Category: Ireland

Who Won the Week (23 February 2020)

I have Fandango to thank for this title – he has been posting regularly on this subject from his west-coast-USA vantage point. I am interested in current affairs too, and normally have some nonsense or other to spout about one of the UK’s topical news stories. So, I like to join in. Maybe there’s something in your world that you’d like to post about?

I didn’t really have a winner this week, but I did read a quirky news story in the Irish Times which raised my eyebrows. It’s becoming clear to me that I need to think of these posts more in terms of quirkiness than in terms of winners/losers, but I’m going to keep the title and tag, just so I remain consistent with other posts on the theme.

Anyway, I bet you never picked up on this story from your reegular news feeds!

We’ve all heard of the Mary Celeste, right? The American ghost ship which was found drifting off the Azores in the late nineteenth century? Such an unusual story it has passed into folklore, so surely lightning could not strike twice?

Let me introduce the Alta. The Alta is is a freighter, which was en route from Greece to Haiti when, in October 2018, it suffered unrecoverable engine failure out in the Atlantic, about 1,400 miles from Bermuda. Its crew of ten were picked up by the US Coastguard, leaving the ship to drift.

You’d think someone would care about a ship, wouldn’t you? It’s not exactly tiny, it must be worth a bob or two, and after all, this was 2018. But the ship was allowed to drift. And drift. And drift. Last August it was spotteed back across the ocean, off the coast of Africa, having drifted about 1,500 miles across the Atlantic.

But the Alta wasn’t finished. She continued drifting. This time, northwards, until Storm Dennis finally lifted it onto the Irish coast at Ballycotton (what a beautiful name!) in County Cork last week. Because, of course, before Storm Dennis hit the UK, it tore through Ireland.

You wouldn’t have thought any of this was possible in this day and age, would you?

There was a serious side to this story, though, because when it was abandoned, this ship had an amount of fuel on board, so the Irish Times were actually reporting this story from a pollution perspective. If it breaks up, the Irish will have a job on their hands to clear up the mess. I did have a look this morning to see if there was any further news – as of yesterday, so far so good. It is still ongoing but the vessel hasn’t broken up yet.

Tick Tock Tuesday (19 November 2019) – The Dubliners

I thought I’d create a new challenge. It is a challenge primarily for me, because I’m new to this platform, and because you don’t really know me yet, nor I you. As my name suggests, I am recovering from a stroke, and I like to push myself in all kinds of little ways… including getting to know the Wonderful World of WordPress. Although this is something I will be doing, I invite you, if this idea takes your fancy, to play along with me and share with me some of your own selections.

My plan is: each Tuesday, until I run dry, I shall post some piece of art with which I have some connection – which has helped to mould me, which makes me tick. Okay, a piece of art is a bit vague – it might be a piece of music, a movie, a book, a painting, or ???? – so my phrasiology is deliberate. It might be anything – I will play this post by ear, so I’m not sure what I’ll think of each week. And, I’ll keep posting on the theme weekly until I run out of ideas.

My rules? Well, I’m not big on rules! My choice will be something with which I feel a connection. That’ll be the important thing, just having some kind of fleeting affection for something probably won’t be enough, unless I’m using my choice as an example of something bigger.

It will be one choice per week – I’m aware that long posts can be quite onerous to read, and I’m in no hurry to complete this so if I have two ideas, I’ll probably hold the second until the next week.

In that same vein, I’ve created this block as a Reusable Block, which I intend repeating for every post on this theme. The block ends with a full-width separator, so if you want to skip ahead each week it doesn’t really matter.

I probably won’t post any lyrics, or any kind of analysis – if you like my choice, the information will be out there for you. But I will try to briefly explain why I feel a connection to my choice, just to try and enhance readers’ understanding of what makes me tick.

I will tag my posts TTT and I will go looking for other posts with that tag. If you’d like to join in, please do the same, or comment, or pingback to this post, and feel free to reproduce my graphic. Lastly, I look forward to reading about what makes you tick.

Last week I introduced my love of Irish music, and you don’t listen to Irish music for very long before you meet The Dubliners.

So, I had their CD in my car, and sometimes had to ferry my young daughter here and there. Of course, the two cross-pollinated, especially as she would have been at an age where she could recognise the the lyrics to a very hilarious story.

So this song became a favourite, both her’s and mine, and has very personal memories of my young daughter for me. When you listen, you’ll understand why it was a favourite. I dare anybody who works to try this one with their employer!

Tick Tock Tuesday (12 November 2019) – Ireland

I thought I’d create a new challenge. It is a challenge primarily for me, because I’m new to this platform, and because you don’t really know me yet, nor I you. As my name suggests, I am recovering from a stroke, and I like to push myself in all kinds of little ways… including getting to know the Wonderful World of WordPress. Although this is something I will be doing, I invite you, if this idea takes your fancy, to play along with me and share with me some of your own selections.

My plan is: each Tuesday, until I run dry, I shall post some piece of art with which I have some connection – which has helped to mould me, which makes me tick. Okay, a piece of art is a bit vague – it might be a piece of music, a movie, a book, a painting, or ???? – so my phrasiology is deliberate. It might be anything – I will play this post by ear, so I’m not sure what I’ll think of each week. And, I’ll keep posting on the theme weekly until I run out of ideas.

My rules? Well, I’m not big on rules! My choice will be something with which I feel a connection. That’ll be the important thing, just having some kind of fleeting affection for something probably won’t be enough, unless I’m using my choice as an example of something bigger.

It will be one choice per week – I’m aware that long posts can be quite onerous to read, and I’m in no hurry to complete this so if I have two ideas, I’ll probably hold the second until the next week.

In that same vein, I’ve created this block as a Reusable Block, which I intend repeating for every post on this theme. The block ends with a full-width separator, so if you want to skip ahead each week it doesn’t really matter.

I probably won’t post any lyrics, or any kind of analysis – if you like my choice, the information will be out there for you. But I will try to briefly explain why I feel a connection to my choice, just to try and enhance readers’ understanding of what makes me tick.

I will tag my posts TTT and I will go looking for other posts with that tag. If you’d like to join in, please do the same, or comment, or pingback to this post, and feel free to reproduce my graphic. Lastly, I look forward to reading about what makes you tick.

Okay, so in the last few weeks I introduced my first love, reggae. This week, I’d ike to introduce another genre of music, Irish. In fact, a fellow blogger posted that they were in Dublin just recently – so I hope you had a great craic, Bronwyn! Did you manage to see the sun while you were there?

You can most likely spot a link between Irish and reggae- both Ireland and Jamaica are former British colonies, so I was interested in the history of what had gone on in both places in any case. And very murky it is, too!

But certainly London, being the melting pot of the empire, ended up with significant communities of both Black and Irish people. Some of you will have seen my SLS post a few weeks ago featuring Shane MacGowan, once the lead singer with The Pogues, a London-Irish band which achieved UK chart success, and which sparked my discovery of Irish music.

Another Irish band who achieved later success both in the UK chart and internationally was The Corrs, and I choose them today. Not particularly because I have any great connection with either the band (although they are a good band and their music is well-produced) or this track, but more because it is a traditional track which exemplifies why I love Irish music – the tempo, the instruments played with great skill and dexterity…

Toss The Feathers.

More on Music

I posted on my musical tastes here. Reading it back, it is as much about my politics as my musical tastes. I re-read it, and it contains some omissions.

I am a child of the Eighties, which means I just saw the tail-end on punk music. I always loved the speed of the beat. Of course, a lot of punk was as much about politics as music. I suspect the musicians thought that too. (!)

This speedy beat also had me listening to the Pogues and Shane MacGowan. London-Irish, of the time, and again politically charged. Former British colonies tend to do very well for political material! And, of course, it’s still going on in Northern Ireland, where sectarian politics still reigns. That, in turn, unlocked the door to Irish folk music – you know, tin whistles and fiddles. Plus Irish artists like Christy Moore. And, of course, you can’t listen  to the music – I can’t – without wanting to know about Irish history, why these people sing what they sing. Ironically, the city I left, Liverpool, has an enormous Irish scene. This has even fostered visits to Ireland on holidays – if you’re considering it, get out of the cities of Dublin and Cork, get out into the countryside and find the real Ireland.

Super-fast music. A million miles away from my slower, chilled-out reggae, although I must also admit to enjoying ska, another Jamaican invention. One of the beauties of Youtube is that I can listen to a lot of the old ska tracks by the Jamaican record labels, probably never before released outside of the island.

There are other artists that I haven’t yet mentioned, more “poppy”. Not particularly meaningful, just music I enjoy. Paul Heaton, in all his forms. I was very much the right age for The Housemartins, and I remember they played Cardiff Uni when I was there. The Manic Street Preachers too – they are from the Welsh valleys, so I saw them a few times in Cardiff before they became massive. They’re still going and in fact played at Southampton, around twenty miles away from me here, just a few months ago. I was sorely tempted, but in the end decided against remortgaging the house so I could buy the ticket – the CDs will have to do.

Then, of course, there’s George. Back to my Beatle roots. In fact, the Beatle era stifled George, I think, and he came out with this rich vein of music post-Beatles, much of which I now own. I can admire Paul McCartney’s gift for writing catchy poppy tunes, but for me there is no comparison. And, of course, this sets off a whole new trail. From George, to the Wilburys, to Orbison…

How to conclude? I’m not one of these people who say that “music is my life”, and I’ll certainly never get 10/10 in the Popmaster quiz, but I think music can supplement life, and enhance it. I have my loves and my hates, as I’m sure we all do, and a lot of it is just noise, as I’m sure mine is to other people.

The Irish Solution

I’m really fed up with the intransigence in Northern Ireland.

My solution is for the UK and Irish governments to get together and to govern NI jointly. Their main purpose should be to hold elections in NI, then to step back. If NI people vote again for parties who won’t even talk to opponents, then they deserve everything they get.

‘Course, it’s a very reasonable question to ask why this hasn’t happened already. Perhaps those 10 seats in Westminster have something to do with it?