Radishes

I don't care about the radishes, you are not going to work

Feed Address Change

This is a special post just for those who subscribe to Irish KC by feed. Atom has been dropped, and there is a new RSS feed address in its place. Sorry about this different servers have refused to be civil to each other so I've had to implement some serious changes.

If you're already subscribed to the Feedburner RSS feed I'll keep that going as well as the one above, so you should be grand enough, but there will in time be a range of other feeds available - for comments and specific categories, like cartoons etc.

I am nearing the end of this current upgrade, and nearing the end of my tether. This special post will be deleted shortly once the relevant servers have been pinged.

See what you might have missed:
     • Hairdressers Guide to Information #6
     • Movements
     • Kansas City Wizards Celebrate the World Cup
 

Nelly Don: More Showings

Speaking of movies, Terence O'Malley's movie Nelly Don: A Stitch in Time about the Kansas City's legendary Irish-American business woman, continues to have more screenings added at the Screenland in downtown Kansas City:

  • Jun 2 Friday - 4:00pm
  • Jun 3 Saturday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, & 5:00pm
  • Jun 4 Sunday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, 5:00pm

See earlier posts for the background story on the movie, and companion Nelly Don book

See Other Movie News:
  • Uncensored Cinema
  • The Irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
  • All Movie News on Irish KC

Free Movie: Millions

The Kansas City Star describes a movie called Millions as:

Irish siblings find a bag of cash; will they spend it on themselves or on good deeds?

6:30 p.m. Sunday, Westport Presbyterian Church

While the boys' father is played by Irish actor James Nesbitt, the brothers, like the movie and its setting, are British. Northern English, yes, the northwest even, possibly somewhere between Liverpool - the capital of Ireland - and Manchester - which gave us The Smiths and Oasis, but English nonetheless.

That said, Danny Boyle is a fabulous director, and you should absolutely see this tremendous family film. Fantastical, funny, touching, stylish, warm, and original without being sentimental or stupid. I couldn't recommend it highly enough.

See other Irish movie stuff:
     • Uncensored Cinema
     • Ken Loach: Movie-Making Hero
     • Movie News on Irish KC
 

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

The Wyandotte Players, who present their shows at Kansas City Kansas Community College, are offering the Irish play, Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane from June 16-25.

It is a blend of black comedy, melodrama, horror and my favourite, bleak tragedy. The play is set in Leenane, a small town in Connemara, County Galway, and along with A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West formed The Leenane Trilogy.

The original production programme and promotional flyer describes The Beauty Queen of Leenane as:

the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag, her manipulative ageing mother. Mag's interference in her daughter's first and possibly final chance of a loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that lead inexorably towards the play's inevitable dénouement

That reminds me of the time I had a shedload of pints that led inexorably towards an inevitable dénouement one Thursday. The Beauty Queen of Leenane opened in 1996 in Galway and went on to win four Tony Awards in New York.

See also:
     • McDonagh Play for Unicorn Theatre
     • Bloomsday 2006 in Kansas City
     • All Irish Literature news on Irish KC
 

Ireland: High Tech & Low Corporate Tax

If you missed it, yesterday's Kansas City Star carried an AP article on Ireland supposedly, but really on Dublin specifically - and even more specifically, on the rapidly expanding European headquarters of Internet search-engine giant Google, which it calls a symbol for the new, immigrant-rich Ireland.

The EU's highest per capita GDP, unemployment at an EU-low 4.4 percent, top of the EU's 15 original members in having enterprises with innovation activity, 12.5 percent tax rate on corporate profits being the lowest in Europe, and all the usual stuff.

It also includes figures on new immigrants, most especially the Polish, and on Irish emigrants returning from the US.

Oh yeah, and Henry Street is now a boulevard apparently, despite it being no broader than it was before - which wasn't broad - and not exactly what you'd call landscaped, any more than say, Kansas City's 12th street.


See also:
     • Cardinal Gets Christian on Immigration
     • Too Much Prosperity?
     • Irish Pay Deal and Migrants