

ANZAC Day

One of the great things about living in Dublin was the miserable weather. Often you'd find yourself with visiting friends from England or much further, who, being tourists, wanted to see the city. So you'd take them for a walk.

I'd show them Blessington Street Basin, Summerhill, Stoneybatter, Meath Street, Wexford Street, both sides of the quays, Viking and Medieval Dublin, and Georgian Dublin. Unless it rained.

Just the likely arrival of rain could drive you to the pub to talk about all the places you weren't going to see. It's a great walking city, you'd proclaim from your barstool or snug.

In a hotter than seasonably average April, we have one of those beautiful grey days here in Kansas City, Missouri, and my weather service tells me it's the same down the road in Kansas City, Kansas. Hot weather and blue skies have gone with the last storms.

So what am I saying? Get up and get out. Eddie Delahunt and friends play in KCK tonight. As Brettski noted in the comments here they might even play some songs you know by a Scottish man now an Australian resident and citizen, about Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in Turkey, or of an Irish man fighting with British forces against Germans in France.

It's a special day. WJ McBrides Irish Pub 7:00pm

Hothouse Flowers in New Zealand

Celtic soul performers Hothouse Flowers are famous for two things in New Zealand; one is, well, the thing they're famous for everywhere - Don't Go - and the other is ALT, says Scott Cara of the New Zealand Herald.

ALT was the 1995 Liam Ó Maonlaí collaboration with Tim Finn and Andy White that resulted in the album Altitude:

I had been to great places in music with the band and I found that with Tim and Andy we were hitting similar places and I felt that we had done our share of records - polished and otherwise - and it felt like a good time to hop on an atmosphere. And lo and behold when we went into the studio to make music we just had a sound

Note that the Herald article calls Andy White, Andy Rourke. White is a former Irish Songwriter of the Year award winner in a year when nominations included Bono and Christy Moore, and a folk superstar in his own right, making ALT truly a folk supergroup. New Zealand's Tim Finn is hugely popular in Ireland, and his little brother Neil was in a band of some popularity also.

The A of ALT, Andy lives in Australia these days, where he recently performed at the Commonwealth Games, and has continued to collaborate with the L (Liam) and T (Tim) through the years, as well as people like Sinéad O'Connor and Peter Gabriel. You can listen to a few samples from Altitude here on Amazon.

Crawldo: 2nd Annual Waldo Pub Crawl

On May 18, 2006, at 6:00pm, six Waldo pubs: Kennedy's (fine Irish name), Lew's Grill & Bar (our Celtic Welsh cousins), 75th St Brewery (by KC Hopps, the people who keep O'Dowd's Irish), Bobby Baker's Lounge, Fin's Waldo Bar, and Tanners, will again play host to the Waldo Crawldo Pub Crawl for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

For $10 you can obliterate brain cells and fund blood research at the same time. If you do it in all six venues you're eligible for $5,000 worth of prizes. Tickets go on sale May 1st at the Waldo venues or online at WaldoCrawldo.

All locations are within walking distance of 75th & Wornall, but possibly, like the Star's Hearne Christopher, you spotted that new Irish pub The Gaf on Wornall at about 71st Terrace is not included:

It’s not within walking distance says organizer Chris Lewellen of Lew’s

That puts 'walking distance' at something less than six minutes. As the Crawldo site says, Park and Enjoy!

Handy Irish Phrase: Níor chuaigh fial riamh go hIfreann   (No generous person ever went to hell)

Irish Show Folk & Weird Celtic Fox

The Irish Times is reporting today that the Irish producers of Riverdance and the forthcoming Pirate Queen (the story of Grace O'Malley, or Granuaile), Moya Doherty and her husband John McColgan, have bought themselves an American holiday home for $25 million on Martha's Vineyard.

Summer visitors to the island reportedly include movie star Michael J Fox, and film director Spike Lee. Weirdly, both non-Irish celebrities share names with Irish islands!

Even more weird is that Spike Island is situated where the River Lee flows into Cork Harbour, and Kerry's Skellig Michael is protected by a Gaelic-singing mythical celtic Fox that circles the rock in a traditional Namhóg - a fishing boat with tarred canvas on a wooden frame. Listen! I think I can hear Enya.

See Also: News on Other Movie Stars on Irish KC
 

The Irish American Dream

Speaking of former Irish Taoisigh, and immigrants searching for a better way of life, if we pop east a couple of counties, the Marshall Democrat-News in Saline County, Missouri, announced today that The Marshall Philharmonic Orchestra's annual "Pops" concert will be Sunday, April 30, at 2:30 pm in the Harold L. Lickey Auditorium at Bueker Middle School in Marshall

Free and open to the public, the concert will focus on Marshall talent with the third- and fourth-grade art classes of the Marshall public schools exhibiting works they drew after listening to Robert Gray's The American Dream:

The American Dream is a musical tribute to the family of John Bruton, [former] prime minister of Ireland, whose great-granduncle came to America as a laborer and was among the founders of the city of Festus, Missouri

The press release adds that in a larger sense, The American Dream is a tribute to all those brave Irish people who came to America in search of a better way of life.

It doesn't say if that search for a better way of life was legal or illegal.

Immigration: The Economics View

Paul A. Samuelson, US economist and author who was awarded the Nobel prize for economics in 1970, makes a couple of points for the wall-builders of America.

People migrate across traditional political boundaries, mostly to gain economic well-being:

the fungus that destroyed Irish potato harvests sent migrants by the millions to the streets of Boston, New York and Chicago. Their descendants are part of our current mainstream

Noting that there is now a critical mass of permanent Spanish speakers, by legal or illegal entry, Samuelson reminds us that 50 years ago he:

predicted that freer trade could be an alternative to migration of people as a generator of higher European and Asian real wages. The economic effects of trade in goods are similar to migration of peoples, but the sociological tensions can be less from trade

That alternative of paying people properly for their work in their own country so they might not feel the need to leave it, or even because it might be the right thing, is still available.

Samuelson finishes by observing that the US is not an island nation with the insularity that affords, so immigration debates will continue for decades. Perhaps the wall could be a tourist attraction, like Hadrian's Wall, or the Maginot Line

Related Posts:

Irish Immigrants and Bad Birds
Green, White, and Red Apples
Irish Flags in US Political Demonstrations
Irish Place Names & Illegals
Nobody Gets Upset with the Irish on St Patrick's
Timmy McVeigh and the Mexican Wall Climbers
Kansas Irish To Go Home?
The Irish American Dream

Mrs McGrath and the Boss

Tommy Makem, with and without the Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners, Seamus Ennis, and Kansas City's own Jonathan Ramsey are among those who have recorded Irish folk classic Mrs McGrath.

Lest you can't place it, it's the one that goes Too-ry-ah fol-de-diddle-aa, Too-ry-oo-ry-oo-ry-aa, and not the one that goes Me and missus, missus, missus-Mc-Graaath - an altogether more raunchy track.

Staying on the disambiguation theme, the Boss is not former Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Charlie Haughey, but Bruce Springsteen, who now joins Tommy and Ronnie and Jonathan with a recording of Mrs McGrath on his brand new CD, a collection of folk songs called "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions".

Yesterday's Kansas City Star carried an interview with Bruce in his native New Jersey, and asked if releasing an album of Seeger's songs during President Bush's second term is a political statement?:

"I'll let somebody else sort that part of it, I guess," Springsteen said. "But a lot of 'em seem pretty applicable, you know? Mrs. McGrath is basically an Irish anti-war song, but it's ripped right out of the headlines everyday today."

You'll find a longer interview in the British Observer in advance of Springsteen's tour, where if you are visiting Ireland and its IMMA you can go see the Boss perform these folk songs in Dublin on May 5. Wouldn't you like that Mrs McGrath?

Irish / Gaelic / Gaeilge - Lesson 5

Is there a big woman in the kitchen is a profoundly philosophical question you can learn the Irish for in the latest Irish language lesson just posted.

Handy Irish Phrase: Ní bhíonn beag bog   (Little things tend not to be soft)

Magnum's Irish Photos

Magnum Photos, the international co-operative of independent photographers with members elected from all over the world, is featured in a free exhibition at IMMA that began last week and continues for two more months.

These works show the strong influence of rural life in the 1950s, the hidden stories of ordinary Irish men and women; as well as the sectarian conflict – during the troubled 1960s and ‘70s – and the country’s renewed confidence and prosperity over the past decade, right up to the present day.

So if you have an Irish trip planned between now and June 18 you could a lot worse than visit this exhibition. It's worth it for the building alone, the former Royal Hospital Kilmainham being a fabulous 17th century home for retired soldiers, with a great courtyard often featured in television and cinema.

For some reason the IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) seems not to be on the beaten track for tourists even though it's right next door to the Guinness brewery. Walk five more minutes. Tell your friends.

Live English Folk Music in Kansas City

It's a sunny Sunday in Kansas City, perfect for driving up to Weston, Missouri, to listen to Bob Reeder at O'Malley's Irish Pub at 3:00pm, and finishing handy enough for the safe drive back home again, it being a school night and all.

Or you could pop down to the plaza and listen to Eddie Delahunt and friends at 8:00pm at O'Dowd's Little Dublin. Accordion, Uilleann pipes, Bodhrán, Guitar, whatever you're havin' yourself.

Is there a better way to celebrate St George's Day than by listening to one of these great singers of English Folk Songs like Dirty Old Town, Old Maid In the Garret, The Foggy, Foggy Dew, Waxie's Dargle or Danny Boy?

Handy Irish Phrase: Bíonn an fhírinne searbh   (The truth is bitter)

Happy St George's Day

So not to confuse people I left it off the list, but living in Kansas City, one of the things I miss most about Ireland, is England.

To understand why, you should read Declan Kiberd's astonishingly wonderful book on Ireland and Irish identity, Inventing Ireland. You might find a copy at Bloomsday Books, which today is celebrating Shakespeare's Birthday.

Like Ireland's St Patrick, England's patron saint was not born in the country that adopted him as its national figure. St George's stomping ground was in the Middle East - in Cappadocia, and Palestine mostly. Today, April 23, is the anniversary of St George's death and the National Day of England (and for good measure celebrated in Catalonia, Portugal, Bulgaria and Georgia where he is also patron saint).

Killer of a dragon the size of a Shetland Pony, George's chivalrous behavior of protecting women, fighting evil, dependence on faith and might of arms, and largesse to the poor, made devotion to him popular in Europe particularly after the 12th century.

You might find if England win this year's World Cup, that St George will be replaced as the saviour of Albion, by somebody called Wayne Rooney.

You can get a perspective of being English in Kansas City by reading Light & Bitter in Kansas City. It is authored by Roldy, a documentary film maker with his wife, who had a film in the recent Kansas City Film Jubilee

FAIQ #5 : What's Your Favourite Irish Saying?

Oasis are the greatest Irish band since The Smiths

More Frequently Asked Irish Questions
 

Wild Colonial Bhoys at O'Malley's

The Wild Colonial Bhoys are playing O'Malley's Irish Pub in Weston, Missouri, again TONIGHT - at 8:00pm.

If you visit the Bhoys' website you can listen to their version of the Saw Doctors' classic N17 (stone walls and the grass, apparently, is green).

They also have a version of Kinky Boots, which alas is not the Patrick McNee and pre-Pussy Galore Honor Blackman 1964 song (listen here), but an updated anti-British Army version of the classic I've got a brand new Combine Harvester.

Combine Harvester was a huge hit in Ireland for comedian Brendan Grace - you'll find it referred to in Parliamentary debates. Before that it was a number 1 hit in Britain for the Somerset legends, The Wurzels. Both are a reworking of Brand New Key, which was of course originally written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Melanie (Safka) and a huge hit in 1971 - often called The Roller Skate Song. So there.

More on O'Malley's Irish Pub >>

Kansas Irish to go home?

Kris Kobach pops up again in a Kansas discussion of the national immigration question. The Hutchinson News refers to the recent southwest Kansas rallies in Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal, and notes that the public response outside the immigrant community has largely been muted. Kris says this is because people are afraid of being called racist.

U.S. citizens are not racist, said Kobach, who favors removal of the illegal immigrants here by cracking down on those who employ them via strict enforcement of existing laws. The pro-enforcement movement is in no way xenophobic

Claiming it's not a movement against immigrants, Kobach says it's against illegal aliens and the violation of law.

Should he not then be campaigning for all Irish in Kansas who became legal through the Morrison visa program in the 1990s to go home for their previous illegality and violation of the law? The white Irish people that is. You can read a history of the Morrison Visa here

Related Posts:

Green, White and Red Apples
Irish Flags in US Political Demonstrations
Irish Place Names & Illegals
Nobody Gets Upset with the Irish on St Patrick's
Irish Immigrants & Bad Birds
Timmy McVeigh and teh Mexican Wall Climbers

Irish Fusion

Two former Kansas City Irish Festival performers are joining forces tonight in Omaha, Nebraska. Mick Doyle of Ellis Island, an Omaha Irish Band, will be playing and singing a little with a few members of the visiting Wild Clover Band.

This Irish combination can be heard at The Brazen Head (78th & Dodge) in Omaha (8pm)

Handy Irish Phrase: Ní neart go cur le chéile   (There is no strength without unity)

Irish Friends

This short break is brought to you courtesy of Mike Kelly's Westsider, Harry's Bar & Tables, and Guinness.

Handy Irish Phrase: Mórán cainte ar bheagán cúise   (Much talk with little reason)

Weston Irish Festival: Young Dubs

Festival favourites of Kansas City, The Young Dubliners have announced that they are playing the Weston Irish Festival in Missouri this October.

And a few tickets are still available for their Irish trip which takes place shortly after the Irish Festival in Weston.

After-Gig Session Location

The location of the after-gig session following the Roger Landes & Chipper Thompson looks like it will NOT be the Westsider, and, in the best tradition of raves, can be got at the concert - which seems only fair for such a treat.

Handy Irish Phrase: Inis do Mháire i gcógar é, is inseoidh Máire dó phóbal é   (Tell it to Mary in a whisper, and Mary will tell it to the parish)

Friday in KC: A Festival of Irishness

There's a few things of interest to Irish folk going on today:

Operation Breakthrough Fundraiser: (6:00pm)
Win Wine Cabinet by Elders' Ian Byrne
Silent Auction of Private Gig by The Elders

Eddie Delahunt Happy Hour The Westsider (6:00pm)

O'Malley's Irish Cream Ale Dinner Weston (6:30pm)

MVFS Gig: Roger Landes & Chipper Thompson (8:00pm)

The Wild Colonial Bhoys O'Malley's (8:00pm)

Irish Museum & Cultural Center Annual Gala

Bob Reeder Kyle's Tap Room Gladstone (8:30pm)

After-gig Session following MVFS gig (Late pm)

An Irish Cure for Kansas City

You're not sure about Irish Traditional Music, but you like The Cure. Perhaps like Luka you like Irish music, but you've heard enough of it. You live in Missouri. You like live music. You'd love to see The Cure play a set in an Irish pub in Kansas City, or in McGurk's over St Louis way, but you don't expect Robert and the haircuts to stop by.

Only last night did I say that an Irish Trad band, in fact a specific Irish Trad band, known and loved by Kansas City, should play Cure songs. The Caterpillar and Lovecats stand out as obvious relatively early tracks, and Friday I'm in Love could be covered by anybody.

Well lo and behold but they already did. You know our favourite venue, The Tivoli? Yep that one in Brisbane, Australia again that the Hothouse Flowers are playing tomorrow night. Well last year, after the Irish launch of the CD Innocence, (the US launch was a year later) Luka Bloom played the same Tivoli in Brisbane, and he played In Between Days by The Cure.

Will he play it in Kansas City? Will every Irish musician be playing The Cure in Kansas City? Right now you should be even more excited than you were.

The Elders at Paddy O'Quigley's

Kansas City's The Elders are scheduled to play Irish pub Paddy O'Quigley's of Leawood, Kansas on Friday April 28. (9:00pm)

No more information yet on the pub's website. Will keep you posted.

After-Gig Music Session

UPDATE - Possible location change: Final news on this will be announced at the concert.

Kelly from the MVFS has just confirmed what the bould Delahunt told me last night - that after tomorrow night's Roger Landes and Chipper Thompson gig at All Souls Unitarian Church's Bragg Auditorium, there will be a session at, well, Somewhere.

So after watching Roger and Chipper, you are invited to bring along to the after-gig session your instruments, your singing voice, and your dancing feet. You might find Eddie and the boys there too. Oh my. Mouth-watering. Thanks Kelly.

Handy Irish Phrase: Is cuma le fear na mbróg cá gcuireann sé a chos   (The man with boots does not have to worry about where to put his feet)

Magical Irish Movie Music Moment

The Kansas City Star yesterday ran a feature on A Dozen Magical Music Moments from the Movies and it included The Commitments at number one, for the performance of Try a Little Tenderness.

Alan Parker's adaptation of Roddy Doyle's first Barrytown book is the closest representation of the Dublin I grew up in you'll see on film. Give or take the soul music, which was the point. Our accents, our words, our roads.

You may well meet tons of Dublin people to which this film represented nothing of their Dublin so they saw it as a caricature of a city. But that's because they never bothered their arses to go out and look at the rest of the city.

It's quite dated now, as it should be, for Dublin itself has dated a lot in the 15 years since. White people in Dublin saying they're black and they're proud is different when there's an actual black population. The Commitments should be ahead of The Quiet Man on your all-time Irish movie list.

See Also: All Movie News on Irish KC
 

MVFS: Roger Landes and Chipper Thompson

The Missouri Valley Folklife Society are presenting one of those special gigs that only they can do. Tomorrow night, April 21, Irish bouzouki masters Roger Landes and Chipper Thompson play All Souls Unitarian Church's Bragg Auditorium.

Founder of ZoukFest, Roger Landes, a Blue Springs, MO, native, should be very familiar to Kansas City Irish and folk music fans, having performed many years in Scartaglen and also as half of the duo with Connie Dover. Recently no less than The Irish Times named Roger's fiddle and bouzouki duo CD with Randal Bays House to House as one of the Top 5 Trad Albums of 2005:

At a sufficient remove from the origins of the music they evidently love, Bays and Landes inhabited the tunes with a refreshing vigour, and their insistence on retaining the personality of the live recording, replete with foot taps and squeaky chairs, only added to the technicolour of the collection

Chipper Thompson is a descendant of Irish immigrants, who was born and raised in Athens, Alabama. Chipper's appreciation of folk and world music has him playing what he calls folk-n-roll, which meant he was right at home when he played with traditional bands in the pubs in West of Ireland. Check out his excellent blog called Banjosnake

8pm, $20 adult, ($17 for MVFS members),
All Souls Unitarian Church's Bragg Auditorium
4501 Walnut St, Kansas City, Missouri
816-691-8717

Related Post: After-Gig Music Session
 

The 27th Greatest Song Never To Reach Number One

I didn't forget to tell you about Bob's and Eddie's weekly gigs at them Irish pubs of WJ McBride's and O'Dowd's on the Plaza, this time last night - I've had a bad computer for a week now. Bad computer. You're a very bad computer.

Speaking of computer, too often too many Irish people are credited with not pronouncing either of the 'th' sounds, and not credited with inserting them into words where no such sound exists. Computher is one such word in certain parts of the country.

Spurning unco-operative technology I took sketch pad and pens to O'Dowd's last night to watch Eddie Delahunt, Gabriel Reyes and Brett Gibson perform. Feckers kept moving. Slow-airs are much easier to draw.

One of the things I love about summers in Dublin is cheap mens' clothing shops playing Christmas songs. Well okay there's only one they play in summer. And Eddie and them boys played it last night. If the Brits weren't such a lovesick cheerful lot, the Shane MacGowan lyrics of The Fairytale of New York would've been their favourite all time.

If Shane or Christy or Eddie aren't your Irish cup of tea, give the Irish Tenors remarkable version of this song a lash. You'll find it on We Three Kings.

See More on Eddie Delahunt

FAIQ #4 : What impresses you most about the United States?

TOILET ROLL

Growing up in Dublin, most houses I knew had a room you couldn't go in. Not just me, the people who owned the house couldn't go in. With the best furniture in the house and the best china, it was reserved for very special occasions. With nine or twelve kids, you still chose to not use one of only two main rooms in the house, just in case.

These occasions never happened and even opening a door to these special rooms would elicit a shout from a parent. Now that people have much smaller families, and you would think therefore even less need to use these rooms, they are mostly used now. Not all though.

I have a friend who with her four young kids moved in with her mother and her two aunts not long ago. A tiny house, yet whenever a kid dared step into that room, pandemonium would erupt. I've been visiting the house for twenty years and I've never been allowed in there nor even heard of an occasion that the room was used for. I'm not counting when you're dead, in your best coffin.

Stepping onto US soil for the first time eleven years ago I was in Boston airport, and found myself in the restroom, stall number five (I'm a stall number five man). Once I saw the toilet roll I knew I was in that special room with the best china.

Before that day was out, I was to use restrooms in Dallas and Kansas City, and the toilet roll left the same impression each time. It was kind of like Oh my god, they use this? Well no wonder they can send armies all over the planet. Having to indulge in such decadence was quite an introduction to the US.

FAIQ #4 is kind of presumptuous but I am frequently asked it, and still to this day, Toilet Roll is the answer, hands down - if you'll excuse the expression. Of course as a resident now, I have discovered Big Lots and Dollar General, so I no longer need to have the feeling I'm in a room I'm not supposed to be in, and it stops me hearing a thousand Irish parents yelling at me.

Handy Irish Phrase: Ní sheasaíonn sac folamh   (An empty sack does not stand)

More Frequently Asked Irish Questions

 

Hothouse Flowers at the Tivoli

This Sunday, Irish soul band, The Hothouse Flowers can be seen at The Tivoli.

The Tivoli in Brisbane, Australia, that is. I had a friend down there going to see the Flowers live last week, but she changed her mind so I dropped her as a friend. You'll have to wait until September to see Liam, Fiachna, and the boys in Kansas City.

It's been a while since I saw them, and a nice article in this Australian paper explains why. Or better again is a fabulous interview with Liam O Maonlai by Michael Dwyer, carried in the Sydney Morning Herald

Handy Irish Phrase: Is iomaí cor sa tsaol   (There is many a twist in life)

Bloomsday Books Free April Movie

Bloomsday Books is showing the movie Shakespeare in Love this Sunday, April 23, beginning at 5:30 pm. to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday. Steve Simpson is providing his screen, projector and movie. It's free, as all movies at Bloomsday are, but do feel free to bring your own grog.

I was talking to Bloomsday's Tom Shawver recently and he's excited about this year's Annual Bloomsday celebration following the bookstore's recent return to the Crestwood shops (313 E 55th St, 816.523.6712). That Joycean celebration will be in June of course, of which more later.

Shakespeare in Love has an ensemble cast of British actors, but you already knew that. You also knew the Bard was English, so don't let people go telling you Shakespeare was Irish

Handy Irish Phrase: Ní fiú scéal gan údar   (There's no worth to a story without an author)

See Also: All Movie News on Irish KC
 

Tullamore not at Governor Stumpy's

KC Celtic Folk band Tullamore have announced that due to schedule conflicts they will not now be playing Governor Stumpy's in Waldo, this Friday, April 21. We might have to wait until the Annual Celtic Block Party before we see Irish music at Stumpys - we'll keep an eye.

Meanwhile Tullamore are playing the Rogue's Gallery 4th Annual Spring Hooley in Lenexa, Kansas on Saturday, April 22. Last year, Dan and Pat began the tradition of the annual Spring Hooley, and it continues this year. From 7:30 pm to late, at VFW Post, 9550 Pflumm Road.

Tullamore, incidentally, for those who don't know but care, is an Anglicization of the the Gaelic for 'Big Hill' - Tulach being 'hill', and Mór being 'big. It gives its name to a town in Offaly in the midlands of Ireland, and another small one in Kerry. The Whiskey Tullamore Dew, is named after the Offaly town.

Broadway in Chicago: Pirate Queen

Here's one for your calendars. THE PIRATE QUEEN, a new musical by the guys who wrote Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, will play a pre-Broadway, World Premiere engagement at Chicago Cadillac Palace Theatre in a limited engagement from Oct 3rd thru Nov 26th 2006.

Huh? Well, Moya Doherty and John McColgan are the producers. They're the people who brought you Riverdance. Pirate Queen? It's the story of Irish chieftain Grace O'Malley, a sixteenth century woman who the producers would have you believe is a modern woman in period costume.

Well I'm a modern woman in male costume. Grace, though, was one of the last Irish clan leaders to resist the English conquest of Gaelic Ireland. You might have noticed her name, or versions of it - like Granuaile - around Ireland. She's big in Howth.

Here's her story as told by the producers, but do bear in mind that they profess to believe she has been neglected through history and that a Broadway musical will remedy that. Still, this will probably go places, maybe even Kansas City one day.

On Amazon: Granuaile: Ireland's Pirate Queen C. 1530-1603

You might also be interested in:

Irishness to Oirishness: The Flatley Dance
Flatley Troubles Troubles
Scottish-based Irish Dancer Faster than God
Lord of the Dance Insults Eileen Ivers

 

Timmy McVeigh & the Mexican Wall Climbers

Kris W. Kobach, a professor of law at UMKC, told a rally that he wanted a 2,000 mile wall built on the U.S.-Mexico border. He did not say if he would favor undocumented illegals working on the construction of the wall from the Mexican side.

Kobach, a losing 2004 Congressional candidate and former advisor on immigration to Attorney General John Ashcroft, has long pursued immigration enforcement:

Our borders are our most important line of defense in protecting the U.S. against another terrorist attack he said in 2004. Our enemy's platoons in the war against terrorism do not wear uniforms of camouflage green

Whilst not having to climb the wall to enter the US, homegrown terrorists born in the U.S., and Islamists from the Middle East entering through airports, would know the U.S. is very serious about illegal immigration and terrorism once they heard about the wall.

In 1986, the terrorist Mahmud "The Red" Abouhalima fraudulently got amnesty as a seasonal agricultural worker in a uniform of camouflage green (in fact, he was a New York cabbie). That status allowed him to travel to Afghanistan for terrorist training - which he later used as a 1993 bomber of the World Trade Center. A wall to keep Mexicans out of the U.S. could have prevented this attack.

If we started enforcing the laws against employing illegals, that would go a long way toward halting illegal immigration, said Dick Minneny of Blue Springs, though he didn't say if it would go as long as 2,000 miles.

One protester’s sign read: Break our laws. Shame on you. Don’t enforce the border. Shame on us. The protester was too ashamed to give his name.

Kind Stever of Overland Park said he had never attended any type of political rally but as a patriotic American he wanted to attend Monday’s rally. And then he said This land is a land of laws, sounding like Woody Guthrie. We can’t afford, as a nation, for any of our laws to go unnoticed (when broken). Our senators and congressmen are not enforcing the law. The nation did not notice at what speed he drove back to Overland Park.

Tina Turner of Clay County came to the rally wearing a T-shirt that read America is still the best. She said she thinks more jobs could be given to Americans who are on welfare rather than to undocumented immigrants, though she had no documentation to back this up.

Sorri Matthew of Lenexa stood holding a large American flag made in Mexico. He said he is against illegal immigration because he and his wife spent two years apart so she could come to the United States legally from the Dominican Republic, and he feels others should have to spend a miserable two years apart, too.

A man in a Legalize the Irish t-shirt was seen trying to persuade the crowd to demand the wall be 8,000 miles long, but he was dismissed as a stereotype.

Related Posts:

Green, White and Red Apples
Irish Flags in US Political Demonstrations
Irish Place Names & Illegals
Nobody Gets Upset with the Irish on St Patrick's
Irish Immigrants and Bad Birds

Irish Cream Ale available in 2 new locations

O'Malley's Irish Pub have announced that their Irish Cream Ale is is now available at two new locations, 12th & Baltimore at the Hotel Phillips and The Peanut in Lee's Summit.

I can't tell you why it's Irish as I haven't had a chance to sink a pint yet, but I suspect it's the nitrogen. We're a great people for the nitrogen.

As more locations are announced they will be on the website.

Live Irish Music of a Tuesday

-What did he die of?
-He died of a Tuesday

Sorry. Tuesday in Irish (Gaelic/Gaeilge) is Dé Máirt. That's Dé as in Daniel Day Lewis, and Máirt as in Nebraska Furniture Mart (well, kind of). Notice how I've avoided the arguments over whether the week starts on a Sunday or a Monday. I'm a problem solver.

Hey, and speaking of Nebraska Furniture Mart, Eddie Delahunt plays his Irish music at WJ McBride's Irish Pub tonight at 7pm over there in KCK by that big furniture place. It's quicker than you think to get there. Trust me, I'm a webmaster.

Luka Bloom and Christy Moore

I found that review of the Christy Moore gig with brother Luka Bloom in support that I told you about a while back.

It took place in Newbridge, County Kildare in The Keadeen, which is where my school had their debs, round about when Christy last played there. An Irish debs is like a High-School graduation except you give a girl a fancy flower so you can ignore her and drink pints all night. It's when you, or really women, make their debut on society - but I'm sure you can think of other words for it.

Christy's set with Declan Synott and Donal Lunny included Bees Wing:

I heard Richard Thompson singing this song in 1968 and I asked him to give me the words....and he did....last year

Luka's set includes much that was to appear on his current CD Innocence, and you can compare that review with the one in the Allentown Morning Call (scroll) a couple of days back:

I like Irish music, said the 50-year-old singer-songwriter, but I've heard enough of it

Luka certainly seemed to enjoy himself in Pennsylvania:

Bloom lightened things up, saying how the song lifted him up to where he could imagine himself on the set of an Enya video, with Celtic mist rising up over my arse

Langerland's Rising

If you want to see what American culture has done to Irish culture, or vice versa, you might want to have a look at this little animation on the Rising. It's just under three minutes, and it's better if you know all the characters, but hey, Irish KC is all about education. WARNING: You should find it funny, but your boss might not.

Oh, and 'Langer' means exactly what you think it means.

The Elders Irish Tour March 2007

The Elders are geting ready to announce details of their tour of Ireland in March of next year. In The Elders forum, Ian's brother Paul confirms the Irish tour is happening and will take place Mar 2-9, 2007. More details are promised to be posted on the website soon.

Handy Irish Phrase: Ní scéal rúin é ó tá a fhios ag triúr é   (It is not a secret after three people know it)

Around Ireland with a Bodhrán

Aaron Svoboda from the Wild Clover Band has made available his journal of the Trip to Ireland he and his wife went on last year.

I first became aware of the Wild Clover Band last year when as the webmaster for the Kansas City Irish Fest I noticed they were providing more web traffic than most sites including some headlining acts. A quick click showed it was part of an orchestrated campaign, and later in the year the Nebraska-based band were playing the festival and making friends in Kansas City.

Still pushing the Irish envelope in web-marketing, the Wild Clover Band are one of the first traditional Irish music-playing bands in the region to start a blog. Whilst the most recent entry highlights a promotional video, I'm still playing catch-up and have just finished reading Aaron's journal of his Irish trip.

The Irish journal is a pdf file, though it's not very large, and it's an easy read of the ten-day Irish vacation. It should especially be enlightening for anyone planning to holiday in Ireland who intends to take in a lot of traditional Irish music - there will be times when you need to look around.

And you will see people drink other than Guinness. Even before the invasion of the American and Australian lagers, about twenty-five years ago (it was a warm year), stout only accounted for 55% of beer consumed in Ireland, and Guinness had to share that portion of the market with Murphy's and Beamish.

As history music and english teachers Aaron and his wife enjoyed Blarney, Beara, Kenmare, Dingle, Doolin, Roundstone, Sligo, and Dublin, among the spots they visited. I was tickled by the one book Aaron chose from the Dublin Writer's Museum being Finnegan's Wake by Joyce. Reading War and Peace backwards while standing on the Dingle Dolphin would be easier, and make more sense. Say hello to Aaron when you enjoy his Irish trip

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #4

-I love spring; It's just so wonderful, don't you think?
-It is quite nice yeah. It's certainly colourful
-Oh you should see fall, it's much more colorful
-Well I have been here a few years; I have seen fall
-Isn't that so neat? When the leaves change their color?
-It can be very striking. The last couple weren't great ones though.
-Do you have that in Ireland?
-What? fall?
-The phenomenom where the leaves change their colors. Does that happen in Ireland?

 
More Irish conversations

Black Shamrock and W

All the great splits in Irish Republicanism have basically been about whether the independent Irish state of the day should be considered legitimate as constituted.

To that end it struck me as obvious that the most authentic claimants of the political legacy of the 1916 Rising are Republican Sinn Fein, and not Provisional Sinn Fein, nor Fianna Fail (the Republican Party), nor Fine Gael, nor the Progressive Democrats (stop laughing), nor Official Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein the Workers Party, The Workers Party, The Labour Party.

Ireland being Irish however, the obvious is often not said, and I only noticed Eamonn McCann giving the nod to RSF, whilst he also wondered why Catholic Ireland didn't bid for her part of the tradition.

Pertinently McCann ponders the thoughts of the major political figures in Nationalist Ireland today, in terms of drawing a legacy from the actions of 1916 to present-day Ireland, from Irish President McAleese, through Taoiseach Ahern, and on to Gerry Adams. From the Irish socialist view McCann sees the enduring legacy of the Rising in the fact that:

it was a blow against the most powerful Empire on earth at the time, and (we) regard it as self-evident that its spirit is best represented today in the fight against the imperial power of the US ruling class.

In this view, the most egregious betrayal of 1916 lies not in grudgingly taking seats in a partitionist parliament but in cheerfully breaking bread with George W. Bush. The most fitting symbol of the Rising is not the Easter Lily but the Black Shamrock

Although an Irish presence in Kansas City predates 1916, the Rising still carries a significance for KC as it does for anything with an Irish identity. Of course we don't know what would have happened, but had there been no Rising in 1916 it's quite possible that none of the Irish who arrived in the midwest in the 90 years since would ever have boarded a ship or a 'plane.

You won't have to put up with much more of this, at least not for another ten years - but by then we'll all be in a different place. And if that place is at a great big party, then that probably means less people are dying. Or the globalization of O'Connell Street and Dublin has been completed.

Kansas City Woodwork for Charity

If you try but fail to win the wine cabinet created by Ian Byrne of KC celtic rock group The Elders and donated for the benefit of Operation Breakthrough, you might be interested in an alternative that also helps a charity in Kansas City.

From Newfoundland of Irish ancestry, Patrick Power is a priest of the Redemptorist Order who spends most of his time in Kansas City, in semi-retirement, doing woodwork and serving as a relief priest. His woodwork? Patrick builds coffins for people in Kansas City to help AIDs orphans in Thailand.

One of Power's coffin "customers" in Kansas City uses his box as a wine cabinet:

It'll hold 48 bottles of wine. He's got it in his living room

Power asks people in Kansas City who commission coffins to "make a generous donation" to the Redemptorists' missions throughout the world:

In Thailand, where Power served as a missionary more than 50 year ago, he knows a priest who cares for 120 AIDs orphans, ages 2 through 15. And that's just one of the Redemptorists' three missions in Thailand

Read the full story in The Arizona Daily Star, and maybe order yourself a new bookcase?

The Fuchsia Band at Mad Theory

Mad Theory, the Irish music project of Tomás Mulcahy and Ken Hayes, have announced that The Fuchsia Band, who play Kansas City's Irish Fest in September, have booked sessions to record their new CD.

Tomás was responsible for The Fuchsia Band's recording of their first original song, Grá dá raibh! which featured on Ceol '06

Handy Irish Phrase: Muna gcuirir san Earrach ní bhainfir sa bhFómhar   (If you don't sow in spring you won't reap in autumn)

One life, with each other, sisters, brothers

One life, with each other, sisters, brothers, from U2's One is Britain's favourite lyric, according to a music channel VH1 poll.

Meanwhile yesterday's Kansas City Star followed up on the story of everybody's favourite Irish rock band and the U2 Eucharist in Rhode Island, though Episcopal parishes from California to Maine have had similar events, weaving the Irish band’s music into the liturgy.

My parents' local church in Dublin have been blasting out U2 covers for years. Christmas being special, it's drop your hippy traditional folk music time, and let those electric guitars rip. First time in that little church I heard Without or Without You I was thinking I actually could live without you. Might have been different if they'd handed out earplugs and glow sticks though.

First Military 1916 Dublin Parade in 37 years

Speaking of Ireland's Easter Rising, the first military parade in 37 years was held in Dublin yesterday to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the 1916 Rising.

RTE reports that 120,000 attended, and they have a bunch audio and video links. The BBC has some photos.

Meanwhile Pól Ó Muirí in today's Belfast Telegraph laments the revisionism applied to the heroes of yesteryear.

Handy Irish Phrase: Ní hiad na fir mhóra a bhaineas an fomhar i gcónaí   (It is not the great men that always reap the harvest)

Related Posts:

Langerland's Rising
Black Shamrock and W
90th Anniversary of 1916 Easter Rising
Commemorative Concert for 1916 Rising