Irish KC : A Blog

Radishes

2006-06-06T23:40:00.000-05:00

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

Feed Address Change

2006-06-06T00:52:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-01T10:10:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-01T08:10:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-01T07:28:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-01T06:42:00.000-05:00

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

ETH in Kansas City

2006-05-31T10:06:00.000-05:00

If I say Neil Dorfsman to you, what Irish music do you think of? Paul Brady, Solas? Okay very good, but as it happens I don't actually go around casually spitting out names as challenges to people.

So today is the day Enter the Haggis enter the Record Bar. The brand new album, Soapbox Heroes, as I told you, is not available for regular retail until July 18, but is being sold at gigs.

Reading around the blogosphere I've read of people absolutely loving this ETH tour and of the tracks from the new CD the boys are playing in the set. I don't have any links for you because the relevant blogs had huge convoluted entries (yes, more than mine) with ETH reviews too far buried to explain - so just trust me. Actually one person likened a new track to Marillion - and there was me talking about Genesis

When I was talking with Kirk of Seven Nations recently, I forgot to ask him about ETH, probably because he had me distracted with sordid tales of the road, and he actually made me write them down. So I did.

Singer and Guitarist, Trevor Lewington talks of this fifth album by Enter the Haggis:

For the recording of Soapbox Heroes, we lived in a house that was attached to the studio so we were isolated from family and friends. The only people we interacted with were ourselves, Neil, the studio employees and guest musicians.

The seclusion helped us to focus on the record without any distractions. It also meant that we didn’t have any feedback from family and friends until it was too late

I like people that lock themselves away from the world.

The studio man behind Casualties of Retail, Joao Carvalho is also responsible for mastering Soapbox Heroes, but the producer, according to ETH's label, UFO music, is none other than 4-time grammy winner, with music credits longer than the face of a girl an Irish barman in Kansas City once went out with, Neil Dorfsman.

See also:
     • Listen to Soapbox Heroes Track
     • Enter The Haggis on Irish KC
     • Kansas City Scottish Festival

Roger Coleman and Joe Miquelon

2006-05-31T06:29:00.000-05:00

The Kansas City Star today features an article on The Elders' keyboard player, Joe Miquelon, and Roger Coleman from midtown's Pilgrim Chapel. It's an interesting read, particularly on the evolution of Danny Cox’s Troost Avenue Blues.

See also:
     • The Elders at Children for Peace fundraiser
     • Joe Micquelon joins The Elders
     • All posts on The Elders

Encore: 50 More Conservative Songs

2006-05-31T05:11:00.000-05:00

Speaking of the National Review list of Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs of All Time (or the last fifty years, if you prefer), John J. Miller has listed, though alas without numbers we could fight about, fifty more conservative rock songs.

What was surprising about the original article wasn't the list itself, but that people were surprised. Miller clearly stated the songs were chosen based on what listeners felt defined conservative values for them; he didn't say that driving German cars into American residential swimming pools makes you a conservative rock group - though obviously it does.

This time Mr Miller does what he tried to avoid last time, by including five songs by Rush and The Kinks combined. I suspect it's just laziness following the impact of the initial list that has the net not being cast so wide this time.

From the Irish perspective we again have a song by U2, The Playboy Mansion from the much mocked Pop album. Of course because we're Irish we know that anything early when the boys were simultaneously attending prayer meetings and being rock stars would qualify.

And so would anything later when they had established they weren't your average rock stars interested in getting their rocks off. Beyond U2 we're pushing it. But hey, Irish KC likes to push it, so let's claim a couple more.

Elvis Costello, born as Declan Patrick MacManus, and sometime champion of The Pogues to the extent that he married their bass player for a while, Cait Ni Riordain (surely that's conservative?), is on the list with The Other Side of Summer.

Oh and This Night Has Opened My Eyes by that Irish band, The Smiths.

And really we shouldn't, because the sweeping epic rock ballad called Red Army Blues by The Waterboys predates their conversion to Irishness, and is back from the days when everything they did was sweeping and epic. But with their recent second Irish coming, I think we can now claim everything Mike Scott ever did as being Irish.

And this second Irish coming also reinstates The Waterboys as the ultimate Irish Festival band in existence - I mean, for god's sake they have an unending stream of Dubliners on Grafton Street wishing they were Fishermen. So I imagine having the masses of middle America wishing they too were out on trawlers should be no problem. Reason enough for a festival, I'd say.

Truth be told, from an Irish perspective we could make these lists until the cows come home, because we have a Traditional music scene, and for good measure we fuse it into Rock, Pop, and although it's criminal, Country.

I mean Step it out Mary, my fine daughter, Show your legs to the country man embodies a world of conservative values you could write a thesis on. Or a Testament.

See also:
     • Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs
     • U2: Dublin 1979
     • The Easter Bunny in Ireland?

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #11

2006-05-31T03:54:00.000-05:00

-Where are you from
-Ireland. Dublin
-Ahh, Jimmy
-Jimmy?
-Yes. I have a friend called Jimmy. He is from Dublin
-I see
-Do you know him?
-Jimmy?
-Yes
-Jimmy from Dublin?
-Yes
-He lives in Dublin?
-Yes
-Just Jimmy? Like Elvis and Madonna, no last name necessary?
-Everyone just knows him as Jimmy
-Sorry, I don't know him
-You are from Dublin?
-Yes
-Everyone knows him. Jimmy

See other conversations:
     • Cats
     • The Driving Range
     • All Irish Conversations

Normal Service for Kansas City Irish

2006-05-31T02:58:00.000-05:00

It's been a huge three days for Irish KC, with thousands of visitors due to the Celtic Block Party, the Ken Loach Cannes win, and especially the National Review article.

Throw in the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend here in the States, and even more important family commitments, and perhaps Irish KC has seemed a bit out of whack. Normal service should now resume. What normal service is, I have no idea.

If none of this means anything to you, ignore it and go phone somebody you haven't for over six months. Tell them you were thinking of them.

Related(ish):
     • About Eolaí gan Fhéile
     • Post #500 on Irish KC
     • First Ever Irish KC Post

Lunasa: Sean Smyth Interview

2006-05-30T22:42:00.000-05:00

Although this interview with Lúnasa's Sean Smyth is in advance of a prestigious concert in Ireland, and not one in Kansas city or the Midwest, Lúnasa will be touring the US in September and October 2006, and including venues in Tulsa, OK and Boulder, CO.

Smyth is a native of Mayo and an All-Ireland champion on both fiddle and whistle, and in the interview talks a lot about what constitutes traditional Irish music from the Lúnasa perspective:

I came through Comhaltas myself, and it was a very fine organisation in the way that it introduced me to music in lots of respects. But I've never had anyone come up and say that we are destroying traditional music!

We are very true to the times and the music in that way that it was written. We don't do jazz improvisations within the form of the music, and we are playing on instruments that form part of that tradition.

The music is very much about melody and rhythm within the tune, and that's what Lunasa is trying to achieve. We try to focus on the melodies and on the harmonic variations and all that kind of stuff, but it is still the melody which is foremost, plus the rhythm which I would say is the soul of the music.

That gives it its attractive hypnotic feel. Even though we've been called very modern we're probably as traditional as you'll ever see

It's a great interview with distinctions between the kinds of audiences Lúnasa get on the Theatre circuit in the US contrasted with their Irish & Music Summer Festival audiences, and the story of being given a tune backstage at a gig in Portland, Oregon, which was to ultimately feature on the current album, Sé.

Lúnasa seem very much in the tradition of The Bothy Band, and Irish Traditional Music praise doesn't come much higher than that.

See also:
    • Irish Choral Music and Celtic Underpants
    • Song Sung Traditional: Hold On
    • Seachtain na Gaeilge : Ceol '06

Bubble Hits: Irish Music Channel

2006-05-30T22:06:00.000-05:00

Bubble Hits is a new Irish-owned TV music channel that will broadcast to over 8 million homes in Ireland and the UK starting this summer.

Owned by two young Irish buckos in their early twenties, Bubble Hits is planned as a 24/7 music channel with no commercial breaks - such is the power of viewer interaction via SMS, MMS and the web.

There will of course be sponsorship and 'integrated advertising', nevertheless it is this commerical-free format that has attracted interest from cable stations worldwide.

So perhaps Bubble hits is bound for American air space some time soon then, and since the future of television is probably not television (if ya know what I mean), that's likely to speed when that date might occur. I mean if albums are now being released by mobile phones, should Irish TV stations not be viewable on your American cooler?

Can't help thinking about the name though, especially for a business embracing new technologies. Does anyone remember what happened the Dot Com Bubble, often referred to these days as Bubble 1.0?

See also:
    • Irish Radio: 1993
    • Paddy Rock Radio Top 25 CDs
    • U2, That's A Tribute 2U Fran

Feast or Famine: Emigration Assistance

2006-05-30T03:48:00.000-05:00

Once upon an unemployed time, I ran out of Unemployment Benefit and was thus applying for means-based Unemployment Assistance. The Benefit that had run out was based on the social-welfare contributions you made while employed.

Or, you got a lot less on Assistance, and formulas applied to calculate your amount were secret (read: arbitrary). Luckily you could appeal if you disagreed with the amount. You just had to give a basis for appeal.

On this occasion it was determined my weekly amount received would be seven Irish pounds. My basis for appeal went something like this:

I wish to appeal the amount you have determined I am to receive as being sufficient to live on while seeking employment.

I cannot afford to live off the seven pounds you have given me, so I have decided to emigrate to seek work. The cheapest way to leave the country on a one-way ticket is by ferry and train. I should be able to get to England for forty-one pounds.

However because I have to get the bus to town (and back) each week to collect my seven pounds, the bus fare reduces my weekly amount to five-fifty. I could walk the four miles to Werburgh Street, but that would make me hungry and chips from Leo Burdock's are really good but not that cheap. And there'd still be the four miles walk back, so it wouldn't save much.

Anyway, eating anything during the week would only eat into savings for the ferry ticket, so it would likely take longer than eight weeks to save to emigrate. As such I'd like to appeal your determination of seven pounds, and ask that you increase the amount so I can buy a ticket to leave the country

Several weeks later I received the Appeal Officer's decision. My weekly Unemployment Assistance was increased from seven to forty-one pounds. Now why would anyone leave a country that great?

Speaking of emigrating rather than staying and suffering through it, the replica of the famine ship Dunbrody, sets sail today from New Ross for Dublin.

See also:
     • Seeking Employment in Dublin
     • Illegal Irish Immigrants in the USA
     • Interview with Failed Migrant Worker

English Conversations in the American Midwest

2006-05-30T02:15:00.000-05:00

Speaking of things British, you know what I miss leads me to celebrate conversations, well Kansas City based documentary-maker Roldy has been having his own Conversations in the American Midwest. And not once, but twice. Everyone should do this.

See also some Irish Conversations:
     • Leaves Changing Colour
     • Don't Say You're Not American
     • Wind

Flannigin's it is, so

2006-05-30T01:10:00.000-05:00

Speaking of women cavorting alone on beds - speaking to myself you understand - I was thinking of everyone's favourite woman of Joyce, Fionnuala Flanagan. And what was I thinking?

Her surname. That's the standard anglicized spelling of the name, and even in America, give or take doubling the 'n', it's the only spelling I've seen. So what?

Well Cameron Russell, guitarist and vocalist, has confirmed that the band you saw at Stumpy's before The Elders are called FLANNIGIN'S Right Hook:

Actually,it's Flanagan's Right Hook, but everyone on the message boards spells it Flannigin's Right Hook, so since that's what most people are going with we switched over too, so Flannigin's Right Hook it is. And I'm gonna give somebody a right hook if they misspell it again. P.S. might even throw in a left hook too

And why the confusion? Blame the masses, the people, and thank FRH (wish I'd thought of that before) for their expediency.

Bloomsday Under Threat

2006-05-30T00:51:00.000-05:00

Bloomsday, June 16, 1904 - the date of the setting of Ulysses, and celebrated for about seventy years - might be getting a new holiday for a neighbour.

In Britain, Chancellor Gordon Brown recently called for a new day for their national identity, saying the UK needed a day to celebrate "who we are and what we stand for".

In a surprise result of a poll conducted by the BBC History magazine, the anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta has been chosen as the best date to celebrate Britishness.

Chosen by 27%, the anniversary of the Magna Carta proved more popular than the Second World War dates of VE Day or D-Day, or even anything to do with British military history. That constitutional rather than something jingoistic is preferred is as brilliant as it is startling

Magna Carta is a collection of papers which in theory limited the power of the monarch and gave ordinary people rights under common law. It doesn't matter any more that they were largely copied from a charter 100 years older, or how much has been repealed since.

What matters is the date - 15 June, 1215, because by some considerable time this predates the Union that is the United Kingdom, in all its forms. Is it possible when pushed on the question of UK-ness, that its citizens don't actually know who they are and what they stand for?

And because I live in a region of the world infected with a work ethic that causes most of its holidays to be celebrated on the nearest weekend rather than a school night, the date means before heading off to indulge in a keg of fine American beer, while I'm trying to visualize how many thousand miles it is to the nearest snot-green sea, I'll likely have to answer questions on why I am (or am not) celebrating the history of due process and the Bill of Rights.

It's enough to put you off your kidneys.

See also:
     • St George's Day
     • Kansas City's Bloomsday Books
     • Bloomsday in Kansas City

The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology #5

2006-05-29T03:02:00.000-05:00

HGIT #5 - gruaig : hair

See More Of:
The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology
Conversations (Like cartoons, just no pictures)

Loach Irish Film Wins Cannes Big Prize

2006-05-28T14:45:00.000-05:00

Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes The Barley, the film about the Irish War of Independence and following Irish Civil War, has won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Palme d'Or.

Previously nominated seven times for the Palm d'Or, British director Ken Loach has won with what he describes as 'a very little step in the British confronting their imperialist history'. It is for the likes of this that I have maintained Loach is heroic when it comes to making movies.

Focusing on the smaller details rather than, for example, who shot Michael Collins, Loach continues to ground his films in the social realism he has used since before even the fabulous Kes. Reviews on The Wind That Shakes The Barley all have it as even less of a sweeping epic than Loach's excellent Spanish Civil War movie, Land And Freedom

Friend of Kansas City, our Fuchsia Band Man Mairtin from Cork of course had a small part in The Wind That Shakes the Barley with Loach as ever largely favouring relative unknowns. Cillian Murphy is the biggest name in TWTSTB.

The two favourites were Almodovar's Volver, and Inarritu's Babel, which won best screenplay and best director respectively, but the Cannes Film Festival jury has a history of not matching critics' predictions.

As the Cannes Grand Prize winner, will The Wind That Shakes The Barley really not be shown in North America?

See Also:
    • Ken Loach: Movie Making Hero
    • Articles on The Wind That Shakes The Barley
    • The BBC Shakes The Barley
    • Cillian Murphy is not Irish Actor

    • The irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
    • US Irish Film Office, Cannes, and The Tudors
    • Irish Tax Movie Breaks Approved by EC
    • Magical Movie Music Moment

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #14

2006-05-28T09:58:00.000-05:00

-You're doing things different this time
-I know, I even wear shoes most of the time
-But you keep your trousers fastened by a safety pin
-That's to keep my feet on the ground

See also:
     • Rommel
     • Hoffenpurpenburger Day
     • Questions & Answers

Part-time Irish Rock Star Learns Piano

2006-05-28T02:08:00.000-05:00

Speaking of Irish singers and Bamoko, there's a podcast interview by Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics editor, with Mr Bono over in Mali at the moment.

Following last year's Live 8, Bono is checking on, not just the donations from the North, but what the recipient countries in the South are doing with it. He's been getting around on this trip and is largely impressed:

Lesotho - the Mountain Kingdom is a beautiful country that fails to market itself. Yes, don't give a man a fish, give him a fishing rod, but then let him sell you the fish, and teach him to market his fish to you.

Rwanda - blew his mind, not in the way that Beckett did, but because Kigali is a spotless city where people excercise a civic duty to clean their streets. And 995 of the electorate voted. Bono met a Boston entrepreneur who is installing broadband all over the country, which means it will have better coverage than Ireland I imagine.

Tanzania - magical, magical landscapes with an ancient people moving towards a modern era albeit slower than Rwanda. Tanzania makes cotton but would like to be a nation of apparel makers. 1.6 million people are now going to school because of the first round of debt cancellation.

Mali - is also a cotton grower but desperately poor so what hope? Sharp intake of breath because 85% can't read, and very few go to school. Some breaks are happening but not quick enough. 300,000 are working in cotton which affects 3 million, but the country is overwhelmed by fluctuations in the world market which is flooded by American heavily-subsidized cotton. Bono believes the future for Mali is in its relationship with its neighbours.

Nigeria - I.T., along with textiles is the other great industry for the future of Africa. Bono's group brought people from Motorola who want to build, not assemble, build phones in Nigeria. Textiles and Technology are important because they point to the success of India and China

Bono reckons product (RED) will never replace the movement, because it is activism that will change the structural aspect of why 6,500 Africans die every day of a treatable disease.

But what of U2 and music?

Hello, my name is Bono, and I'm a rockstar is how he introduces himself to African kids. For kicks mostly. In reality Bono says he's a part-time rock star, but full-time musician and writer.

Like his teenage days when he worked on a garage (gas station) forecourt filling cars with petrol but dreaming of Saturday and rehearsals with the band, now his activism has him valuing his involvement in music more than ever. Music defines Mr Bono. He is part of the family that houses The Clash and Marvin Gaye.

His daughter's piano teacher has been giving Bono lessons and every lesson he writes a new song. Says he has quite a few, and the lads should be meeting up for the U2 thing they do sometime in June or July.

It's quite a nice interview, so it is.

See Also
    • U2, A Tribute 2U Fran
    • Bono Guest Edits (RED) Independent
    • Voxer & Christie: A Love Story

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #10

2006-05-27T13:12:00.000-05:00

-Hey, you're from Europe, right?
-Yes
-Have you ever eaten their food?
-European food?
-Yes. Don't you think it's weird?
-What do you mean?
-Like the Mediterranean, have you ever been there?
-Yeah
-Places like France and Italy, don't you think they have really weird food?
-Em...
-I mean, how do they eat that stuff? It's not like American food, normal food. I couldn't eat it. Could you?
-I have
-You have? You couldn't have liked it, not like normal food. Don't you think American food is the only nice food?

More Irish Conversations >>

Liam O Maonlai News

2006-05-27T12:26:00.000-05:00

Liam O Maonlai has just updated his site where he lets us know that he too is now spending too much of his life on MySpace. That's social networks for you, and the contagiousness of music.

Mostly Liam is raphsodizing about the amazing Tioumani Diabate, the famous Mali kora player:

Toumani Diabate is coming to Dublin soon. He is one of heavens gifts. I was given a CD of his Kora playing about four years ago by the great Steve Cooney. It is like woven gold and water. He and his protege play kora for the duration of the album. Very simple. No tricks no accompanyment. The Kora does it all.

I have been listening to Tioumani Diabate for twenty years now - it is utterly gorgeous stuff. I'm a little surprised that Liam doesn't mention the very recent sad passing of the other giant of traditional Mali music, Ali Farka Toure.

As you may know from earlier Irish KC posts on O Maonlai, Liam is a great enthusiast of Africa, and talking about Bamako, the city where Toumani Diabate lives this is evident - especially in how he descibes the social aspect of tea-drinking, a subject dear to my own heart:

You can drink a cup of locally brewed tea at any corner as long as you are willing to spend the time. Three cups is a full cycle. A good two hours of company

Go read. I wonder if Liam will feel the same about Kansas City?

See Also
    • Liam at WOMAD Festival in Spain
    • Hothouse Flowers at the Tivoli (incl. Interview
    • Hothouse Flowers in New Zealand & ALT

Celtic Block Party Music

2006-05-27T11:49:00.000-05:00

Just to confirm, with tomorrow's Celtic Block Party at Governor Stumpy's running from 3-9pm, the entertainment starts with Jim Cosgrove at 3:00pm, followed by Fireside, Tullamore, and Flannigin's Right Hook, before The Elders finish the day's music at an estimated 7:00pm.

See earlier Celtic Block Party post for more details.

Handy Irish Phrase: Chomh cinnte is a leanann boige earraigh cuisne geimhridh (As certain as spring softness follows winter ice)

Daniel O'Donnell: He's Coming to Missouri

2006-05-27T06:12:00.000-05:00

You might think of him as a classy Irish tenor; I never have. In five months he'll own Missouri. Right now he's touring the northeast and Canada, and then he squeezes in a nationwide tour of Ireland, a tour of Australia and New Zealand, and one of England, before returning to North America and Branson for five weeks of whatever it is that Daniel does.

I'm telling you now because of this great review in the Ottawa Sun for Daniel's gig last night in Canada. Aside from describing the PBS Hero as a 'classy Irish tenor', Dennis Armstrong uses phrases like:

easy-going pops concert • squeaky-clean entertainer • an oldie-but-golden concert • decked out in a powder-blue suit • schtick of the sentimental Irishman • old-fashioned entertainment and family values • painfully sentimental version • sweet and innocent charm • almost too much sincerity

And on describing his duets with Mary Duff:

Between them, holding hands and smiling, the pair resembled the wedding cake couple and posing, always posing for anyone with a camera

And yet the reporter clearly had a good time - as everybody always does when they go to see Daniel - though he didn't lose his sense of judgment:

Although his stage presence proved unrivalled, O'Donnell's voice was rather light and thin, it went well with his image and the easy-listening band who seemed to be playing just this side of Las Vegas cheese

Last October one of the highlights of my trip home was sitting alone for hours in the cold under a grey sky at the bus station just outside Monaghan.

Such scenes had sent Patrick Kavanagh to Dublin to cheer up, but I was blissfully happy. Earlier I got the bus from Dublin and on the way the driver played, non-stop, Daniel Live in Branson.

You can see Daniel O'Donnell in Branson at the Tri Lakes Theatre almost every night from Oct 30 - Dec 2

See Also
    • Tap Dancer in Scotland Faster than Celtic Tiger
    • Pirate Queen: The Musical
    • Irish Show Folk & Weird Celtic Fox

Irish and British Passports: FIFA Go Mad

2006-05-27T04:12:00.000-05:00

Much more important to Northen Irish football than losing to Romania in the Midwest,is FIFA's announcement that to play for Northern Ireland you must be in possession of a British Passport. Let me just think off the top of my head of some reasons why this is ludicrous:

  • A passport is for travel; it is not necessarily a document declaring exclusive nationality

  • In the citizen sense, there are no countries called England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with matching passports. All are part of a single country that qualify for British passports.

  • You can hold a British passport and be not from Northern Ireland i.e. holding that passport proves you may be from Northen Ireland - or Wales, or England or Scotland.

  • People from Northern Ireland are legally eligible for both Irish and British passports

  • Many players who have played for the Republic of Ireland have held British passports

  • Many players who have played for Spain/Italy/Portugal have held Argentinian/Uruguayan/Brazilian passports

  • Requiring players to hold passports of the nation they represent (even if the nation is actually four distinct footballing nations) goes directly against the Good Friday Agreement and makes Northern Ireland exclusively a British team instead of the dual-cultural British-Irish team it has historically been, and is in reality.

What? Well, it means only Protestants are likely to play for Northern Ireland, with Catholics from the six counties opting for the Republic. Now this has been happening anyway for a few years due to sectarianism at Windsor Park but the IFA were making progress in fixing this.

FIFA has acknowledged - for it has no practical choice - that the four parts of the UK give you only one passport, but it's unable to cope with the one part of Ireland giving you two passports.

Wow! Who would have thought that the politicians of Northern Ireland are actually ahead of anybody on the world stage, even if it just footballing bureaucrats. Simplistic madness, and a dodgy precedent if it sticks - which I doubt.

See Also:
    • Irish Lose: O-Dear, O-dear, O-dear, O-dear
    • Former KC Wizard Joins Irish Legend
    • 1-0 to Arsenal

Northern Ireland Lose in Chicago

2006-05-27T03:12:00.000-05:00

A team called Northern Ireland just played some football in Chicago's Soldier Field. Romania 2 - N.Ireland 0. But just like the Republic's defeat to Chile in Dublin, it doesn't matter. Because it's a friendly. It only matters when you win. Or when you play England.

For anyone reading who's confused that I'm using the word football and not soccer, it's important to know that all games are friendlies, aside from the World Cup finals or your continental federation's finals, and their respective qualifying games. Nothing else matters.

You can make up competitions, make trophies even, and include great teams and great players, but it's all hooey. Even FIFA's own Confederations Cup is hooey.

See Also:
    • Snow Patrol Tempted to Write N.I. Football Song
    • Irish & British Passports: FIFA Go Mad
    • Seats on the Halfway Line

Top 50 Conservative Rock'n'Roll Songs

2006-05-27T02:11:00.000-05:00

Refreshingly, the National Review reminds us that not all Rock'n'Roll is Bruce Springsteen and Mrs McGrath. Yes, much of it is actually conservative - from the Crickets to the Beach Boys, the Beatles to the Stones, and the Sex Pistols to Metallica.

Encore: And There's More: Another 50 Songs

Two Irish acts make the list of the 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs. And of all time no less - though I don't see any from the 1340s. At #41 is The Icicle Melts, by Limerick's own Cranberries with vocals of course by the thinking man's crumpet, Dolores o'Riordan. That was thoughtless of me.

And unavoidably, U2 are in the top 10 with Gloria at #6, the latin doing the business for them. Of course they could've chosen dozens of U2 anthems, but NR said they were trying to cast their net wide. These right wing religious types are always laying it on with the fishing metaphors.

I've decided this time to not claim as Irish, the Beatles (Lennon and McCartney, I mean hey), the Sex Pistols (Where do you think Johnny Rotten learned to talk like that?), Led Zepellin (for influencing pipers, Irish and Scottish) or a group at #36 with Government Cheese. Yes it's Kansas City's own Rainmakers:

A protest song against the welfare state by a Kansas City band that deserved more success than it got. The first line: Give a man a free house and he’ll bust out the windows

See also:
   • Immigration: The Economics View
   • Irish Immigrants and Bad Birds
   • Irish Place Names and Illegals
   • Bobby Sands

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #13

2006-05-26T17:08:00.000-05:00

-I just think that it's wrong for a society where having divorced parents is the norm
-But surely the fact that divorce is so common, and accepted by society, has to be a good thing because it means that nobody, especially the children, ends up being treated like lepers?
-Apart from the lepers, you mean?

See Also:
    • Disparaging Remarks
    • Leaves Changing Colour
    • All Irish Conversations

The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology #4

2006-05-26T06:09:00.000-05:00

HGIT #4 - madra : dog

Despite now using full feeds, subscribers will likely need to click on through to see the latest cartoon:

See all of:
HGIT: The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology

Claddagh Irish Pub to open in 2007

2006-05-26T03:16:00.000-05:00

The Kansas City Star is reporting that the Claddagh Irish Pub is scheduled to open in the spring or summer of 2007 at the Cornerstone of Leawood, a 360,000-square-foot retail and office complex under development. I think people are bigger in Leawood, so that's not as much space as it sounds.

Aiden is Very Popular in Kansas

2006-05-26T02:45:00.000-05:00

The Irish name Aiden tops the most popular names for baby boys in Kansas, for the second year running. Connor also makes the top 25 list of boys names, coming in at number 7. The lists of boys and girls names are compiled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and they aggregate names with alternate spellings, so for example if you called your baby Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh it was added into the count for Mick

The lists are compiled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, from birth certificates. Strictly speaking the lists refer to babies born to Kansas residents. You could be an immigrant, even an illegal one. Perhaps a whole bunch of illegal Irish immigrants are poisoning lists of good American names.

Enter The Haggis & Soapbox Heroes - Listen

2006-05-25T21:53:00.000-05:00

So I've been listening to some of Enter The Haggis' brand new CD, Soapbox Heroes. Track 3, New Monthly Flavour has been available on MySpace for some time now, and if you like Jethro Tull and early Genesis, the chances are you have an older sister. Get a new sister.

Honestly, Prog Rock might have been progressive in 1973, but in the 21st century it's regressive, so get yourself a new sister. I get one every couple of months.

But anyway, back to Enter the Haggis and Soapbox Heroes, or specifically New Monthly Flavour. I'm getting worried because my favourite parts are the pipes, and you're not supposed to like pipes in rock music. I remember being similarly worried when I found myself liking Freedom by Wham!. Perhaps it's the bus driver

New Monthly Flavour is a big explosive, but polished, celtic sound that ETH are getting better and better at. I'm not really sure how you play a small venue when you have such a big sound, but I guess U2, Led Zeppelin, Runrig, and other bands that make you laugh have managed it.

See also:
    • Enter The Haggis play Kansas City
    • U2, a Tribute 2U, Fran
    • Enter the Haggis on Irish KC

Chicago Gaelic Park Irish Fest 2006

2006-05-25T20:30:00.000-05:00

Irish Fest, the Memorial Day Weekend Festival at Chicago Gaelic Park is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

It's a festival with four days of music and five stages, so there should be something for evryone in the audience. Everyone Irish that is.

Music is provided by the Saw Doctors, Tommy Makem, Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul, The Fenians, Black 47, the Clumsy Lovers, Enter the Haggis, Gaelic Storm, and quite a few more. Of course there's dancers and exhibits and Irish stories and all kinds of funky Irish things, not least having a festival on a school night.

However, the Irish Fest part of the Chicago Gaelic Park website is one of those that looks great but performs terribly - when it doesn't crash your browser - so I'm not going there again. You can though.

Nonetheless the festival is the place to go for music if you're in Chicago this Memorial Day Weekend. If you're in Kansas City, Governor Stumpy's Celtic Block Party is the place to go, unless you're going to Atchison, Kansas for the music at the River Bend Art Festival.

And if you happen to be in Ireland, well the Goo Goo Dolls at the Ambassador, or the Festival International de la Chanson Francophone presentation at the Royal Irish Academy of Music appeal to me.

See also:
    • Enter the Haggis in Kansas City
    • Kansas City Scottish festival
    • Other Irish Festivals

The Driving Range

2006-05-25T15:40:00.000-05:00

-Smack d'arse off it
[whack]
-Ah feck it
-You're hookin' it sham
-What d'ya reckon Pandas?
-I reckon you're hookin' it alright
-Do it like this Mickser. See it's goin' ta roll anyway, there's no need to lift it so high
[whack]
-Nice shot
-The usual, ya know
-Well Pandas, what I am not doing that Stalóg is?
-You've got your legs further apart
-You know you might be right
[whack]
-And you're hooking it
-Ah feck it
-Look Mick, swing naturally
[whack]
-See, another perfect one - except I can't seem to get the distance
-Heard ya didn't seem to get the distance last Thursday night
-Listen Pandas-Can't-Swim, I got more bleedin' distance than you've ever been
-Don't - you're putting Mickser off his hook
[whack]
-Ah feck it
-Change clubs sham
-Where's the point? I'm crap, amn't I Pandas?
-You're pretty bad alright, yeah
-Pandas, you should hit a few
-Nah, not for me. I'm happy enough watching
-You should try out the practice green
-What for?
-To practice
-But I don't play the game
-But ya might
-I won't
-Ya might
[whack]
-Ah feck it
-Anyone going to the video tonight?
-I am
-What about you Mickser?
-Nah, I'm going to that comedy thing with The Bush
-He's not going either then?
-You know he never goes; he doesn't like the small screen
[whack]
Ah feck it anyway
-But that was perfect, no hook at all
-That's the problem. If they all hooked I could aim over there
-Go on Pandas, just hit a couple out of my bucket
-I told you I don't like the game
-Why not?
-I've never seen anyone enjoy it
-We enjoy it
-No yehs don't. Look at Mickser - are you enjoying this?
-Well not today, no

See also, if you're a glutton for punishment:
    • Questions & Answers
    • A Prison Interview with Philo
    • All Conversations on Irish KC

Right Hooks from Flannagin and Finnigin

2006-05-25T14:31:00.000-05:00

If you read the same papers as I do, you have a ready supply of brown paper bags.

Actually I'm talking about posters and ads. This Sunday's 4th Annual Celtic Block Party has Finnagin's Right Hook on the bill, and I deliberately left them off because I believed they were called Flannigin's Right Hook.

I'm not actually any wiser now, but you can certainly expect a Right Hook from somebody in Waldo on Sunday. Reading around the various music boards and websites, my vote goes to Flannagin. Or Flannigin.

Irish Music in Stereo

2006-05-25T12:31:00.000-05:00

Recently I've enjoyed watching Sullivan's John being performed by Eddie Delahunt and Gabriel Reyes. With both of them playing the bodhran for the tune, if you focus your eyes on the space in between and equidistant from both bodhrans, you can then watch (albeit out of focus) both playing arms, Eddie's and Gabe's, move in that synchonized way that Irish dancers or synchronized swimmers do.

In fact, if you focus on Friday, you can watch Eddie play simultaneously on Wednesday and on Sunday, albeit out of focus.

Irish KC Feeds

2006-05-25T04:52:00.000-05:00

-Would you like a Partial Irish Breakfast?
-No thanks, I'm partial

Partial to what, you may well ask. A Partial Belly, Partial Spectrum of Events, Partial-Scale Assault, Partial Disclosure, Partial Metal Jacket, The Partial Shilling, Partial Circle, Partial Throttle, Partial On, and The Partial Monty.

Due to popular demand by demanding, yet popular, subscribers, Irish KC has now switched from partial feeds to full feeds, both Atom and RSS. And you try saying that after a full feed of pints.

Irish Lose: O Dear, O-dear O-dear O-dear

2006-05-25T03:25:00.000-05:00

Before Jack Charlton invented Irish football, Ireland had a tremendous record at home. We went thirteen years unbeaten at Lansdowne in competitive games, and the day we lost it those of us at the game enjoyed it enormously, even though we were beaten 4-1. But why? you ask.

Against Denmark, in our last qualifying game for the 1986 World Cup we no longer could qualify for, the result meant little to us beyond our usual pride, but Denmark needed to win to top the group. I recall they had maybe five thousand fans at the game.

We were losing 2-1 when an accountant by the name of John Sivebaek ran with the ball diagonally the full length of the pitch towards me in my corner of the South Terrace, and then he shot a looping chip shot diagonally into the far corner.

It was such an impressive goal that Manchester United bought Sivebaek and always looked back. Lansdowne was abuzz. Watching Ireland lose is generally sickening, and 3-1 down at home unthinkable, but the whole ground was aware that the tour operator who had transported the Danes to Ireland had offered them a refund should Denmark win by three clear goals.

As Soren Lerby was substituted and flown immediately to Munich to come on for the second half of a German cup game, his Danish colleagues were cheered on by Irish and Danes alike, and everybody had a party when the fourth goal was duly scored.

The reverse feeling of that unusal occasion happened for me at the 1998 World Cup Finals in France. Chile were playing Austria. Hans Krankl was a great player, but nobody on the planet likes Austrians. Not even Austrians like Austrians. Meanwhile Chile had Zamorano and Salas, the two best looking footballers in the competition. And Chilean fans had the best songs. And I was sitting among thousands of them.

1-0 up the unfancied Chile were one minute from victory as the gorgeous sounds of Vamos, Vamos Chilenos filled the French stadium. One of the best photographs I never took was of thousands of flag and jersey bedecked Chileans with their faces fully painted after just conceding a goal in the final seconds of a World Cup game. They all kind of looked like clowns wearing downward painted smiles. My finger twitched on my camera, but I didn't have the heart to photograph them in their misery.

I was on the phone twice to Dublin yesterday and both times my callers reminded me that Ireland were playing Chile. Until Jack Charlton sucked the imagination out of Irish football I once didn't miss a game for ten years. Chile is a game I would have liked being at. I mean, you might get to hear Vamos Chilenos.

We lost. 1-0. It was a friendly. Despite FIFA rankings it doesn't really matter. Steve Staunton should not be attacked for that. He should be attacked for speaking exclusively in football cliches. But that's a different blogpost.

See Also:
    • Seats on the Halfway Line
    • Irish Attention for Johnson County Soccer
    • 1-0 to Arsenal

The Bagpipes in Kansas City: Charlie

2006-05-24T19:49:00.000-05:00

My first time was on Oak, by 51st. The 51 bus was parked nearby. Second time was the Plaza. I noticed there was a bus close by. And there was the parking lot by 74th and Wornall. The Max was alongside on Broadway, due to depart in 18 minutes.

His name is Charlie. He's a bus driver and he plays the bagpipes during bus layovers. Oak is where I mostly see him, though I really like listening to the pipes in the dark. The first time I saw him actually step off the bus with his pipes was so great as I realized it really was the bus driver who was playing them.

Even though I haven't seen (or heard) a bus driver at home play the bagpipes, it still reminds me of home because of so many things that bus drivers there do, even though they may not be in the job description.

Me, my life + infrastruture has a photo of Charlie in action, which I found through Tony's Kansas City, who shares his own memory. But forget our websites, and go catch a bus.

See also:
    • Majoring in Bagpipes
    • John McSherry: Uilleann Piper
    • Kansas City Scottish Festival

Children for Peace in Ireland: Mini Irish Fest

2006-05-24T11:57:00.000-05:00

A 'Mini Irish Fest' entitled a Celebration of Ireland, on Saturday, June 3, is a benefit fundraiser concert for Children for Peace in Ireland

Headlined by The Elders, it also features Bob Reeder, Rob Gavin & Flannigan’s Right Hook

W.J. McBride’s (Overland Park) (Under the 'Big Top')
Saturday, June 3, 2006
Begins at 4:00 pm

Admission: $10.

Tickets available at:
    • W.J. McBride’s - Overland Park, KS
    • Sheehan’s Irish Imports - Kansas City, MO
    • Doherty & Sullivan Irish Goods - Lee's Summit, MO

Children for Peace in Ireland, Inc. is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to promoting peace in Ireland through the education and inspiration of children.

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #12

2006-05-24T05:58:00.000-05:00

-Excuse me ladies
-Excuse me ladies, me arse
-What time is it?
-Three, ten after, just turned
-Have you found me a route yet?
-No. You're going to get hopelessly lost
-Oh don't say that, jaze
-Ok. You're going to get hopefully lost

See other conversations:
    • Voxer & Christie: A Love Story
    • Don't Say You're Not American
    • All Irish Conversations

Snow Patrol Start North American Tour

2006-05-24T05:13:00.000-05:00

Snow Patrol started a 20-date North American tour last night in Denver.

Eyes Open, the follow-up to the hugely succesful Final Straw album, came out earlier this month opening at No. 1 in the British charts. It was recorded in a cottage in Dingle, Eddie Delahunt's old stomping ground, and I'm all out of stomping jokes. But Kate Bush previously stomped, I mean recorded, in that cottage too.

So what? Well it's a very strong album. It almost seems too good. I like my angst-ridden romance to slant more to the angst side than the romance. That said, in six months the world might well be saying, Coldplay? Who the hell are they?

Snow Patrol are not scheduled to come to Kansas City or Lawrence, as far as I know, but they are scheduled to play Marley Park in Dublin when I'm scheduled to be at home, so ha-ha, I can go, you can't. Unless you're reading this in Dublin.

I was reading recently about a version of John Lennon track Isolation they recorded as part of an Amnesty campaign to raise awareness of the problems facing war-torn Sudan, so be aware. According to the Belfast Telegraph however, you won't catch Snow Patrol writing any political songs about Northern Ireland:

Snow Patrol have revealed that the only song they would ever be tempted to write about Northern Ireland would be a football anthem. The band, who are all supporters of the Northern Ireland football team, said they would consider penning a song for the squad if they reached the World Cup

Gerry Armstrong and 1982 seems so long ago - although not as long ago as Big Pat being able to do nothing about Josimar in 1986.

See Also:
    • U2, A Tribute 2U Fran
    • The Fall at the Record Bar
    • Snow Patrol: In From The Cold

Nelly Don Movie: More Showings

2006-05-24T03:10:00.000-05:00

Terence O'Malley's movie Nelly Don: A Stitch in Time about the Kansas City's legendary Irish-American business woman, is just running and running.

The Screenland in downtown Kansas City has added the following showings (see Events Calendar):
  • May 26 Friday - 5:00pm
  • May 27 Saturday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, & 5:00pm
  • May 28 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
  • Cillian Murphy: Not an Irish Actor
  • The Irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
  • All Movie News on Irish KC

Irish Attention for Johnson County Soccer

2006-05-24T02:20:00.000-05:00

Aother reason why the Wizards should hurry up and move across the State Line, is that soon the people of Johnson County will be watching other species play soccer, if the Kansas City Wizards don't get their act together.

I used to work on a racecourse in Ireland, where it's impossible not to love the horses. And in England and Ireland I've attended thousands of professional soccer games, where things go beyond love. However combining those two loves is not something that's ever occurred to me.

Horse soccer has however occurred to a Johnson County ranch, and Irish radio has already done the interview. I'm reminded of Irish sports writer Con Houlihan and how he would refer to elephants dancing. It's not that they do it well, but that they do it at all. I'm reminded of that when I sit at Arrowhead

See Also:
    • 1-0 to Arsenal
    • Seats at the Halfway Line
    • The Wizards in Kansas

Immigrants More Likely To Start A Business

2006-05-24T01:49:00.000-05:00

Immigrants were much more likely than native-born Americans to start a business last year. So says a national survey by the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Before we get too proud of the local based-foundation, the state of Missouri has one of the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activity, coming in at number 46. Given the limitations in law on business behaviour for legal immigrants, I'm not sure what any of this means, if anything.

Handy Irish Phrase: Is iad ná muca ciúine a itheas an mhin (It is the quiet pigs that eat the meal)

See Also:
    • Irish Immigrants and Bad Birds
    • Irish Placenames and Illegals
    • Kansas Irish to go Home
    • Other Immigration Issues

Phelps Makes Irish News

2006-05-24T01:17:00.000-05:00

If ever a man protested too much, it's Fred Phelps. Kansas' loveable Reverend has made the Irish news, you know. And it's not for disliking Irish poets. Or Sweden. Now I have to explain this when I go home.

Five people face criminal charges after a weekend confrontation with members of a Kansas church group that pickets military funerals because it believes US casualties in Iraq are a sign of God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality

And just for Fred, check out:
    • Beautiful Day Mr Beckett
    • Understanding God Took Quickly in Topeka
    • The Commitments: Magical Movie Music

Happy Birthday Luka Bloom

2006-05-23T19:51:00.000-05:00

Luka Bloom, influential singer/songwriter of the Irish music world - he's a bogman - is 51 today. Baby Barry has come a long way since, and not all of it on his acoustic motorbike. Happy Birthday sir.

This weekend gone Luka finished his 2006 US tour and returns to Ireland where his next gig is in glamourous County Meath for a Jazz festival. Before an extensive tour of Germany in the autumn Luka will of course return briefly to the US when he includes the Kansas City Irish Festival.

Personally I think what Luka does with a guitar is timeless - listen to Cold Comfort - and his songs one day will be sung by all those blokes upstairs in carpeted Irish pubs who have been singing Simon & Garfunkel tunes for, oh, thirty years now. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

See also other Luka Bloom entries:
   • Not Just an Irish Folk Singer
   • Luka Bloom & Christy Moore
   • All Luka Bloom posts on Irish KC

Irish Singer First to Launch Mobile Album

2006-05-23T17:21:00.000-05:00

An Irish singer-songwriter from Kilkenny, Majella Murphy, has become the first artist to launch an entire album exclusively on a mobile phone. It must mean either U2 fell asleep listening to their iPods, or Bono is in Africa.

Majella has pre-loaded her debut album Brave New World onto the Sony Ericsson Z530i, which will be made available exclusively from O2 Ireland. Both Sony Ericsson and O2 are understandably tickled by their association with this technological development:

This marks an exciting time for the collaboration of music and mobile phones. Partnering with mobile technology provides a vital opportunity for gifted artists such as Majella to connect with audiences in new and more immediate ways

Majella Murphy's music is a kind of thoughtful pop, which means she's a singer-songwriter with a producer from America.

And what is a Z530i when it's at home? I'm told it's one of those clamshell camera phones with music player and PC connectivity no less. I miss vinyl. You could hold music when it was vinyl, just like you could hold a woman, or a you could hold a sandal.

The BBC check out the Kansas City Wizards

2006-05-23T16:34:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to gauge pre-World Cup fever here in the US, the BBC sent somebody to watch an MLS game, and chose our very own Wizards. Alas it was at D.C. they watched them so we don't get a report on Arrowhead.

Perhaps echoing my rant of Little Difference #2 Jamie Coomarasamy finds things rather family-oriented:

As the minutes ticked towards kick-off at the top-of-the-table clash between DC United and the Kansas City Wizards, the atmosphere at the RFK Stadium was closer to that of a school fete than that of any professional football game I have ever attended

And there's more

Irish Minister Lobbies in US for Illegal Irish

2006-05-23T12:01:00.000-05:00

The Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern seems to not be on the same wavelength as his President. Because although she sees no reason to give special treatment to the undocumented Irish in the US, Ahearn is traveling to the US today as part of final efforts to ensure up to 50,000 undocumented Irish can remain there.

Some say that figure of 50,000 undocumented is really only 25,000, but nobody seems to have the documentation to back up their figures.

The Irish minister is scheduled to meet a whole bunch of American politicans including Senator John McCain, and do you think he's lobbying on behalf of 12 million latinos?

Handy Irish Phrase: Chomh te teolaí le hubh i dtóin circe (As warm and comfortable as an egg in a hen¹s behind)

See also:
    • No One Gets Upset With the Irish On St Patrick's
    • Green, White, & Red Apples
    • Sharpie Time For Irish Flags
    • All Immigration Posts

USA & Ireland: Little Differences #3

2006-05-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

ROBINS

Dennis Hopper with an oxygen mask. A sliced off ear. A naked battered Isabella Rosellini. A beautiful heart attack with a small dog attacking the jet of water from a hose in a dying hand. A candy colored clown they call the sandman.

What might bother you most about Blue Velvet, if you're like me, is not the horror of Frank Booth, but the Robins. Because nobody told me American Robins and European Robins were different birds.

I mean really different. Not like Jays. The Blue Jay, very common here in Kansas City, is obviously the same bird as the Eurasian Jay. But more common. And a lot less shy. And bluer.

Last time I saw a Jay at home I was up the Wicklow mountains on a bicycle, and that was the first time in years. I had a visitor from Ireland here in KC some time back that was very eager to see a Blue Jay. They're everywhere, I pointed out helpfully. They're the large blue ones, I added.

And for several days Blue Jays swung and arced in front of her face, yet she never noticed them. Until one day in the late October sunshine, she gestured at a bird, and told me that was a Blue Jay, wasn't it?

No, I said, the pitch black bird on the polystyrene gravestone not twenty feet away in somebody's front garden, is actually a raven. A plastic raven. Though it is also in the crow family. Plastic notwithstanding.

But anyway, Robins. The European Robin, is a plump little flycatcher, about the size of a sparrow who has pigged out on some turkey, if you know what I mean. He has a clear red breast, demarcated by a soft grey line. A red breast. Not reddish. Not a hint of red. Not rusty. Red. No messin'.

Like most suburbanites, he and his missus are very territorial, and will fight other Robins that come into their patch. Their territory is little more than one or two suburban gardens. Despite being feisty with other birds, European Robins are very friendly with people.

My friend's parents feed a pair of Robins in their kitchen. From their hands. The Robins are called Jimmy and Jamie. Nobody knows the difference, so the rules are that you call the first one that comes into the kitchen Jimmy, regardless of gender.

Most Robins nest year round, but much like humans, a gang of females typically head down to Spain for the Winter. Torremolinos or the Costa del Sol probably, where they doubtless do the chicken dance with Spanish birds until the morning birdsong. And being such loveable, confident, independent, and red, no messin', birds, the Robin finds himself a symbol of Christmas with his portrait painted for cards, and his wife stuffed to decorate the tree.

The American Robin, on the other hand, is a Thrush. A big old scruffy hang around in large groups Thrush. With gray kinda brown back, and a darker kinda black but not, head. And with a reddish breast not clearly delineated, at best described as dull red. Dull. Already you're thinking of Christmas aren't you?

Its scientific name is Turdus Migratorius, and there's a joke in there somewhere. So what happened? Well, some British pilgrims got on a boat to America, and the first thing they saw with red in the New World, they called a Robin. On that basis they would've renamed a Corvette a Robin Reliant. Supposedly the colonists missed the Robin so much, that they brought millions of sparrows and starlings to North America, but not one Robin.

I've seen another Robin in Asia. The Siberian Blue Robin just looks like a European Robin that's been photoshopped. Think Elvis singing Blue Christmas

I know it's only a little difference, but when I saw the Robin that wasn't a Robin in Blue Velvet, well it frightened me. What a great ending I thought, the bird is clearly an evil imposter - which it was, but I was thinking more Alfred Hitchcock than Big Bird.

See Also: Other Little Differences

The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology #3

2006-05-23T04:57:00.000-05:00

HGIT #3 - bád : boat

See all strips of:
The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology

U2, That's A Tribute 2U Fran

2006-05-23T03:02:00.000-05:00

It is 1979 in Dublin. You have just become a teenager. You are too young to get into the TV Club or McGonagles. You cannot get to see any of Dublin's groups that you listen to every day on pirate radio.

You are at school. The lads from Inchicore are ranting about one group. They go into the Dandelion Market on Saturdays where you don't have to be over eighteen. They love U2. They use the word love when nobody uses the word love. You think U2 are okay. For a local band. But not good enough to go to the only gigs you would be allowed at.

You prefer DC Nein, The Atrix, Berlin, the Teen Commandments, the Resistors, and Sacre Bleu. Those are the names you scribble on your folders and your copybooks. You even prefer, god love you, Rocky DeValera and whatever he was calling his band. You are excited by local bands. You don't know why they have German and French names but you like them. U2 have a German name also but you think they are only okay.

You listen to U2 live on one of your favourite pirate stations. You agree with the choice of the listeners who vote to choose the first single. You don't vote yourself. You like Out of Control quite a lot, especially for an okay band.

You are in school and the teacher is late. You are listening to the lads talking up U2. But The Atrix, you respond because it is a local debate. And The Radiators from Space, you add, not knowing Phil Chevron will move on to greater glory with The Pogues in several years.

Then you realize the argument is not local. The lads are not talking Dublin; they are talking international. They are equating U2 with bands that have made it. She's So Modern and Rat Trap have been huge hits. You like the Rats. That's making it. Compared to that, you know U2 are crap.

One of the boys is most vocal. He is not even from Inchicore. Fran is from your neighbourhood. How can he be from your neighbourhood and talk so enthusiastically. About anything, let alone a local band. It is a time of begrudgery in a city of begrudgers. You like begrudgery. You don't like hype. And then he does it. Fran proclaims U2 to be about to become the greatest and biggest band in the world.

He is thirteen and in a classroom. If he was in a pub you would allow such nonsense, but it is two years before you can lie to barmen and indulge in such talk. So you ridicule him. Everybody in the class not from Inchicore ridicules him, but you lead the charge. Fran shuts up.

This is not a normal teenage discussion or fight. No other band is ever proclaimed the greatest anything in the world. By anybody. You are a teenager, and most things are crap. You think everybody knows this. You don't understand Fran.

You and Fran somehow go through several years of school without ever hanging out together. The longest conversation you ever have again is three years later on a football pitch when you score a goal to put the school B team ahead against the A team. Fran, alone of the opposition comes over to you and congratulates you. In the second half his A team score seven goals without reply. Fran plays well. He is much better than you, but loses his place to you when the school then votes for the team.

It is four years after you leave school. You are on a football pitch. It is not a soccer pitch this time, but a Gaelic pitch. You are in Croke Park. You were there two years earlier also. For the same reason. Sixty-thousand other people are there also. You were close the night before too, outside on your bicycle.

It is four years after you leave school. It is two years after Wembley and Live Aid. It is two years after the Rolling Stone magazine has declared U2 the Band of the 80s, and the band that matters most, maybe the only band that matters. It is two months after U2 have become only the fourth band ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Across that cover are the words Rock's Hottest Ticket.

You were sitting in the upper Cusack Stand but didn't like the sound bouncing off the end, so you went down to the pitch. You crossed the halfway line. You are now close enough to see good without having to join in the air-punching fists or to fight sweaty bodies. U2 are on stage and Dublin is singing. U2 are an international band. They have made it. And six feet in front of you, for the first time since leaving school, you see Fran.

You think back on the last eight years and the words Sorry about that are on your lips, but you are a dipstick. And you are embarassed. You go back to the Upper Cusack unseen, where the bouncing sound doesn't seem so bad. You never see Fran again.

On Saturday, June 24, you can hear 2U-- A Tribute to the music of U2 at the Record Bar in Kansas City's Westport. I've no idea what it'll be like, but it better be funny.

See Also:
    • Bono Guest Edits (RED) Independent
    • Voxer & Christie: A Love Story
    • Bono Watch at Irish KC

I love Unionists, or at least, their music

2006-05-23T00:31:00.000-05:00

It has been suggested that I'm unfair to Unionists, and favour music represented by the Green third of the Irish flag.

It's probably related to my comments on Gregory Campbell on Michael Flatley, and on Ian Paisley saying no, but I want it on the record that three of my favourite bands are Orange Juice, Agent Orange, and Tangerine Dream.

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #11

2006-05-22T17:24:00.000-05:00

-Am I wasting my time with him?
-Well if you are you're not wasting very much of it
-We've got nothing to talk about, and that's bad because he can about nothing until there's nothing to talk about
-I know what you mean
-I left him strumming his guitar and breaking wind to the sounds of Wet Wet Wet

More Irish Conversations

Uncensored Cinema

2006-05-22T15:48:00.000-05:00

Since we're talking alot about movies these days, you might be interested in Uncensored Cinema, a FREE series offering early sound film before the 'Hollywood Code', that continues this spring at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Curated by Rockhurst University’s Michael Fabrizio, the series presents movies made during a brief period in the early ’30s when Hollywood writers, directors and producers were allowed to deal openly with violent, sexual and religious themes.

Films are shown at 2 p.m. on Sundays at the museum.

On June 25 (see Calendar) you can see the fourth film in the series, Personal Maid (1931), a movie where a poor Irish girl (Nancy Carroll) becomes a maid for a wealthy family; soon sexual sparks are flying. With Gene Raymond and Pat O’Brien; co-directed by Monta Bell and Lother Mendes.

See Also: All Movie News on Irish KC

Around the World and Mind the Dresser

2006-05-22T12:51:00.000-05:00

In the Irish world away from Kansas City:

   • The big sporting news is Munster's European rugby glory, which in golf contributed to Ireland's Darren Clarke not winning the Irish Open at Maynooth - the grounds of which I used to cycle the perimeter regularly, it being only a few miles from home.

   • You know Irish KC likes ~~football~~ soccer, so Belfast Airport being renamed after legendary Irish footballer George Best is good news. If you grew up in Ireland in the sixties and seventies, George Best was the first footballer's name you ever sang. Gratuitous Best quote: In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life

   • Gerry Adams said hey Ian, let's form a government, you be the leader, since your DUP is the biggest party, and Martin McGuinness of our party Sinn Fein can be deputy first minister. Shockingly Paisely said no.

   • Irish KC can never get enough of immigration news and was surprised to see the Kansas City Star (well okay, the AP) catch up with an Irish story of immigration I've been following this last week, where Dublin's St Patrick's Cathedral was occupied by hunger-striking Afghan immigrants demanding asylum. Ireland said no. Or at least no special treatment.

Irish Film Office to Open in US

2006-05-22T10:50:00.000-05:00

Speaking of the Cannes Film Festival, the Irish Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, yesterday launched the Irish Pavilion there and confirmed that a new Irish film office will open in LA in September. Even better news was the new tax initiatives which should be a real boost for the Irish Film Industry.

Some of the cast of The Wind That Shakes The Barley were in attendance. Although the Irish Civil War film is where most attention for Irish film is focused at Cannes, there are 13 other Irish films selling in the market there including Paul Mercier's Studs starring Brendan Gleeson, Mark Hammond's Johnny Was and Patrick Kenny's Winter's End. Films by John Boorman and Paddy Breathnach are currently in production.

It would be remiss not to note that at the moment the great Italian director Nanni Moretti has jumped to the head of the favourites for the Palme D'or, ahead of Pedro Almodovar. You never know with a jury but the buzz of the Barley is less than it was.

Meanwhile in Dublin today a major US television series begins shooting. Showtime's The Tudors, stars our friend Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Myers about the early years of Henry VIII. As well as Dublin the series will be shot in studios in Wicklow, stomping ground of The Elders' Ian Byrne. If you go there you can even see where he stomped. Weighed down with a washboard he left quite a mark.

See Also:
    • The irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
    • Ken Loach: Movie Making Hero
    • Actor Who is Irish is not Irish Actor
    • Articles on The Wind That Shakes The Barley
    • Colin Farrell for Woody Allen London Movie
    • Irish Tax Movie Breaks Approved by EC
    • KC Filmmakers Jubilee: Razor Fish
    • Magical Movie Music Moment
    • Colin Farrell in a Cardigan

Nelly Don Book

2006-05-22T09:51:00.000-05:00

Speaking of Terrance O'Malley's Nelly Don movie, I finally got my hands on the companion book over the weekend, and it's a beautiful piece with tons of great illustrations and photos.

Here in Kansas City you can purchase the book from:

   • Bloomsday Books
   • Rainy Day Books
   • Spivey's Rare Books
   • Prospero's Books
   • The Nelson-Atkins Museum
   • The KC Art Institute
   • Jackson County Historical Society

and on-line at NellyDon.com.

River Bend Art Fair

2006-05-22T08:23:00.000-05:00

The 41st River Bend Art Fair takes place this coming Memorial Day Weekend Saturday and Sunday at the Downtown Atchison Mall, Kansas, May 27th and 28th 10:00am to 5:00pm

Along with over 60 artists showing, there is a full schedule of music and entertainment including many folk/celtic music acts from the Kansas City region.

Music on Saturday includes Scottish singer Hazel Whyte, Celtic and Americana Fiddle music from Tenley Hansen & Michael Frazer, Celtic folk music from Tullamore, and Scottish and Irish music from Glenfinnan. Music on Sunday includes Irish balladeer Tom Meehan.

Also there will be a session during/after the artist reception and dinner on Saturday evening (5:30) which is open to anyone who wants to play some Irish/Celtic/Americana/Old Timey music.

With plenty for the kids too, the River Bend Fair sounds like a great time and a perfect opportunity to visit Atchison.

Music Schedule

Saturday May 27
10:00 am The Carlsons (Don, Mim, and Ralph)- Old Time and Americana
11:00 am Hazel Whyte - Scottish and American Ballads
12:00 n Tenley Hansen & Michael Frazer - Celtic and Americana Fiddle
1:00 pm Mark Twain's Dog - Acoustic Folk
1:30 pm Kaw Valley Shape Note Singers (In the Squire Building)
2:00 pm The Kahlers (Charese and Steve) - Acoustic Folk
3:00 pm Tullamore - Celtic pub tunes and songs
4:00 pm Glenfinnan - Celtic influenced folk rock

Sunday May 28
11:00 am Tom Meehan - Irish Ballads
12:00 n Chuck Pulliam - Acoustic Folk
1:00 pm David Hakan - Acoustic Folk
2:00 pm Kasey Rausch - Acoustic Americana/country and Folk
3:00 pm Konza Swamp Band - Acoustic Americana/bluegrass and folk
4:00 pm Kathy Forste - Swink - Acoustic Folk and Folk rock

More information is available from the Atchison Art Association

Kansas City Irish Post 500

2006-05-21T19:42:00.000-05:00

In the short life of this Kansas City website, we have now reached the 500th post.

That means there's an awful lot of drivel on here and only a small amount of it is highlighted in the sidebar as a Most Popular Entry or in a category, like the Irish Conversations, which you'll know stems from what I miss about Ireland - because you've read all the FAIQ.

For the rest you'd have to go digging through the archives. March for instance was dominated by St Patrick's Day and all the events related, but it includes some things like the Paddy Rock Radio Top 25 CDs which don't yet have a category for a home.

April continued the reviews of things like Celtic Music News, though at times it's barely disguised nostalgia, as are my news reactions which also don't have a category - unless they're related to Immigration issues, American or Irish.

Irish politics, in the form of the 1916 Rising, is for now in the sidebar, as are the Irish shows that we inflict on the world, god forgive us. Some people, like Ivor Cutler, Michael McGlynn, Bobby Sands, Damien Mulley and Mark E Smith are just homeless. For now.

This month saw the introduction of drawings, for now concentrated in Eddie Delahunt's section, and the beginning of a new Kansas City Irish cartoon strip The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology

Meanwhile reorganizing will continue whilst the new version of the site is in development, and all of it should help with finding your way around. Until then click away, get lost, and don't worry about it - navigation is organic. Oh, and tonight has barely started.

Thanks for stopping by.

McDonagh Play for Unicorn Theatre

2006-05-21T12:53:00.000-05:00

The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, will lead off The Unicorn Theatre's 2006-2007 season. Previously the Unicorn have staged McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Cripple of Inishmaan.

We call McDonagh Irish because we want him to be. For some years now he himself seems to be happy with the description of 'Anglo-Irish', which makes more sense for a playwright born and brought up in London.

With Irish parents and all those summer trips to Galway though, he has managed to inherit JM Synge's Irish world without having to go through what Synge did when Playboy of the Western World was first staged 100 years ago.

That said, The Pillowman is a different kind of play to the Aran Island and Leenane award-laden trilogies, owing perhaps more to Beckett than Synge, even if Beckett himself drew from Synge. The Pillowman runs from August 30-September 24, 2006.

See Also
    • Bloomsday 2006 in Kansas City
    • Irish poet Desmond Egan attacked by Fred Phelps
    • Irish author John McGahern dies
    • Other news on Irish Writers

Munster Reigns

2006-05-21T12:01:00.000-05:00

If you didn't make it to WJ McBride's Irish Pub over by the racetrack yesterday, or to The Gaf in Waldo - which has the same Setanta package - then you might not have noticed - in Kansas City's around-the-world-sixty-seconds news segment - that Munster have ended years of woe, are champions of Europe.

This is rugby, by the way, and for a lot of people it's a big deal. A really big deal. It's having a bit of an impact on other Irish sports, and on Irish sportsmen.

The only thing worse than ordinary people using sporting analogies in ordinary situations, is sporting people using ordinary analogies in sporting situations. For example if you ask what is next for Munster, now that it has finally won?

What we've achieved is magnificent, team captain Anthony Foley said. It's been a journey, but the journey's not over. This is just another station on the way

So no clues there then to where the end of the journey is, nor even the name of the next station.

Meanwhile Munster fans have been lauded as fans who would go to the ends of the earth for their team, even though they only had to go to Cardiff. It's kind of like leaving Kansas City for the middle of Kansas, which has a far greater claim to being the "ends of the earth".

Don't get me wrong, this is great stuff. I might be a Leinster man, but Leinster rugby people speak weird, so being happy for Munster is easy.

Nelly Don: A Stitch In Time - Showings Added

2006-05-21T04:05:00.000-05:00

Nelly Don: A Stitch In Time, has had extra showings added for this weekend, but mesmerized for days by Finnish monsters I missed it.

You can still catch it TODAY, Sunday, May 21st, as there are showings at the Screenland at 2:00pm, 4;00pm, and 6:00pm. Box Office Opens at 11:15

For more on the story of Nelly Don, and of the movie and book, see my earlier Nelly Don post.

Lordi Lordi Me

2006-05-20T17:02:00.000-05:00

Thanks to technology I've just watched live in Kansas City, the 51st Eurovision Song contest, and as I suggested they would, Finland have won, with the rocked-up ridiculous costumed, Lordi.

Ireland came 10th, I think, with Brian Kennedy's over-earnest schmaltzy ballad, and gave their maximum points to the winning Finnish entry, Hard Rock Hallelujah, and their second most points to Lithuania, which was a funnier entry by a bunch of men in business suits singing about how they were the winners of Eurovision.

To be honest the winning entry Lordi is hardly death metal, and if you can get past the Lord of the Rings Ork costumes and actually listen to the song, you can hear a standard Eurovision piece of pap, just slightly rocked up.

As ever the best fun is in the voting, which you can predict if you have any knowledge of European geography coupled with a sense of humour.

See Also:
• Ireland Progress in Eurovision (Belgium don't)

Watch Munster in Rugby Final at WJMcBride's

2006-05-20T09:28:00.000-05:00

At 5:00 pm TODAY at WJ McBride's Irish Pub you can watch Irish provincial rugby side Munster in the 2006 Heineken Cup Championship Final at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales

MUNSTER -v- BIARRITZ

Munster have the memories of two previous Heineken Cup final defeats - in 2000 and 2002 to spur them on today, while French champions Biarritz are competing in their first Heineken final, having lost in the semis for the past two years.

Munster lost 19-10 to Biarritz in San Sebastian in the quarter-finals last year.

Enter the Haggis in Kansas City

2006-05-20T08:51:00.000-05:00

The first time you ever heard of Enter the Haggis - the band, not their music - what was your reaction? Two words, I'm guessing. Bad name.

The name was needed in a hurry and very briefly Craig Downie had his promoter put them down as Electric Haggis and then Won Ton Haggis, of which the best that can be said is that Enter the Haggis is way better. Reminiscent of Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon, it's more enigmatic.

I like that it leaves you wondering if the Celtic rock group are announcing their arrival, like at a ballroom say, or if, in a not altogether helpful manner, they're telling you where to go - the way we as kids in Dublin would say 'Jump in the Liffey', as in ah, would you ever go and jump in the Liffey.

In fact some grown-ups in Dublin also do it. Honest. Here's an Irish government parliamentary debate from Dáil Éireann where Dr O'Donovan in reply to an answer he has just received from one Brian Lenihan, of The airlines, says:

Ah, come off—the airlines—would you take a jump in the Liffey? The airlines, my foot

I think only Australian politicians can better this, with phrases like, Pull back Digger, the dog's pissin' on your leg. Nowadays with Irish people, Get outta that garden is the more universal phrase of dismissal.

Like Irish uilleann piper, John McSherry, Craig's bagpipe playing was also influenced by both classical pipe playing and by Led Zeppelin

All of this makes Craig cool. Indeed, aside from Irish comedian Barry Murphy wearing a very formal suit (which was very funny in Crown Center's ninety degrees), nobody looked cooler than Craig Downie in a kilt striding the grounds of last year's Irish Festival in Kansas City.

Their music, of course, was a huge hit with the Kansas City crowds, and now you get a chance to see them in a small venue. ETH have a bigger sound than fellow Canadians The Glengarry Bhoys who recently played the same venue, but with their new CD Soapbox Heroes just finished, it should be an unmissable gig.

Enter the Haggis play The Record Bar in Kansas city's Westport on Wednesday May 31

Opening for ETH are Kansas City's The Kelihans (Listen on Myspace)

See Also:
    • Enter The Haggis Mixing new CD
    • Majoring in Bagpipes
    • Enter the Haggis signs with UFO Music
    • More Enter The Haggis stories

Vintage Irish Cheese With Porter Recalled

2006-05-20T06:44:00.000-05:00

Mainly distributed through retail grocery stores in Missouri and Illinois, Cut Cahill's Farm Porter Cheese (Vintage Irish Cheese With Porter) is being recalled by Swiss-American, Inc. of St. Louis, Missouri, because Listeria Monocytogenes was discovered in sampled product.

No illnessness have been reported to date.

Handy Irish Phrase: Ní fearr bia ná ciall (Food is not better than sense)

Irish President in Denver

2006-05-20T04:48:00.000-05:00

You remember last weekend when I was telling you that Mary McAleese was visiting the US, that she was my favourite President of Ireland?

Well that was because, like I told you when she visited Montana, she says things like that she wouldn't expect special treatment for the undocumented Irish - over and above undocumented latinos, for example.

Well, the night before last, in Colorado, whilst expressing gratitude for the US being a major contributor to both peace and prosperity in Ireland, aware that more than 55,000 Americans work for Irish companies today, she said:

We also are very proud of the fact that we have become major investors in the United States

She hoped to encourage more economic teamwork speaking today at the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. Yet, she said, there's a certain price to be paid for the kind of prosperity we enjoy today

McAleese, 54, is concerned with one of the greatest challenges we face how fast- changing societies full of time- starved two-worker families can maintain cherished traditions

And that's another reason why Mary McAleese is my favourite Irish President.

Shamrockin' Photos

2006-05-20T04:30:00.000-05:00

The recent Shamrockin' in Westport event has had a gallery of photos posted to the the official website. The Elders, Seven Nations, and the Tullintrain West Pipe Band, they're all there.

Handy Irish Phrase: 'Sé leigheas na póite ól arís (It is the cure of a hangover to drink again)

Get Along. Move Along.

2006-05-19T17:19:00.000-05:00

It's Friday in Kansas City (it's Saturday in Australia), so you should be getting along to the Jubilee of Acoustic Music Festival, or to Eddie, Jonathan, or Bob. Go. Move. Shift.

Actor who is Irish is not Irish Actor

2006-05-19T14:55:00.000-05:00

If you're following the Cannes Film Festival, you'll notice that so far all things Barley are creating more of a buzz than the other contenders for the Palme d'Or.

The Kansas City Star via AP today features Batman's recent nemesis, Scarecrow Cillian Murphy who hails from fellow cast-member, Mairtin's neck of the Irish woods, Cork:

I think it's important to look beyond your Irishness, said Murphy, now living in London. Liam Neeson said to me once, 'I'm not an Irish actor. I'm an actor who's Irish.' See what I mean? There's a distinction there, so you can go and play other parts, play American, play British. It's important to do that

I think Liam was messing with Cillian's head, but then again I'm a blogger who's Irish, not an Irish blogger, so what would I know?

See Also:
    • Ken Loach - Hero to Ireland
    • The Gay Irish Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
    • Bobby Sands
    • The BBC Shakes The Barley
    • Magical Irish Movie Music Moment
    • Colin Farrell in a Cardigan
    • Irish Movie Tax Breaks Approved by EC

The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology #2

2006-05-19T02:55:00.000-05:00

HGIT #2 - beoir : beer

See all strips of:
The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #10

2006-05-19T02:03:00.000-05:00

-And is she well at the moment?
-Well I didn't tackle her last night
-Does she have to be tackled by you in order to feel well?
-She looks like one of those women who look a lot older than they are
-What age is she?
-I don't know
-Is that rain outside or is it on the telly?

More Irish Conversations >>

The BBC Shakes the Barley

2006-05-19T01:27:00.000-05:00

And finally the BBC offers us its commentary on Ken Loach's film about the original Irish Troubles, though no sign of Mairtin yet.

I've been following reporter Darren Waters' blog from the Cannes Film Festival and he was impressed calling it a stirring, powerful piece of cinema:

It was typical Loach - one-eyed, for sure, but filled with such energy and wonderful performances that an audience can overlook its lack of balance.
The press conference that followed was even more passionate - intense, emotional, political. It was the polar opposite of Wednesday's unintentionally hilarious Da Vinci Code press conference

In that press conference, on why the film matters in 2006:

Loach says the story of the origins of the Irish conflict is one not fully heard in Great Britain. We hear a lot about what is happening in the north but we have very little context for it.

It is never part of the story where the conflict comes from. The origin goes back centuries because Ireland was our first colony

Interestingly the article claims that The Wind That Shakes The Barley will not be released in North America.

Have you ever noticed bodhran cases? They're perfect size for carrying three reels of film - a standard feature length movie. Hard to believe Mairtin woudn't bring his bodhran to Kansas City for a certain Irish Festival.

See also:
    • Ken Loach, Movie-Making Hero
    • Articles on The Wind That Shakes The Barley
    • Magical Irish Movie Music Moment

Review of the Bards at O'Malley's

2006-05-19T00:30:00.000-05:00

Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards has posted a review of their Wednesday gig at O'Malley's Irish Pub in Weston. Highly impressed by the pub, as is everybody who goes there. Photos are already posted

The Indulgers' summer plans

2006-05-19T00:16:00.000-05:00

The Kansas City Irish Festival back in 2003 was when I last saw The Indulgers. Indeed two of the photos on their homepage are of that beautiful evening in Berkley Park.

Well the Colorado-based Celtic Rock'n'Roll fusion people are still doing their thing, and perhaps sensibly, they just update their blog on an almost seasonal basis.

The Indulgers will be playing at the Bolder Boulder, one of the largest road races in the world, and the Wyoming Celtic Festival on June 24/25.

Indulger Damien McCarron has also just been back home to Dublin and in the blog reflects on the differences that have taken place over the last few years to his hometown - specifically the fishing village of Howth a few miles north of Dublin city centre:

Bill Whelan (Riverdance) has an amazing house. They say it took 14 million Euro to build it. Larry Mullin (U2) also lives in Howth as does Barney McKenna (Dubliners) and many more from all over the world

Had a cone there last October, a 99. Reasonably priced.

Ireland Progress in Eurovision (Belgium Don't)

2006-05-18T21:36:00.000-05:00

Belgium, one of the favourites of the 37 countries competing for this year's Eurovision Song Contest, has shockingly been eliminated at the semi-final stage.

With a French title Je T'Adore and English lyrics, it was felt that Kate Ryan (fine Belgian name) was on her way to possible victory but now recent chart success for the song will be mere compensation for not making Saturday's big date.

Irish entrant Brian Kennedy is safely through however with his 'heartfelt ballad with soaring vocals'. Yeah that's us alright. What's another heartfelt ballad with soaring vocals? But why Brian? Honestly, you leave a country for five minutes and this happens.

Why does any of this matter to America? Well, Riverdance is the easy answer. But if you've ever been to Jury's Cabaret then you might be familiar with many Irish entrants.

Who? Well, for starters Dickie Rock, Red Hurley, Butch Moore, Maxi, The Swarbriggs, Cathal Dunne, Linda Martin, and Colm T. Wilkinson. If ever a man was born to do one thing, Colm was born to sing. And Dana of course - though I can't think of anything that would remind you of her.

Back in 1992 when Yugoslavia was embroiled in civil war, I spent some time in the mountains of Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Everywhere I went, as people offered me a cigarette they would acknowledge they knew of Ireland by saying two names. U2 and Johnny Logan. Yohnny, as they called him, was because of Eurovision. I've no idea who U2 is.

Or maybe it just matters to you that Eurovision gave you ABBA, and ABBA gave you, gave you, gave you, a man after midnight.

Incidentally Germany is represented this year by an Australian performing American Country & Western in a band called Texas Lightning. Bear that in mind when Europeans laugh at Branson.

If Europe has a collective sense of humour, expect Finland to win this year. Time was I'd go drinking with the lads in town on a Eurovision Saturday night, and win money by betting on the contest - with drunks. Ah, memories.

See Also:
• Lordi Lordi Me

Articles on The Wind That Shakes The Barley

2006-05-18T17:18:00.000-05:00

You can ignore my background on Ken Loach and why I think The Wind That Shakes The Barley is an important part of growing up for a country, but you can't ignore the Kansas City Star, can you?

The Star today features an article on the Irish (& British) movie tipped for awards at Cannes:

A regular at the Cannes Film Festival with such films as My Name Is Joe, Sweet Sixteen and Land and Freedom, Loach returns with The Wind that Shakes the Barley, a bloody saga of British against Irish and brother against brother during Ireland's fight for independence and subsequent civil war in the early 1920s

And you can compare that with a great article I read yesterday in the Guardian in Britain:

No doubt this film is Loach's pointed riposte to the Hollywoodisation of Michael Collins - who might have become Ireland's Franco had he not caught a stray bullet in 1922. Donal O'Driscoll, Loach's historical advisor, accuses the Neil Jordan film of being hamstrung by hindsight. Granted it came out at a tricky time, but its claim that Collins died trying to take the gun out of Irish politics is frankly bollocks

See also:
• Ken Loach: The Wind That Shakes The Barley
• Irish Movie Tax Breaks Approved by EC

Ken Loach: The Wind That Shakes The Barley

2006-05-18T16:56:00.000-05:00

The Wind That Shakes The Barley WINS Palme d'Or

When Mairtin & I swapped a couple of emails when he told me he was going to Cannes, I was very excited. Because Ken Loach is a hero to Ireland. And he's a hero for Britain.

• Articles on The Wind That Shakes The Barley
• The BBC Shakes The Barley
• Cillian Murphy is not Irish Actor
• The Irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins

The late eighties in Ireland were ugly. It was a long time since Pope John Paul II had begged on his knees in Ireland to the men of violence. And the hunger strikes and the dignity of Bobby Sands were years past.

Nobody knew the Republic would be experiencing a tiger economy in a matter of years, or that the ceasefire to end all ceasefires was on the way.

Instead Sinn Fein were gagged. On television you heard actors' voices, if you heard anything, and public debate involving their elected representatives did not freely take place. I recall one comedy sketch which had a Sinn Fein representative being interviewed but before answering each question he would inhale helium from a balloon.

Talking with Sinn Fein, let alone attempting to represent their views, would bring abuse to you in heaps. John Hume was villified for talking to Gerry Adams in attempts that were ultimately to kick start the 'peace process' and lead to the 1994 ceasefire, and a Nobel Peace Prize for Hume

We'd been used to all kinds of obscenities when it came to violence, but the late eighties took us past so many former taboos. Memorial services and funerals were no longer off-limits. I spent a couple of those years in England, and routinely received abuse and discrimination because of my accent.

In response to the Ango-Irish Agreement of 1985 Loyalist groups killed more than Republicans but the outside world and the British all clamoured for the IRA alone to stop. Meanwhile the SAS summarily executed whoever they deemed guilty before crimes were even committed, and the RUC continued with the aid of British intelligence to wage their own war of terror.

Deputy Chief Constable John Stalker of the Greater Manchester Police was removed from his position in charge of the inquiry into the shoot-to-kill policy. And of course he was pilloried by the British press. And so the obscenity of the pretence of law and order continued.

From this mess of whispered questions came Ken Loach to make a movie. Ken Loach had an impeccable pedigree in television grounded in social realism, and had made possibly the greatest british movie ever in Kes, the story of a boy and a kestral in the working-class north of England.

Hidden Agenda dealt with Ireland and its politics when neither Ireland nor Britain would talk about Ireland and its politics, nor even allow talk about it. Frances McDormand and Brian Cox star in an excellent film about collusion between the security forces of the state and sectarian murder gangs.

Loach suffered for making this film, and yet as the ongoing controversy over the murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane shows, Loach's political thriller was always on the money.

And now Ken Loach has made a film about Ireland's War of Independence and following Civil War. And again he gets abuse in the British press for daring to represent a view that disagreed with that of British governing.

Loach makes great films, as the British BAFTA awards recently recognized, and he does them from the ground up. Social realism might mean he does not enter the world of Frank Capra's fantasy, but watch Kes and tell me it's not an absolutely magical evocation of childhood, all the more so because of the realism.

For the British who don't pay attention, they might finally learn something albeit 85 years too late. And for the Irish who revise history to say we had a Civil War over the partition of Ireland, they might be reminded that we didn't - we had a Civil War over connections to the Crown. The Wind That Shakes The Barley is likely to tell a true tragic story of a people and those who would govern them, that we still feel the reverbarations of today.

See also:
    • US Irish Film Office, Cannes, and The Tudors
    • Irish Tax Movie Breaks Approved by EC
    • Magical Movie Music Moment

Handy Irish Phrase: Is í an dias is troime is ísle a chromas a cheann (The heaviest ear of grain bends its head the lowest)

Roving Irish Musicians in OP

2006-05-18T15:20:00.000-05:00

Speaking of updates to gigs, I hear that the Eddie Delahunt gig in OP on Saturday will now take the form of a roving performance with Gabe in the park.

Seems WJ McBrides Irish Pub were right to describe him as One Irish Rover. I like a good rove myself, and somebody else who enjoys a rove is Philo

Events Calendar Update

2006-05-18T15:01:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed a few updates to the Events Calendar yesterday. You may not have noticed. Or maybe you need to refresh your browser when you visit a page you've previously visited - so you can see if any updates have been made.

Gigs by The Elders, Tullamore, and Eddie Delahunt were added. Can you see where?

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #9

2006-05-18T07:49:00.000-05:00

-Are you from southern Ireland or northern Ireland?
-Eastern
-You know what I mean
-You probably mean that I am from southern Ireland
-Is it not to the south of northern Ireland then?
-Not the parts that are to the west, east, and north of it, no
-But it's the nice part
-Sorry?
-It's the pretty part, the picturesque part, with all the countryside?
-Yes, all the mountains, rivers, and beaches stop at the border and then the rest is paved over with concrete except for the odd office block
-You know what I mean
-I really don't
-Isn't the countryside in your part?
-You think the countryside stops at the border?
-But the scenery, isn't that on one side of the border
-The scenery?
-The famous scenery
-Like the Antrim Coast and Glens, Lough Erne, the Mourne Mountains, the Giant's Causeway, Rathlin Island, the Sperrin Mountains?
-Yes
-They're all in what you mean by northern Ireland
-Oh, so that's the nice bit?

See More Irish Conversations

Waldo Crawldo: All Night Long

2006-05-18T06:14:00.000-05:00

The Star has the time for tonight's Pub Crawl for the Leukemia & Lymphona Society, the Waldo Crawldo at 6:00 pm which I hadn't spotted on the official website's About page.

But who cares, because what is time when you're burning brain cells for a great cause - and almost as good is when you go to that About page you get to hear Lionel Richie sing All Night Long. And you don't have to stop. There was a floor coverings shop beside my school in Dublin called Lino Richie.

The Waldo Crawldo page has been updated. Let the music play on (play on, play on)

Colin Farrell for Woody Allen London Movie

2006-05-18T05:46:00.000-05:00

Speaking of movies, Woody Allen has chosen Colin Farrell for his next film, according to SoFeminine in Britain.

British actors Ewan McGregor and Tom Wilkinson are also named for this latest London-based movie for Allen, though I wasn't tempted to run out and see his last London thing, Match Point. Were you?

See Also:
    • Magical Irish Movie Music Moment
    • Colin Farrell in a Cardigan
    • The Irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
    • Irish Movie Tax Breaks Approved by EC

President says Irish aren't Special

2006-05-18T04:51:00.000-05:00

The Irish President, Mary McAleese, speaking in Montana on her US visit, has said she believes some seeds of hope have been sown this week to help solve the US immigration problems. Very Chance Gardner that, sowing seeds of hope.

Mrs McAleese added that she would not expect a special case to be made for the undocumented Irish, who were a 'tiny minority' of the estimated 12 million undocumented in the US. But we're white, I can almost hear somebody saying.

See also:
• Green, White & Red apples
• All immigration Posts

Irish Movie Tax Breaks Approved by EC

2006-05-18T04:17:00.000-05:00

Speaking of My Left Foot - well okay it was actually Liam Brady's left foot of which we spoke - but nontheless it reminds me that there is good news for the Irish film industry today.

The European Commission has approved Ireland's amended scheme of tax breaks for investors in film production:

The Commission ruled that the Irish scheme, which allows investors to get tax relief on up to 80% of the cost of a single film, or 80% of an investment of up to €35m in film production, complied with single market rules

Although only a tiny number of Irish made films ever actually reach Kansas City, this is still great news for cinema - in a general sense.

Foreign investment in movies in Ireland fell last year to its lowest for almost a decade after eastern European countries offered lower costs and bigger tax incentives. But this year Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has been courting India to both reverse the trend and to promote tourism - which is worth even more money.

Famously the Irish government has let the Irish armed forces be used for scenes in both Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart. And scenes for eleven Bollywood movies have been shot in Ireland over the last four years, but these tax breaks should help in the competition for investment with Hungary and Romania.

Handy Irish Phrase: An té nach gcuireann san earrach
ní bhaineann sé san fhómhar (Whoever does not plant in the spring does not reap in the fall)

See Also:
    • Magical Irish Movie Music Moment
    • Colin Farrell in a Cardigan
    • The Irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
    • Ken Loach: The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Petition to Document Illegal Experiences

2006-05-18T03:50:00.000-05:00

I need to read more on this because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense just in the bare bones report in the Indo

The Irish Voices petition being launched today aims to document stories and experiences of illegal Irish and is expected to be forwarded to US politicians. Why?

The scheme is part of efforts to pressure the US Government into regularising the status of the estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants in America. Due to their illegal status, these people risk being prevented from returning to their lives in the US if they ever decide to visit their home country

I was illegal. I knew I was illegal. I knew there were repercussions for making the choice of being illegal. Should I have documented my fear of the repercussions and used that documentation to complain about the repercussions?

See also:
   • Nobody gets upset with the Irish on St Patrick's Day
   • Irish Placenames and Illegals
   • Other Immigration Posts

Behind The Blarney on CD Baby

2006-05-17T15:18:00.000-05:00

The Wild Clover Band of Kearney, Nebraska continue with the takeover of the Irish music scene in the midwest, and now have their latest CD Behind The Blarney available on CD Baby. Discounts apply if you buy more than one copy of this CD from one of last year's Kansas City Irish Festivals' popular bands.

I haven't got time to talk about the music - I'm trying to follow a football game - but Behind the Blarney has a great cover!

1-0 to the Arsenal

2006-05-17T15:03:00.000-05:00

Talking of football, sorry - I mean soccer - as I write this every Irish person I know is following the UEFA Champions League final - descendant of the European Cup and biggest Club game in European soccer. Televisions all over Ireland, and scattering of a few in Kansas City, are receiving the reverence befitting Europe's premier competition.

It's the second half and Barcelona with the world's greatest footballer are losing to the ten men of Arsenal 1-0. Back in the seventies Arsenal had a plethora of Irish footballers on their books including the great Liam Brady who when he left for Italy left behind thousands of broken-hearted men who had wanted to marry his left foot.

Arsenal have retained a huge Irish support since then (though not me - I just have a certain fondness for a massive misery they inflicted on another team seconds from the end of a season some years back) and although, ahem, going through a transitional phase this year in domestic competition, have somehow found themselves in the Euopean Final and are 20 minutes from sporting immortality.

Will Mr Ronaldinho co-operate?

UPDATE: Cameroon striker Eto'o has equalized for Barcelona 15 minutes from the end. Oh dear.

UPDATE 2: Barcelona are now 2-1 up with ten minutes left. Oh dearey dear.

Both Barca goals were made (you might call it an assist) by Henrik Larsson who I like to think of as Irish even if he is Swedish.

Why? Because Larsson is so much a Glasgow Celtic legend that he is the only non-Scottish footballer to be voted onto Celtic's all-time greatest ever team. The long-tongued wonder scored 242 goals in 315 matches during his seven-year spell at the club. Quite a strike rate in the modern game.

Celtic (the Bhoys) were formed by the Irish immigrant population in Scotland, and went on to become the first British club to win this here major European competition back in 1967 - a huge date for Irish football fans.

UPDATE 3: Final Score: 2-1 to Barca.

Kansas Lets Phelps Continue

2006-05-17T07:09:00.000-05:00

The Kansas man who doesn't like Irish Poets because they're all, obviously, dandies, is back in the news again.

Worse than comparing Ireland to Sweden, is what Phelps does to the bereaved when he pickets the funerals of soldiers because he believes the deaths are divine retribution for America’s acceptance of homosexuality.

Dozens of states, including Missouri, have passed laws restricting or prohibiting funeral protests - but Phelps' own state, Kansas, can't quite get its act together, fearful of being challenged on 1st Amendment grounds. They'll try again next year.

If you like Phelps, you'll love:
   • The Irish Gay Icon Who shot Michael Collins
   • Irish Dandies Disliked in Kansas
   • Anything in the Literature and Irish Writers Section

Metro Irish Music Midweek

2006-05-17T06:58:00.000-05:00

Kansas City of a Wednesday. Irish Music all over the place. Bards, Bhoys, Bob and Eddie. There's a calendar of events you know

The Wizards in Kansas

2006-05-17T06:36:00.000-05:00

Speaking of soccer in the city, the Kansas City Star reports that the MLS is getting impatient with the Wizards not having their own stadium yet.

With talk of Philadelphia wanting a franchise, and Arrowhead being unavailable during renovations in 2007, well the pressure mounts on the Wiz, yet general manager Curt Johnson is making ominous noises saying it doesn't 'fall on the front office' but is a community asset and we all have to work together to help make sure this team stays in Kansas City.

Great, so even though everybody and their mother, even my mother in Ireland knows, that it's Johnson County that goes to watch the Wizards, and that the Wizards should be in a stadium in JoCo right now thriving, it'll probably end up costing people in KC who give not a toss about soccer.

I like the way Johnson County Commissioner Dave Lindstrom is not worried that nobody will lift a finger in time to keep the team in the region: I don’t know what to gauge it against, but I do think things are moving forward

Ireland & USA: Little Differences #2

2006-05-17T06:18:00.000-05:00

SEATS AT THE HALFWAY LINE

I don't care how FIFA does its world rankings weighted over eight years. I don't care how high the USA national soccer team ranks. I don't even care if the US wins the World Cup. I won't believe the US knows how to play football until it knows where to watch it from.

All over the world, from the tiniest little stadiums that hold 200 people right up to the Bernabeu and Azteca stadiums, people fill the best seats first - in an effort to get the best possible view of the game.

Maybe if you're sixteen and want to call the opposite goal-keeper names - or your own keeper (well you are sixteen) - you might go directly behind a goal as a first choice. But you do not spread out all over the stadium to find your personal space anti-socially away from everybody.

You are there to watch the game. To get the best view you sit in the best seat available. The best seats are level with the half-way line. The next best are right beside them. And so on.

Every single time I have gone to Arrowhead to watch the Wizards, I have been able to walk in at kick-off, in crowds of from 18,000 to 30,000 and walk past thousands of people to sit on one of the many vacant seats level with the half-way line. This makes no sense.

Maybe this is not the case in New York or L.A. It could be just a Kansas City thing. But since this is the day of the European Champions League Final, I'll carry on.

It also makes no sense that while the game is going on, everybody in Kansas City is eating, drinking, and talking - or entertaining the kids. That would be akin to taking kids to the movies but providing clowns in the theatre because, well the kids might get bored with the movie. What's wrong with letting kids learn how to cope with boredom? Heck, how bad is it if they don't even learn?

And while I'm at it, corner kicks and players should not have theme tunes. And the loudest cheers of the night should not be for the 60 seconds when if somebody scores in that minute everybody in the crowd gets a free slice of pizza. And the players should not be trying harder in that minute so I can have a free slice of pizza. They should already be trying their hardest.

So I stopped going to watch the Wizards. Well it was too crowded and I never got any free pizza.

See Also: Ireland & USA: Little Differences #1

Claddagh Irish Pub approved for Leawood

2006-05-17T05:07:00.000-05:00

Leawood City Council met Monday and approved a preliminary plan for a Claddagh Irish Pub at the Cornerstone development, at 135th Street and Nall Avenue. The developer, DesignPlan, plans to build the restaurant and pub at the southeast corner of the Cornerstone.

Once upon a time in England, Irish pubs were places that naturally evolved from previous generations of immigrants running pubs, or they were really English pubs where new waves of immigrants just went for a pint.

And then somebody thought it would be great to build fake Irish pubs all over England, which meant I spent years explaining that no, Irish pubs in Ireland weren't really like that.

Actually I only spent about three years doing that because by then Ireland started to import into Ireland the very fake pubs it had exported, and instantly everything was authentic the world over. Or nothing was.

Suddenly you really did see bicycles in pub windows, and you were using wooden barrels as tables as you stood in the sawdust, inside your fake Georgian building.

And England lost a lot of great English pubs. I felt for them, just like I felt when my favourite Dublin pub, after games in Croke Park, was gutted, quadrupled in size, and converted into an American saloon bar. Just like the real thing they said.

Still, who cares about Leawood?

Voxer & Christie: A Love Story

2006-05-17T03:52:00.000-05:00

-Is it getting better Voxer?
-Nah Christie, not when I've never seen you looking so lovely
-Do you feel the same?
-As you did tonight? Yeah lovely alright, bleedin' lovely
-Will it make it easier on you now?
-That I've never seen you shine so bright?
-No smartarse, that you got someone to blame
-I just don't like to dance
-You say one love
-I don't
-One life
-Well that I might have said once or twice
-One life
-Alright I do, but it doesn't rule out there bein' a next life
-It's one need in the night Voxer
-Dancing? I've never seen so many men ask you if you wanted to dance
-One love
-You can dance with other people Christie
-One love
-Why? Why does it have to be love? it's only bleedin' dancing. What's wrong with all those other fellas? They're only looking for a little romance. D'ya think it's your powers of arithmetic they're tryin' to get?
-Get to share it
-Well given half a chance maybe, but couldn't ya just show them how it is that you do your thirteen times tables?
-Leaves you darling, if you don't care for it
-I've never seen ya not care for maths. And I've never seen that dress you're wearing
-Did I disappoint you?
-No. It's lovely; I've just never seen it before, or the highlights in your hair, come to think of it
-Leave a bad taste in your mouth?
-Musta been; when we were snoggin' I was thinkin' it was something I was after eatin'
-You act like you never had love
-Why d'ya have to keep goin' on about that? I've said umpteen times I've had love
-And you want me to go without
-No, I never said that, I never even thought that. Goin' without a dance with me is not goin' without love; I don't understand why ya can't dance with any of the fellas that catch your eyes
-Well it's too late, tonight
-That's so bleedin typical. This happens every time; you want to dance but ya won't dance; everyone wants to dance with ya but you're afraid they're after your mathematical prowess when they're really after their hole; And it's all my fault because I don't like dancin' And then when I persuade ya that it might just be grand, you call time on it. What do ya want me to do?
-To drag the past out
-Oh god, I have been blind, it's so bleedin' obvious, drag the past out, drag the past out. Isn't that what we do every weekend? Where exactly are we going with all this dragging the past out?
-Into the light. We're one.
-Oh spare me! That woman was right about you. She said a little bit of how's your father and you'd be saying we're the same person
-but we're not the same; what woman?
-The lady in the cloakroom the night we met
-We get to carry each other
-If we're both scuttered; it's not love. And even then, only if the caffeine in Red Bull is dancing with me
-Something gets to dance with ya then?
-Cheek to cheek

See also:
   • Irish Prison Interview with Philo
   • Hoffenpurpenburger Day
   • All Conversations

Musicians on Irish KC

2006-05-17T00:10:00.000-05:00

An Index for each of the following has been added to the sidebar:
    • Black 47
    • Liam O Maonlai
    • Enter The Haggis

and of course:
    • Bono

Immigrant Pantomime & Games

2006-05-17T00:04:00.000-05:00

An AP article reports that hundreds of pro-immigrant advocates from all over the US are heading to Washington today, under the We Are America Alliance, a loose coalition of the nation's biggest pro-immigrant groups. I'm waiting for Kris Kobach to form the Oh No You're Not Alliance.

There could be as many as 1,000 activists traveling, including some Irish, though personally I'm looking forward to the day when thousands of black Irish people emigrate to the US.

More than 100 Irish immigrants from nearly a dozen states also were on the way, said Kelly Fincham, executive director, of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform. We're targeting 100 congressmen - we'll be knocking on people's doors, she said.

I think it would be funny if the Irish pro-immigrant advocates knocked on doors of 100 congressmen but ran away before they could be answered.

Knocking on people's doors is a very Irish activity. It doesn't happen much here in Kansas City by comparison. If you're an immigrant and you left your home country with the habit of knock-knock-knocking on doors, you learn to stop quick enough.

See Also:

Sharpie Time for Irish Flags
Green, White & Red Apples
Irish Place Names & Illegals
All Immigrations Posts

John McSherry & Led Zeppelin

2006-05-16T22:23:00.000-05:00

Speaking of John McSherry (as Liam o Maonlai was), the Belfast uilleann piper had a similar bunch of records in his house to everbody else. So while Planxty and The Bothy Band had an obvious huge influence, so did the Led Zep records.

The youngest player to win the senior All-Ireland piping competition, John went on to co-found the acclaimed Lunasa and join god of Irish trad music Donal Lunny in Coolfin. For good measure he recorded sessions with Clannad, Sinead O'Connor and Nanci Griffith,

John McSherry's At First Light are in the news because tomorrow they begin a Scottish tour.

See Also: Majoring in Bagpipes