Friday, 29 August 2008
Thursday, 28 August 2008
In case of emergency ... break glass
... then this evening I came across this other ad, just round the corner from the first, and boy was I relieved - I was supposed to think as I did after all, phew!
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Shoreline Festival
“Despite the weather the festival was well attended and there has been some really good feedback on the events. The Opera in the Park was a fantastic success with Giselle Allen, Carolyn Dobbin, Paul O’Neill and Donald Maxwell, ably accompanied by Ingrid Surgenor, dazzling the crowds. Paul O’Neill’s performance of Nessun Dorma brought the crowd to their feet before a striking and colourful fireworks extravaganza erupted from the Loughshore. Over 2000 people enjoyed this event. ”
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Big River International Blues and Jazz Festival 2008
Grainne Duffy
Not a ZZ Top band member but a member of the audience
Henry McCullough
Rab McCullough
Rab McCullough and Rodney Trotter (sorry have forgotten his name)
Grainne Duffy in civvies talking to a member of the band (the drummer)
Ten Years After.
Gleann Cholm Cille holiday cottage
View of the living room from the veranda
Interior view of living room and kitchen area.
Rear view of the cottage
Wicker seating on the front porch.
Gleann Cholm Cille Women's Football Team
The local team had beaten their long time rivals, Kilcar, in a closely contested match: the final result being 3-7, 4-7 . These team members are so obviously delighted at the outcome.
Some of the team members celebrating by drinking champagne (?) from the winners' trophy in Biddy's Bar, where the craic was ninety.
1000 Families exhibition
I have seen exhibitions like this in Paris, Tours and Swansea and am pleased that somebody has had the good sense to stage one here in Belfast.
Normally, when a photographic exhibition is run in a local gallery, the photographs only seem to be seen by a select few but, it goes without saying that, with an open air exhibition it means that the works are on view to the general public.
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Gleann Cholm Cille
Here I am back home again
I'm here to rest
all they ask is where I've been
knowing I've been west ....
The cottage from the rear at sunset.
Early morning on Glen Strand.
The view from the front of the cottage.
Saturday, 23 August 2008
Ronnie Drew 16 September 1934 – 16 August 2008
When the sky was full of lead
Hitler was heading for Poland
And Paddy for Holyhead
Come all you pincher laddies
And you long-distance men
Don't ever work for McAlpine, For Wimpey, or John Laing
For You'll stand behind a mixer
As your skin is turned to tan
And they'll say 'Good on you Paddy'
With your boat-fare in your hand
The craic was good in Cricklewood
And they wouldn't leave the Crown
With glasses flying and biddy's crying
Sure Paddy was going to town
Oh mother dear, I'm over here
And I'm never coming back
What keeps me here is the reek o' beer
The ladies and the craic
I come from county Kerry
The land of eggs and bacon
And if you think I'll eat your fish 'n' chips
By Jaysus you're mistaken'
Last week saw the passing of another great character of the folk world - Ronnie Drew, founder member of The Dubliners - thank christ we still have CD's and videos to enjoy those wonderful vocals on the likes of McAlpines Fusiliers, Seven Drunken Nights, Spanish Lady etc.
I was just a lad of 15 when I saw the Dubliners in concert (probably the first ever concert I ever attended) and was mesmerised not only by their appearance (these were not clean cut aran sweatered folk singers like The Clancy's) but also by their earthy singing, this was singing that struck your very roots and penetrated to the bone. I was also fascinated by how, every so often, some members of the group would disappear from the stage and it was a while before I realised they were nipping off to sup some of the black stuff.
Joseph O'Connor writing in the Sunday Independent says:
It wasn't the soundtrack to a Bord Failte commercial; it was the music of the real place we lived in then, with its evasions, compromised options and terrible beauties. And nobody sang it like Ronnie. There was only one Luke Kelly, a Caruso of his craft, a maestro we will never see again; Ronnie's genius was different, crackling with subtlety as well as muscle, alive to every phrasing and silence in a song, and together they fronted the kind of band that mattered, and will always matter to lovers of real music.
Luke's voice could lash you like a whip-crack when he wanted it to do that, but Ronnie's gravely rasp seemed to come from someplace under the sea, a sound, as one critic put it, "like someone crunching coal beneath a boot".