Jim O’Connor from the band Boston Blackthorne here again to relate our exploits over the Irish High Holidays, 2012.  Faced with a daunting schedule of 5 gigs in 3 days on either side of the great state of Massachusetts it was the best of years and the worst of years!  Heading out on the road, the disabled list for our 5 piece Celtic band read like the Boston Red Sox last September right down to the beer and chicken in the clubhouse.  This included a broken leg (mine), a recently repaired rotator cuff (bass), a thrown back (guitar) and our fiddler and drummer, Hear no Evil and Speak no Evil.  Now some would think that an acoustic Celtic band leaves the heavy metal at home but we pack upwards of 10,000 watts of power and 15 instruments to most gigs.  And the roadies left with the groupies years ago.  It was all on us and certainly no country for old Irishmen…

Our first gig was on Friday morning at the Lowell Chamber of Commerce Irish Breakfast- first call was at the ungodly hour of 4 A.M!  When the gentleman from the chamber first contacted me for the gig, he started to go through event program.  I told them to hold it right there- so long as the breakfast is decent and the jokes are fresh we’re your men.  I know about these things- for over 30 years my father was the Master of Ceremonies for the Irish Breakfast in Northampton MA.  I remember how he would start preparing a month in advance; taking down all of his accordion files filled with jokes and all the joke books friends gave him as presents over the years and spreading them out on the spare bed.  He would point to the books and shake his head, “There is not one decent joke between those covers but they keep giving them to me.”  Then after carefully perusing the bits of paper on which countless jokes were scribbled he would begin to put his show together, “This one’s funny, and I haven’t told it in 4 years…”

My father never missed a breakfast in over 30 years and performed in front of 500 each year well until he was nearly 90.  He almost missed his last year sidelined with a persistent bloody nose, one of the many indignities of age.  But my niece who was helping him get ready was quick with a solution.  She reached into her purse and grabbed a product guaranteed to stop the flow and packed it up his nose- it worked like a charm.  There was a picture that day of my father on the front page of the paper laughing hysterically at his own joke (his trademark).  Only if you get out the magnifying glass can you see the telltale string.

Well the Lowell breakfast was great fun, honestly the level of humor was very high- the Lowell pols really know how to tell a story.  The room was electrified by the presence of celebrity adversaries Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, both running for the Senate seat.  We played the Irish National Anthem and the crowd sang along to Danny Boy- it was like old times.

Then back in  the truck and the trip from the gritty mill city, home of the industrial revolution, to the tiny town of Westhampton MA, a place in many ways unchanged since those times.  We had a concert in the newly constructed library and it was beyond sold out.  This was partly due to my niece’s preschool-age son and daughter who each sent a personal invitation to every student in their school.  From toddlers seated at the foot of the stage to senior citizens in the Boston Blackthorne t-shirts it was a real celebration and a special night for the band.  Many of our families are from the area and the place was packed with old and new friends.

Despite admonishments to get an early start and a good night’s sleep since we had another 2 gigs the next day and after all had been working since 4 A.M. it was back to Jon’s house down the road where the sessuin began and continued on until the small hours of the morning.  We can’t help it- we love to play and it is a great time to try out new songs or ones we haven’t played in years but somehow remember like we last played them yesterday.

The next day was another study in contrasts.  First an elegant Irish wedding in the afternoon then a mad dash down Mount Tom to Holyoke MA, home of the oldest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the nation.  Holyoke is a “sister city” to Lowell with mills and canals from the same era, and in many ways fallen on hard times.  But once a year thousands descend on the city to celebrate and the Mecca is my Cousin Pat Brennan’s pub on High Street.  We played Saturday night and Sunday right after the parade.  For an Irish band there is nothing like the St. Patrick’s Day crowd in a real Irish pub.  The place is full of local characters, not all of them related to me, and cops and firefighters from all over the region there to march and celebrate.  My brother Tom and his friend drove all the way from VA each having finished recent stints in Afghanistan.  Cousins came out of the woodwork after the house party ended and acquaintances we only know for this weekend each year celebrated and sang with us like long lost comrades.

And in a flash it was over for the year, the equipment packed away for the long ride home.  The following week a few of the lads played at a reading of Kevin O’Hara from his great book “The Last of the Donkey Pilgrims”, a must read about his trip around Ireland in a donkey cart in the 1970′s. Chetz played the jig based on the book that was featured on our last album, County Kerry to Kerry Park.

It will be quiet for a few weeks, time to woodshed on the fiddle, take in a sessuin, and maybe even write a song. Then it usually gets busy over the summer with outdoor town center concerts and festivals.  Here’s to the lads in the band, another fine year to look back on and another fine one to come.   Come out and join us just as soon as you can!

Titanic Belfast – visitor centre

10th April, 2012

A new phenomenon in Belfast in recent years has been the development of ‘quarters.’  First we had what is now known as the Cathedral Quarter which, strangely enough, is near St. Anne’s Cathedral to the north of the city centre.

Like Dublin’s Temple Bar area, this is an area of narrow cobbled streets, restaurants, old pubs and new pubs in old buildings, with music and other entertainment.  Just opposite the cathedral is Writer’s Square, with the names of local writers inlaid in the pavement, where music and arts events are held.

On the other side of the city centre, bordering the Lower Ormeau area are a group of streets we’ve always referred to as the Holy Land – because it includes Jerusalem Street, Palestine Street, Damascus Street, Carmel Street and Cairo Street.

This used to be a mixed residential area of small two and three story terraced houses, but it has changed dramatically over the last few years.  Most of the original inhabitants have gone.  A small number of immigrant families still live there, but the area has been invaded by several thousand students – from both Queen’s University and the University of Ulster – as developers have converted and extended the small houses into student housing, leaving only the original facades unchanged.

The area is now officially part of what’s known as Queen’s Quarter, an area encompassing the buildings of Queen’s University, a proposed new site for the University of Ulster, (which is currently outside the city), student accommodation and lots of bars, clubs and nightspots.

The most recent quarter is in east Belfast and it’s been gettin’ kinda busy recently – because we’re about to celebrate the 100th anniversary of a great tragic event – the sinking of the RMS Titanic.  In the docks area, near the former Harland & Wolff shipyard, we now have a spectacular new building – the Titanic Belfast centre.  The building cost £77M to build and has four wings, each looking like the prow of the ship itself, joined by a central glass tower.  Inside you can learn everything there is to know about the Titanic – how it was built, the shipyard it was built in, fitting out the ship, her maiden voyage, the sinking.  You can even visit and explore the wreck underwater.

The Titanic was built in the Harland & Wolff shipyard in east Belfast – at that time the largest shipyard in the world.  In 1910 Belfast was a boom town, a strong leader in engineering and linen manufacture as well as shipbuilding.  At that time the Titanic was the largest and most luxurious liner in the world.  The shipyard employed over 35,000 people in the early 1900s – including my grandfather!

The yard was founded in 1862 and has the world’s largest dry dock and later the two huge yellow cranes, which dominate the Belfast skyline, manufactured by the German company, Kruup – Goliath (315 ft high) was the first, in 1969, followed by Sampson, in 1974 (348 ft high).  Each crane spans 259 feet, can lift a load of 840 tons, and run on rails, driven by their own huge diesel engines inside the top of the main leg of each crane – two engines in each, one for backup.

Filming the Titanic Quarter from top of Goliath crane

When the Titanic Quarter was first being planned a few years ago I was asked to film the site for their new website, from the top of the Goliath crane.  We had to get special permission to film from there and were taken up in the tiny lift inside the leg of the crane, to the engine platform at the top.  The lift tends to bounce up and down rather alarmingly as it travels!  At the top is the gantry, which looks like a large red shed, that travels on rails from one side of the crane to the other and houses the lifting gear.  The driver is suspended from this in a little downward projecting cabin, so that he can have all round vision.

Seeing we had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to film from the top of the crane, we took guitars up with us and filmed each other performing on top of Goliath.  At first it was beautiful sunny spring weather and I got some great footage of ships moving and a plane landing at the nearby George Best City Airport.

Unfortunately, when I was being filmed performing, not only did my guitar strap come adrift, but a sudden wintry squall came in around us, with strong winds and snow hitting us horizontally.  We had to grab camera, tripod and guitars and scramble quickly for safety down the stairs to the engine platform at the top of the leg of the crane!

In 2007 the Goliath crane crashed into one of the smaller cranes – at 95 tonnes! – knocking it over in what could have been a lethal accident.  (Check it out on YouTube under Harland & Wolff Crane Accident).

The Titanic was built in this dock, although smaller cranes were used in her construction, along with sister White Star Line ships, Olympic and Britannic; the Royal Navy cruiser, HMS Belfast; P&O’s SS Canberra and dozens of other ships. Nowadays the yard deals more with refurbishing oil rigs and drilling ships and building wind farm components.

Titanic sinking

Titannic left Belfast on the evening of 2nd April, 1912; calling at Southampton in England; Cherbourg, France; and finally Cobh, near Cork City, in the Republic of Ireland; before setting off across the Atlantic for Manhattan, New York City.  She struck an iceberg at almost full speed on April 14th and sank two hours and forty minutes later, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

My great uncle, George Given, was booked to travel on the Titannic, but he was so eager to get to Canada that he travelled on an earlier ship instead.  What a providential move that turned out to be, eh?

–––

Celtic Roots Craic is taken from Raymond’s popular Celtic Roots Radio show on iTunes and is also available as a separate podcast, as a blog and now the first 25 episodes are available as a new book, A Wee Taste a’ Craic, (available from Amazon.com etc. in paperback, Kindle & Kindle, UK editions).

Precious Oil Publications also recently published (January 2012), The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus – by Gerry McCullough: 12 tales of love, intrigue and humour, set in the fictional Donegal village of Ardnakil.

Celtic brooch sculpture, outside St. Patrick's Centre, Downpatrick, Co. Down

16th March, 2012

Well, it’s the time of year for a wee bit a’ celebratin’ of all things Irish.  I’ve had a very busy week, so I’m just getting to record this show at the last minute.  We’ve covered a fair bit of history and culture in the last couple of shows, so maybe I should vary the theme a bit the day?  It often occurs to me how incomprehensible our way of talkin’ must sound to most outsiders.  Maybe if you have some Irish background then at least some phrases might be familiar to you?

For instance, a week ago a friend mentioned having had some Swedish people over visiting, when his wife came out with, “Throw yer eye along that there and see if it’s straight!”  Apparently, the Swedes looked at one another with no idea of what she was saying.  To be honest, I find it fairly amazing that strangers can understand us at all!  It’s not as if we’re being deliberately difficult – in fact, most Irishmen probably have a built in need to communicate, to want you to understand them.  Though we’ll be likely to phrase it, “Do yez undtherstann’ me now, like?” – which probably doesn’ help!

Take “Wud ye howl yer whissht?” for example, literally meaning ‘hold your breath’, or “Would you be quiet?”  Now ye could possibly have known that one from the song, ‘There was an aul’ woman from Wexford Town’.  If yer behavin’ like a bit of an eedjit, now, someone might tell ye to, “Have a wee titther a’ wit, now!”  And if that doesn’t do it, ye might be towl’ to “Catch yerself on!”   If somebody asks ye, “How’s she cuttin’ now, byes?”  wud ye undtherstann’ them?  Mebbe ye would if they said, “How are yez doin’ there, lads?”

The answers could possibly be a mite hard to grasp, too: “Ach, I’m bravely, like.”  Or, “I’m doin’ rightly, so I am.”  More than likely we’d answer, “Ach, I’m dead on, ye know?”  If ye were referring to someone who’d recently been ill ye might be heard to say, “Ach, ‘e’s powerful failed, altogether, so he is.”

If ye were talkin’ about yerself and ye’d been badly, ye might say, “I’m as w’ake as watther, so I am,” “I’m not worth tuppence at the moment,”  Or, “I’m not worth three ha’pence,” – which is even worse, obviously!  If ye were short of a bob or two – especially if somebody’s askin ye to sub them (to lend them a poun’ or two) – ye might say, “Listen, I haven’t three ha’pence meself to rub together, so I haven’.”

A great deal of our time is spent in “havin’ a wee bit a’ craic.”  It’s a way a’ “puttin’ yer day in,” isn’t it?  If ye’re later home than expected from the pub, or some other event, ye can always report, “Ach, sure the craic was grann’”  or even, “The craic was ninety, so it wuz.”  If it was crowded ye would say, “Thon place was hivin’ the night.”  Or, “It was packed to the gills.”  If yer “Rarin’ ta go” it means ye’re anxious to be off somewhere.  And if a woman is dressed up to go out for the night she might be “all dolled up to the nines.”

On the other hand, someone who never makes any effort to tidy themselves up could be described as, “As througho’rr as they come,” or “As rough as purty oaten,” – which is actually a mixture of potatoes and oatmeal.  If he’s rude as well, he might be described as “an ignorant  sort of a ganch.”   An’ if he’s mean with his money, “He wouldn’ give ye daylight, so he wouldn’t!”  Or, “That fella wouldn’ give ye the time a’ day.”  If someone is a bit greedy, or an awkward person to deal with, ye might say, “I’d rather have that body a week, as a fortnight!”  If he’s a big fella, ye could say, “If he was chocolate, he’d be some ‘atin’!”

Many years ago I spent a few weeks doing some building work on a friend’s farm near Belfast.  Every day his mother would feed ye up to the gills with spuds an’ stuff at lunchtime.  Then when you went back to work the dad would come over to see how ye were gettin’ on and he’d say the same thing every time, “You know, a full sack doesn’t bend!” 

If you are listening to a conversation that ye know is in the Irish language, which you don’t understand, you could always say, “Ni higim.” – “I don’t understand.”   If it’s in English, but ye genuinely can’t follow what they’re sayin’, ye could say, “I have no idea what yer bletherin’ on about.”  If you want to be a little bit more forceful – not to mention, risky! – you could say, “Are you talkin’ ta me, or chewin’ a brick?”   Not that I recommend that one, ye undtherstand!

–––

Pre Paddy’s Day OFFER – both books FREE on Kindle, 15th & 16th March

–––

Celtic Roots Craic is taken from Raymond’s popular Celtic Roots Radio show on iTunes and is also available as a separate podcast, as a blog and now the first 25 episodes are available as a new book, A Wee Taste a’ Craic, (available from Amazon.com etc. in paperback, Kindle & Kindle, UK editions).

Precious Oil Publications also recently published (January 2012), The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus – by Gerry McCullough: 12 tales of love, intrigue and humour, set in the fictional Donegal village of Ardnakil.

My first gigs playing on St. Patrick’s Day were in the beautiful city of Northampton, MA in the late 1970′s.  I was playing with a trio called St. James Gate (what Irish band in that era didn’t use that name?  But we were the first!)  Tom Murphy, now a dairy farmer in upstate New York played mandolin and double bass.  If you have ever seen “A Mighty Wind” with the scene with the trio and double bass all in a Volvo that was us, except it was Tom’s Peugeot.  Joe Edelburg was our fiddler, Joe for many years has been playing violin in the San Francisco Opera orchestra and playing and touring with the likes of Van Morrison and Linda Rondstat. We were the house band at Sheehan’s Cafe, famous as the oldest bar in continuing operation thanks to a secret window to the restaurant next door.

Eventually I ended up in New York City in the early 1980′s.  I remember one St. Patrick’s Day gig at a place in the West Village called the Ear Inn.  I got the gig through my friend Ed Vadas (google him if you love the blues!) and it was, like many NYC gigs, a flat fee of say $20 and pass the hat.  My roomate at the time, Steve Toll, was a 6 foot 3, 300 pound Jewish kid from Philadelphia.  Steve was a fabulous musician- he played electric guitar with the Lester Lanin Orchestra, Philadelphia’s version of Guy Lombardo.  Steve had a local hit with a dance novelty song called “The Freeze”, you know, a disco beat than then “OK now Everybody FREEZE!”  Steve played some violin too and offered to come down and sit in.  He was no aficianado of Celtic music but Steve could play anything so I said great.

The first set was about halfway finished and no Steve.  Finally he came through the door looking a bit disheveled.  He took out the fiddle, sat down next to me and started to play.  What a cacophony!  “Steve, I thought you knew how to play that thing.  At least tune it up!”  “Sorry man, I’ll explain on the break.”  We limped through the set with Steve constantly trying to keep the violin in tune and on the break Steve told me his story.

He was taking the A train down from 110th and of course being St. Patrick’s Day in New York the car was full of drunken revelers.  Three denizens of the Jersey Shore were particularly obnoxious and as the ride continued, more threatening.  Just before the last stop push came to shove with these clowns shouting “Look at the fat freak with the fiddle!” or some other alliteration.  Just as the first punch landed Steve went into “Batter Up!” mode using his precious violin and case in lieu of a Louisville Slugger.  And it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out and in the blink of an eye the Jersey boys were sprawled on the subway floor, nursing their wounds courtesy of Steve’s Stradivarius.  Well it was OK for him but not so much for the fiddle and it wasn’t until the last set that Steve was able to get that violin to settle down and stay in tune!  It made for a memorable gig for sure!

Several years later out of the blue I got a call from an agent who was at that gig and asked was I still playing.  She got the band a gig at Church Street Station in Orlando FL as the headliner’s for their St. Patrick’s Day street party.  We kept that gig for 10 years  until Church Street closed, a victim of the continuing process of Disneyfication that threatened much of Orlando’s music scene.  It was a very cool place, with several themed clubs, Gay Ninety’s, Country chic, 1950′s and each decked out in an unbelievable array of stained glass, brass, silver and woodwork imported by the owner from his travels throughout Europe.

It was kind of like being the Beatles for a week.  They would pick us up at the airport in one of their fleet of vintage cars- they had Bentley’s, Rolls Royce, Jaguars, from the 1940′s.  One year the driver suggested he drop us off at the Cheyenne Saloon, part of the complex.  He said he would drive our equipment to the hotel and we could check out the Hawaiian Tropic swimsuit contest going on inside.  How could we say no- a contest featuring some of the most beautiful women in the world?  It turned out one of the judges was O.J. Simpson.  Out on the sidewalk we chatted with him briefly until the limo door opened and his wife Nicole urged him to get into the car because they were late to get somewhere.  A chilling memory now  for sure.

We got to the hotel and while standing in line I turned around and was realized I was standing in front of none other than the Champ, Muhammed Ali.  What a great honor to shake his hand and what a huge hand it was.  Sadly his Parkinson’s made it difficult for him to speak but what a thrill to meet him.

The gigs at Church Street were always fun- the whole street closed off and nearly 20,000 people in the audience.  There is no describing the feeling of absolute power and control that comes when you get 20,000 people clapping the refrain to “Wild Rover”!  Sadly in the midst of the 10 years we played their on St. Patrick’s Day, we lost our accordian player, Keene Hahn, to cancer.  It has been a tradition of the band every St. Patrick’s Day since to dedicate his favorite song, “Fields of Athenry” to Keene. He was a larger than life character with a heart of gold.  He was famous in the 1960′s in Western MA among the hippies.  Keene never missed a love-in, be-in or protest and always showed up in his Studebaker personally outfitted with a Cadillac engine.  He would haul his Farfisi organ up to the roof of the car, hook a line to the battery and play on! The Soundtrack of the 60′s.  Truly a legend in his own time.

Certainly my worst St. Patrick’s Day was the one 7 years ago where I broke my leg quite seriously skiing and was sidelined in a cast as Don McLean would say. The St. Patrick’s Day that wans’t.  In a feat that can only be described as “Luck of the Irish” this year, 7 years almost to the day, I went out and broke it again!  But thanks to modern medical technology I have returned, playing seated, B.B. King style for the time being.  You can’t keep a good Irishman down on his holiday.

Boston Blackthorne will be playing St. Patrick’s weekend in Holyoke MA at Brennan’s Pub.  The city hosts the oldest St. Pat’s parade in the country, and certainly one of the best.  If you are anywhere near W MA on the high holiday stop in to hear us and say hello.  The craic is sure to be grand!

Lagan Canal and Island Arts Centre, Lisburn, Co. Antrim

On the last show I was describing how, many years ago, my father had sowed grass seed with a device called an ‘Aero’ fiddle.  Just the other night I was with some friends in a small pub called ‘Paddy’s Barn’, in Saul, Co. Down – and there, hanging up from the ceiling rafters was a perfect example of one of these devices – which I haven’t seen in over 50 years.  It’s a small world, eh?

That got me to thinking of another event from way back, which my father had told me about.  I’ll tell you about it in a minute.  First a wee bit a’ background.  I was brought up in Co. Down, as I’ve said before, but I went to school in Lisburn, which is mainly in Co. Antrim.

The two counties are separated by the River Lagan, which flows from Slieve Croob – a hill in Co. Down near Ballynahinch – firstly west through Dromore, then north east to Lisburn and through Belfast, into Belfast lough – dividing East Belfast off from the rest of the city.  There is a beautiful Irish song, ‘My Lagan Love’ – the air made famous by Horslips as ‘Fantasia’ – and the ballad itself has been covered by The Corrs, Celtic Women, Phil Coulter and a whole lot of others.

The south eastern part of the city of Lisburn is across the Union Bridge over the Lagan and is usually referred to by locals as ‘over in the County Down’.  Just downstream from the bridge is what’s known as The Island – a bend in the river below a weir, which was cut off by a section of canal and a lock.  This was once completely occupied by the old Island Spinning Mill, which eventually became derelict.  It’s now the site of the new Island Arts Centre – a venue for concerts, art exhibitions and all sorts of events.

The Lagan Navigation, as it was called, was begun in 1756, to connect Belfast Lough with Lough Neagh, the large inland lake which borders five of the six northern counties.  When my father was an apprentice in what was later Barbour Threads – formerly The Linen Thread Company – he can remember the horse-drawn canal barges, known as lighters, delivering coal from the docks in Belfast to power the machinery in the Mill.  The lighters also carried sand and bricks from Lough Neagh back down to Belfast.

The canal has been in disuse since 1958, with the M1 Motorway being built along eight miles of the canal basin in the mid 1960s.  The tidal section of the Lagan through the city of Belfast became navigable again in 1994, when the new Lagan Weir was completed.  This keeps the water level upstream at a fairly constant level by raising and lowering five gates, which can also protect from floods during extremely high tides.

You can enter the enclosed basin for an hour or two either side of high tide, so we have taken our boat, ‘Warrior Maid’, up through Belfast Harbour and into the basin – mooring it overnight at Donegal Quay, right next to the city centre, and also upstream at Stranmillis – at ‘Cutter’s Wharf’ pub – which is as far as you can go upriver at the moment.  There are plans, though, to re-open the whole navigation in the near future.

We’ve taken three trips in all from Groomsport, where our boat is moored, round to Belfast, also staying at the new concrete pontoon in a basin behind the Odyssey Complex and taking friends and family for short trips around the Harbour and up and down the river.

On one of these trips the personnel on the Weir had forgotten to inform me when we went through the night before that the outgoing Gate 4 was not going to be in use next day, and so we ended up bumping our keel on the top of the partially closed gate!  Needless to say, the weir staff weren’t very pleased about this.

In 2001, when the Island Arts Centre was opened in Lisburn, that section of the canal was also restored, and the local branch of the Inland Waterways Association were invited to bring small boats along to celebrate the opening.  We also own a 14 ft. wooden dinghy, so I borrowed a boat trailer and arrived on opening day with my 79-year-old dad, my three-year-old grandson, my wife, Gerry, and another young friend.

We launched the dinghy from a slipway, collected the rest of our crew at the canal basin and, after negotiating the lock and accepting the loan of a small outboard motor, headed downstream for a mile to the next weir and lock, which was still closed.

On the way I happened to remark to my Dad that I bet he’d never been down the middle of the Lagan before.  He agreed that he’d never done it in a boat.  When I asked what he meant he replied that he HAD travelled down the centre of the river before, but on a pushbike!  We were a bit puzzled until he explained that one winter when he was young, the river had frozen over completely and he and friends had cycled along the centre of the frozen river.

It was as we were happily discussing this interesting anecdote, that my little grandson mentioned that his feet were getting wet.  We all looked down and sure enough the water was nearly over his shoes.  On further investigation I discovered that the bung was missing at the stern of the boat and water was flowing in like a tap turned on full!  We were in danger of sinking!

My young friend started bailing out the water and we headed upstream as fast as our 2 HP outboard could take us – yelling ahead to our friends as we approached the lock, to keep the gate open for us.  As my friend kept on bailing, and we rose slowly in the lock, we managed to get my father, wife and grandson up the ladder to solid ground.

As soon as the lock gates opened my young friend and I headed across to the slipway, still bailing out as we went.  That concluded our trip on the Lagan – though we did have a nice meal in the new centre afterwards.  We have an expression here in case anyone thinks we might be stupid, or gullible – “Do you think I came up the Lagan in a bubble?”

–––

Pre Paddy’s Day OFFER – both books FREE on Kindle, 15th & 16th March

–––

A Wee Taste a' Craic – Raymond McCullough

The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus – Gerry McCullough

Celtic Roots Craic is taken from Raymond’s popular Celtic Roots Radio show on iTunes and is also available as a separate podcast, as a blog and now the first 25 episodes are available as a new book, A Wee Taste a’ Craic, (available from Amazon.com etc. in paperback, Kindle & Kindle, UK editions).

Precious Oil Publications also recently published (January 2012), The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus – by Gerry McCullough: 12 tales of love, intrigue and humour, set in the fictional Donegal village of Ardnakil.

There are many different types of music, and blending one with another often results in a sort of “hybrid” style that can be difficult to classify properly. To add to the confusion, within each sub-genre there is a whole range of music that can qualify, but some may be more like one style than the other…

So that brings me to Celtic Rock. What exactly is this style?

This may not be a perfect definition, but Celtic Rock focuses on Celtic values, themes, and traditions, and it usually features what would be considered traditional Celtic instruments (or lacking instrumentation, musical licks), such as the fiddle, tin whistle or bodhran. Those are the underlying basics of the “Celtic” part.

The fusion with rock music is typically seen through instrumentation and arrangements. For example, the addition of a rhythm that would be seen in rock music or the inclusion of a full drum kit would help place it within the “rock” genre. Also, sometimes you’ll hear traditional Celtic songs played with rock instruments added to the mix.

Sometimes it helps to give examples. For instance, The Elders would be a terrific example of Celtic Rock music. They have some good traditional instrumentation, but they also throw in a reel or something to make it sound more “Celtic”. A traditional Irish Rock band would be a group like The Saw Doctors.

Again, things can get a little complicated, as even some of the English Rock bands could probably fit into the Celtic Rock genre too–such as Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention. Even though a band may not classify itself first as Celtic Rock, that doesn’t mean it can’t be placed into the genre.

Much like Classic Rock, Celtic Rock also has a couple of sub-sections–the two primary ones being Celtic Punk and Celtic Metal. These are obviously a fusion of the two styles named in the genre heading. The Pogues are classified as Celtic Punk and a good example of a Celtic Metal band would be Cruachan.

Celtic Rock has become increasingly popular over the short time it has been in existence. As more and more groups begin to fall under this genre’s umbrella, classifying them properly will become increasingly challenging. Hopefully this short article has helped clarify some of the core qualities that make up Celtic Rock.

Here are some Celtic Rock groups we’ve featured that you may want to check out:

• The Elders
• Black 47
• The Pogues
• Johnsons Motorcar
• Rathkeltair
• The Rogues
• Young Dubliners
• The Yorkshire Rats
• The Wildcelts
• Trip McCool
• The Tossers
• Siochain
• Seven Nations
• Redhill Rats
• Prydein
• Paisley Close
• Paddy’s Pig
• The McCabes
• Jiggernaut
• Icewagon FLU
• Dust Rhinos
• Charm City Saints
• Avalon Rising
• The Langer’s Ball
• The Indulgers
• The Electrics
• Lenahan
• Amadan
• Brothers 3
• Fathom

Some of the bands above were released on our Celtic Rock compilation CD, The Secret World of Celtic Rock.  All the profits of this album benefit Celtic non-profits.

There are a lot more.  Feel free to post your favorite Celtic Rock band suggestions below.

Catherine L. Tully specializes in writing about the arts, lifestyle and travel. She is the Owner of 4dancers, a blog for those who love dance, and Editor for Freelance-Zone, an award-winning site for freelance writers. Catherine also reviews music for Celtic Music Magazine.

The 'Aero' fiddle seed dispenser

February 10, 2012

Last week I talked about drivin’, our latest Belfast sculpture and about the things we used to do when we were kids.  I mentioned how flax used to be grown a lot and how it was retted in a Flax Hole.  I never actually witnessed that process because, although my Dad used to work for what was then called, The Linen Thread Company, by the time I was around man-made fibres had taken over and very little linen was being made.

I DO remember when the neighbour’s field behind our house was used to grow corn.  Now corn, means different things in different parts of the world.  In the USA it normally means maize, which we used to call ‘Indian corn,’ here in Ireland – it was first introduced when America first sent us some as famine relief in the nineteenth century.  In England corn means wheat, but in Ireland corn always referred to oats – the cereal that looks most like grass, in my opinion.  We don’t grow much oats any more, because it mainly used to be grown to feed horses – in the days when horses where used for agriculture.

Then tractors began to appear on the scene and horses became a thing of the past.  The first tractors we saw were mostly old Ferguson 35s, before it became Massey Ferguson.  These started on petrol and then ran on something called TVO – Tractor Vehicle Oil.  Diesel tractors came a little bit later.  In fact, out in the country we improvised our own tractthers, usually by chopping the body off an old car and adding a sort of trailer body – more like an early pickup truck than anything – but you could use one to go around a field, spreading manure, or picking up hay at haytime.  Yep, it was right out of the Beverley Hillbillies!

I drove one of these – belonging to my uncle Wullie, who lived just up the road – when I was only about six, or so.  When I say ‘drove’, I just steered it in a straight line, while it crawled along in first gear, while my father and cousin forked peat litter (from the hens we kept), off the back of it.  When we got near the hedge my Dad would jump down and steer it back towards the other end of the field, then go back to work.

When our neighbour’s corn (oats, I mean) was ripe in the field behind us, they brought in an old Ferguson 35 tractor, towing what we in Co. Down called a ‘r’aper’ – in other words a former horse-drawn reaper, trailed behind the tractor – to cut the corn.  The sheaves were then bound by hand and stooked together to dry – the whole family taking part.  After a few days drying the big event took place – the thresher arrived!  This was an old – originally horse-drawn – thresher, made mostly of wood painted with orange lead paint, that had faded to a sort of pink colour.  It was trailed into the field behind a tractor and then belt driven from the tractor to thresh the corn.  No such thing as a combine harvester in those days!

Back then, practically everything was done by hand.  When our hay was ready to cut in June a neighbour would come and cut it with a r’aper, then, in the evening, the whole family would rake the hay into rows, with huge wooden handrakes.  Even with my mother and uncles and cousins helping it took hours to row eight acres – and the next day they’d have to be spread out in the sun again!  We didn’t have such a thing as a baler, either, so when the hay was ready it was loaded by hand with a pitchfork onto a trailer, or one of those pick-ups, and hauled in to the yard, where it would be pitchforked again into the shed.

Our neighbour on the other side had about twenty acres, which he farmed full-time.  He would stack his hay in fairly small stacks and then later collect it with a buckrake, a large pronged implement on the back of the tractor, which reversed under the stack and lifted it up.  What usually happened, though, was that the front of the small tractor would lift up instead – so my neighbour’s sons and daughter would have to sit on the front of the tractor – just like Ellie-May Clampett! – to balance the load, and they would proceed across the field see-sawing up and down – great entertainment for my brother and I.

We had one very steep field, with maybe a 40 degree slope!  It’s known as the Dam Bank, because it’s opposite the river, which used to have a dam back then, so that it could feed water to power a couple of watermills.  My father decided to re-sow this field one year and a neighbour ploughed it for us one-way – in other words, down the slope.  There was some room to line up at the top – though it must have seemed like jumping off a cliff – but very little room to turn at the bottom – a very hair-raising and dangerous enterprise, which nobody would dream of attempting nowadays.

After it was ploughed and harrowed my father sowed the field – again by hand, using a piece of equipment which was common enough in those days.  It was called a fiddle, because you held it in you left hand like a fiddle, with a small a mount of seed in a bag attached over your shoulder, and you played back and forwards with a bow in your right hand, whose string went around a cogged wheel.  This wheel flung the seed out in each direction as you played and all the sower had to do was walk back and forth across the length of the field, re-filling the bag and sowing as he went.  I helped by bringing him by marking the soil already sown and bringing fresh seed – but by the time we had that field sown my Dad and I were both pretty well sunburned!

–––

Raymond McCullough hosts and produces the popular Celtic Roots Radio show – downloaded by around 7,000 listeners, in more than 100 countries around the world.  The show features a wide range of Celtic and roots music – Celtic, folk, folk/rock, Appalachian, bluegrass, Scottish, Irish, Breton, Cajun, singer/songwriter – plus a regular helping of northern Irish craic from Raymond, himself.  This blog makes available the scripts from that section of his show.

–––

A Wee Taste a' Craic – Raymond McCullough

The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus – Gerry McCullough

Celtic Roots Craic is taken from Raymond’s popular Celtic Roots Radio show on iTunes and is also available as a separate podcast, as a blog and now the first 25 episodes are available as a new book, A Wee Taste a’ Craic, (available from Amazon.com etc. in paperback, Kindle & Kindle, UK editions).

Precious Oil Publications also recently published (January 2012), The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus – by Gerry McCullough: 12 tales of love, intrigue and humour, set in the fictional Donegal village of Ardnakil.

'Rise' sculpture, Belfast, at night – better known locally as 'The Balls on the Falls'

I don’t know if any of you, like me, are prone to criticise other drivers when you’re driving a car?  I’m sure you would never do that!

My wife was beginning to get tired of me remarking on drivers with only one headlight working and suggested – a bit sarcastically, I thought! – that I ought to count them and keep a record.  Great idea, I thought and immediately began counting cars with defective right and left-hand headlights.

This had the result of my complaints being reduced to a simple, “Thirty three and thirty five, now!” every now and then, with a dry, “Yes”, in response.  Eventually, I counted up over 4,000 defective headlights before I stopped, and discovered that the number of right-hand and left-hand defective lights always came back into balance.  Maybe I should publish this important research?  I don’t know!

At least once a week I tend to be driving into Belfast from the Lisburn direction, in other words down the M1 Motorway.  A couple of years ago we had a major overhaul of this road, so it’s now what North Americans would call a 6-lane.  It now connects directly to the Westlink, which takes you right through the middle of the city and, at the other end, connects with the M2 and M3 (Lagan Bridge).

As you come into Belfast from a southerly direction the road now dives under the Broadway Roundabout, which has recently had a huge new sculpture added.  This is in the form of two spheres, one inside the other, made up of interlocking triangles.  It’s officially called ‘Rise’, but locals in Belfast apparently now refer to it as the ‘Balls on the Falls!’

Actually, just after they first opened the new road – and before the specially ordered pumps arrived – this tunnel flooded in heavy rain and the road had to be closed again for a while!  It happened so fast that a taxi driver who ran into the flood and stalled had to literally swim for his life!

Working in a Flax hole around 1914

Another thing I was thinking about recently was some of the escapades we used to get up to as kids.  Just up the road from where I grew up in the Co. Down countryside, there’s an estate of many acres – or a demesne, as it’s often called – with a huge house and a stone wall built right around the grounds.  Incidentally, this was a ‘famine wall’, built in 1845/46 to provide work for poor starving labourers, in order to avoid actually giving them relief!

The father of a couple of friends of ours was the Farm Manager of this estate and they lived on the premises, so my brother and I’d often cycle up there and mess around with them.  You know, play ‘King of the Castle’ – by throwing each other off the top of the hay bales in the hayshade; take sips of the sweet molasses used for making silage, and leap around in the clump of rhododendron bushes right in front of the big house, as if we were monkeys!

One thing we loved to do was ride our bikes downhill as fast we could and crash into a large clump of bamboo at the bottom.  It would take us maybe ten minutes trying to extricate our bikes from the bamboo and then we’d have another go.  Right next to the bamboo was a small wood known as the ‘Round Wood’, which was well fenced off with ‘Danger’ signs placed around it.  Apparently, when the estate was previously owned by an army colonel, they placed a whole lot of unexploded World War II bombs there.  Needless to say, we never ventured in there.

Another thing we’d get up to was building dams – either across the small stream at my cousin’s farm or, when we were younger, in the sheugh at the bottom of the field next to our house.  A sheugh is a field drain and, as this one led from a small bog to the river nearby, it always had water in it.  We’d arrive home for tea with our clothes black and stinking with river mud.

Animals sometimes got into the sheugh to drink and then found they couldn’t get out again – hence the expression, ‘Ye’re as awkward as a pig in a sheugh!’  At the other end of this particular sheugh – just beyond our property and right beside the bog – was what is known here as a ‘flax hole’.

When the linen industry was at its height in Northern Ireland, there were thousands of flax holes all over the countryside.  Farmers would cut the flax and bind it into sheaves, which were then placed in the flax hole underwater and left to steep for weeks.  The soft outer fibres would rot away, leaving behind the strong fibres needed for making linen – a process known as ‘retting’  the flax.  And that’s where your expensive Irish linen comes from!

–––

Raymond McCullough hosts and produces the popular Celtic Roots Radio show – downloaded by around 7,000 listeners, in more than 100 countries around the world.  The show features a wide range of Celtic and roots music – Celtic, folk, folk/rock, Appalachian, bluegrass, Scottish, Irish, Breton, Cajun, singer/songwriter – plus a regular helping of northern Irish craic from Raymond, himself.  This blog makes available the scripts from that section of his show.

–––

Celtic Roots Craic is taken from Raymond’s popular Celtic Roots Radio show on iTunes and is also available as a separate podcast, as a blog and now the first 25 episodes are available as a new book, A Wee Taste a’ Craic, (available from Amazon.com etc. in paperback, Kindle & Kindle, UK editions).

Sunset over Strangford Lough, Islandhill, near Comber, Co. Down

14th November 2011

The clocks have changed and it’s getting dark quite early these days – “There’s a qu’er change in the evenin’s.”  But strangely enough, despite all the dire predictions from the weathermen of prolonged sub-zero weather, we’ve actually been experiencing warmer temperatures than we had during our so-called summer, earlier this year!  We haven’t really had a proper frost yet!  It just goes to show ye what it shows ye – ye can never predict the weather in Ireland.  It’s always got a wee surprise in store for ye.

Mind you, mild as it’s been, we’ve certainly been havin’ more than our fair share of rain –  ‘Mingin’ is a good Belfast description of it (that means it stinks).  Or you could say, ‘It’s bin putrid!’  ‘It’s bin comin’ down in bucketfuls’ – or, ‘bucketin wi’ rain.’  Or, “It’s teemin’ down out there.”

I was gettin’ some work done to my car the other day and the radio in the garage was playing fairly quietly.  I was only able to hear it because I was standin’ right by the speaker.  A good summary of the weather forecast for the next day would have been, “Well, it’s not gonna rain the WHOLE day!”

My mother used to use a great expression for a downpour, she’d say, “By the lucks of it I’d say we’r’ in for a right thunderplump!”   Usually, when it rains here, it’s not that heavy.  We’ll say, “There’s a wee bit of a mizzle,” or “Sure, it’s only spittin’ a wee bit.”  Or, “The weather’s a bit saft, today.”

We’re used to rain, but the wind, now, can take us unawares.  When it get’s up a bit we might be heard to say, “There’s a win’ out there would clean corn!”  That’s ano’rr one my mother was fond of.  Or maybe, “That win’ wud cut clean through ye!”  In Irish ye might say, “Tá mé fuar agus fliuch” – “I’m cold and wet.”

A discussion about holidays might start, “Where yez away anywhere the year?”  “Aye we were’n Spain for ten days, so we were.”  “Right.  What sort of we’err did yes git, over there?”  “Ach, it wuz dead onn, so it was.  Right’n warm, like.”  As I’ve said before, we’re not that well geared up for extremes of temperature.  When it freezes, we’re ‘foundered’, an’ when it’s unseasonably warm we’re ‘boiled’, or ‘melted’.  An’ the winter weather in this part a’ the world is mostly just, “Desp’rate, altoge’rr!”

Some of the expressions that we would use without thinkin’, here, would leave outsiders totally flummoxed.  Listenin’ to somebody tryin’ to control a chid, or two, can be very entertainin’!  “Ach, would yez catch yerselves on?  Runnin’ aroun’ there like a hen on a hot griddle!  Quit yer bullickin’ about, or I’ll give yez a clatter roun’ the lugholes, so a’ will.  Yez are doin’ my head in wi’ yer actin the maggot, there.”  Or, if the child happens to be climbing too high, “Git down ah’ that, afore ye fall ‘n’ kill yerself.”

The word, ‘look’ usually gets pronounced as ‘luck’.  “Luck what yer doin’, there!”  Or, “Luck after yerself, now.”  Not to be confused with the word, ‘lock’, meaning ‘a lot’  – as in, “There were a lock a’  boys hanging aroun’ tonight, so there were.”  Or, “A lock a’ people wouldn’t even bo’rr wi’ that.”  Or, “If ye’d a right lock a money, ye cud do a whole lock a’ things.”

When it comes to phrases to express someones cleverness, or the lack of it, we aren’t short of a few.  “Have a wee titter a’ wit, there, now.”  Or, “He hasn’t an ounce a sense, has he?”  “There’s more brains in my boot, now, so there is.”  “Some people havn’t the sense they were born with.”   Or, “He’s a few storeys short of a bungalow.”

Watching somebody make a hash of a job, we might comment, “Aye, if ye’d brains ye’d be dangerous!”  Alternatively, ye might hear, “Yer man’s no dozer, is he?”  Or, “If he was any sharper he’d cut himself!”  And, “Do ye think I came up the Lagan in a bubble?”

When asked if we are able to do something, we might reply, “Dead on.  No problem!”  Or, “Ach, no bo’rr.”  Or perhaps, “Aye, wee buns!”  In other words it’ll be ‘dead aisy.’  If somebody calls in unexpectedly for a brief visit, ye’ll probably ask them, “Will ye take a wee cup a’ tae?”  To which they’ll probably make some excuse.  So ye’ll say, “Sure, go on – A’ve the tae already wet.”  How can ye refuse, eh?

–––

Raymond McCullough hosts and produces the popular Celtic Roots Radio show – downloaded by around 7,000 listeners, in more than 100 countries around the world.  The show features a wide range of Celtic and roots music – Celtic, folk, folk/rock, Appalachian, bluegrass, Scottish, Irish, Breton, Cajun, singer/songwriter – plus a regular helping of northern Irish craic from Raymond, himself.  This blog makes available the scripts from that section of his show.

–––

Celtic Roots Craic is taken from Raymond’s popular Celtic Roots Radio show on iTunes and is also available as a separate podcast, as a blog and now the first 25 episodes are available as a new book, A Wee Taste a’ Craic, (available from Amazon.com etc. in paperback, Kindle & Kindle, UK editions).

Celebrate your Celtic heritage and bring something a little different to the festivities by doing one or more of the following:

• Decorate your tree in a “Celtic” theme. This can really be anything you want–get creative! Whether you make ornaments by hand or start a tradition of buying decorations with a Celtic theme, it can be fun to create a look that is all your own.
• Make a Celtic slideshow. If you are computer-savvy, why not do a slideshow of photos that reflect on your family’s Celtic heritage? You can add some appropriate music and create copies for everyone in the family. This is a project that can double as a gift!
• Write a Celtic carol. Do you play an instrument? Can you sing? Amuse friends and family by coming up with your own Christmas carol–Celtic-style! It’s fun at parties!
• Host a theme party. You don’t have to restrict costumes to Halloween. Why not have a holiday party with a Celtic costume theme? It makes for great pictures and good memories.
• Do Celtic cards. Head out to a Celtic store (or shop online) and get some cards with a theme that reflects your heritage–or pen something appropriate yourself if you have the gift. It’s nice to send something out besides snowmen and Santa Claus.
• Give Celtic gifts. Support the Celtic marketplace by giving gifts from merchants that sell related products. You can get anything from a nice sweater to a piece of lovely crystal–and don’t forget the Celtic MP3s!

My best wishes to all for a wonderful holiday season!

Oh, and if you have a way of infusing a little “Celtic” flavor into your holiday season, please do share it here!

Catherine L. Tully specializes in writing about the arts, lifestyle and travel. She is the Owner of 4dancers, a blog for those who love dance, and Editor for Freelance-Zone, an award-winning site for freelance writers. Catherine also reviews music for Celtic Music Magazine.