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IRELAND, 2005

April 23rd 2005 Still in Aus
Here I sit broken hearted... well not really. I have been forced by my web designer, Tim from Mooney Mooney (winner of Tony Delroy and James O'Laughlin's quiz many times!) to start blogging... why??????????????? Because I'm off overseas to Ireland, Galway to be precise to visit an old, old friend of mine who turns 60 very shortly, no names will be mentioned, but if you wanna say hello to Stuart Cowell I'll pass it on. Stuart and I formed a bush band years ago called Eureka. Well, that's in the past but well I haven't been to Europe since I went there in 1974 with the Canberra Youth Orchestra (I was 2 at the time, really!) On this trip, I hope to catch up with some other mates...they owe me money, and maybe visit Hungary as well. Sally Corry , from Sydney band the TRANSYLVANNIACS, runs these tours of traditional music villages around Budapest. Cool, well, very cool, even f*#king freezing, average day temperature in 53F! Have all these plans made etc, but I reckon I'll go over there and play until me fingers bleed. Who knows, I'll keep you all posted via the site. If you want to reply , please do! TTFN

April 29 2005 Stuck at Gatwick
London! Gatwick South Terminal to be exact. I made the mistake of buying a cheap EzyJet ticket which means I wait hours for a connection. Walking around with all my luggage, hence the blog. I caught a bus from Heathrow to Gatwick, 16 pounds sterling (they didn't take Euros), about an hour travelling south. I was completely lost.... thought we were travelling north but of course the sun and hence the equator is south. The countryside reminded me of the southern highlands of NSW, lots of poplars, birches etc.If you took away the fact that I know the bloody Hume Highway from Canberra to Sydney intimately, this whole trip could be a sham and the plane has turned around at Hong Kong and landed in a Blazing Saddles equivalent of Heathrow, somewhere southwest of Picton!. God, is this just the change of time zones?? So, I wish I had stayed in London for a night. I dunno, I'll have to find someone who got a friend or relative that doesn't mind putting me up. I am sure it's hideously expensive, but a night hanging out in this city (the centre of it at least) could be cool. Maybe later in the trip. Just to explain, the sorts of things I've brought with me. Bugger all clothes, though very warm ones. I have of course got my laptop, with çopies of all the work I've been doing with the FF in the studio in the last month, yes a new cd is on it's way.. I have two phones, one which is my normal one, so once I get a sim card in Ireland, I can sms and ring people prepaid. I also have shit loads of listening CD's and a RAM stick to write emails and download interesting stuff. I am hoping I might get some contributions ot the CD over here... who knows. The next port of call is Shannon airport in Limerick. Kinvara, where I am staying on Galway Bay, is close to heaps of things Lisdoonvarna (see Chris D Moore), the cliffs of Mohar, the Aran Islands and a few places like Doolan (where my maternal grandfather came from)and Limerick, (where my maternal grandmother came from). Anyway, I have another five f$%king hours. Am thinking of hiring a car. One thing I notice, people'sa ccents. They're mostly English? Actually, I guess what I am saying is Australians are a lot more cosmopolitan than we think. Airports are really not the friendliest of places... I tell you though the security at Heathrow sucks!!!!! I walked through with... well no I didn't but every time I've come back from o/s the customs guys have been much more scrupulous. It's cold 8 deg C! Like living in Canberra again! Thinks.... I need to get to sunny Ireland?, see youze later!

Tuesday May 3rd, Kivarra and the Fleach
Well, that was a whirlwind weekend. Stuart and I were lucky enough to perform at the Cuckoo Fleach (pronounced Fla translation festival). there were a tons of sessions in the pubs and I got to play with Nolag Casey, Gerry O'onnor, John Faulkner, Garry O'Briain and a great Bodhran player from Boston called Joey Sullivan, who is also a great R and B kit player. It's quite easy for East Coasters to go to Ireland (especially around Galway) as it's only 6 hours and less than $1kAUD. I also hear the Kane sisters playing at the Pier Head.

Thurs May 5th 19:07:54 2005, Limerick and Drunken Irishmen (from Sydney)
Thursday morning. Busy couple of days. Tuesday I spent recovering from the weekend. Wednesday Stuart and I drove to Ballingarry Co. Limerick to hunt for my O'Shea ancestors. The place is lousy with them so I have been chasing up possible connections and leaving messages with the local priest. Went through Limerick city and a small, very pretty village called Adare. The countryside is spectacular and lush. Most fences and walls are made from the acres of volcanic stone littered about the place. Tourism is a big thing here. I stopped at the information centre in Adare to get addresses of Births, Deaths and Marriages registries and pick up a brochure of some of the points of interest around. There are a lot of theme places, lovely examples of how Paddy Wackery has invaded Irish society. Enjoy a night of real Irish song and food? I don't think I ever find the need to go to one of these establishments. Last night I also had a jam with 2 guitarists, English and American, playing some swing stuff. Both great players. John, from New York, plays a lot with Andy Statman and has worked with David Grisman. Suddenly the door of the Ould Plaid Shawl (that's the pub) flies open and in walks a fairly inebriated Irishman who recognizes me from Sydney and insists we play some trad stuff. Needless to say, the atmosphere was wrecked. Bugger. Today's plan. Set up a business meeting in Dublin, ring Peter (the other guitarist) to have a chat and talk to Eilish O'Çonnor this evening... and wash some clothes!!!!!!

Friday May 7th In search of the Green(e)'s
Eilish O'Connor, Gerry (fiddle) O'Connor's sister is taking me to Doolan where see is getting some slate for her garden. We drive right past Luogh South where my maternal grandfathers family comes from. We drive through Lisdoonvarna, famous for it's matchmaking festival and down to the coast where the Burren meets the ocean (almost). After stopping at Doolan, I'm directed to a very old church overlooking the ocean where my most of my ancestors are buried. The graveyard itself is very uneven and it would be easy to break your leg here. The weather is cold, but it's such a beautiful past of the coast.

Tuesday May 10th In Dublin....
I am staying at a friend's place in Sandyford, a suburb of Dublin.....brrr. It's cold. Colder than Kinvara but lovely nonetheless, well are the suburbs lovely? We went to see a fantastic band last night. The Cafe Orchestra. I heard their CD while I was trying to eat my way out of a hangover after the Fleach in the Cafe next door to Stuart'sshop. The Cafe Orchestra was a trio; violin (Pat Collins), button accordion (Dermot Angel) and guitar (John Whelan). All very good players performing gypsy stuff. Pat had a drink with us after and turned out to be a great bloke. As usual, the Guinness flowed and so did the conversation. The gig was a charity gig for the Alzheimers association and was held in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre right next door to Trinity College.
If there seems to be a gap in the blogs, it's because Tim of Mooney Mooney's server thought my documents were infected. It's possible, I've been interfacing without protection. After a week and a half in Kinvara (described as a drinking town with a fishing problem), I was glad to get into the big smoke. Dublin is a very pretty city, very modern, the double decker buses are quaint and it's full younger people... am I starting to feel old? They have a tram system here similar to the light rail in Sydney, made by the same company. It's grand (Irish expression) and there should be more of them in Sydney. I am sure there will be. Tonight I play at the O'Shea Merchant on Bridge St, as well as tomorrow night. Then it's off to Ennis (near Limerick), to play with Frank Kilkelly (jazz guitar) and maybe another on Saturday,. If the gig is not on for Saturday, I'll go to Cork to hang out with Gino Lupari and 4 Men and a Dog. It's all bus timetables and stuff at the moment. I love Ireland but I am looking forward to getting back to some warmer weather........C.U.

Sun May 15th 05:07:12 2005, It's a long way by bus!
I'm in Baltimore, West Cork. Last night FOUR MEN AND A DOG played (Fantastic as usual!) and I got to catch up with Gino. The festival here is called the FIDDLE FAIR, in the major hotel here. it's run by a lovely West Corkian? called Declan McCarthy and has been going for 14 years. Just to let you all know where Baltimore is.....it's....well the end of Ireland, about as far south and west as you can go... next stop America. I can't get a bus till Monday (it's Sunday at the moment) and there's an Italian Tango band and a Trad band (North Cragg) playing as part of the Festival. I'm staying at a Band B on the Quay which has very nice rooms overlooking the bay. I should mention that later this week Altan and Dervish are also appearing at the Fiddle Fair.
I caught the bus from Kilcolgan, near Kinvara to Limerick Junction via Ennis and then to Cork. I thought I was going to Cork but it ends up (communication error) I need to get to Baltimore, so I catch a bus to Skibberreen and a taxi with Declan's brother Brendan and his mates to Baltimore. 12 hours altogether! I'm not used to buses and long bus trips. I did walk around Cork for a couple of hours, it's an interesting city in the process of being (in the words of Alan Partridge) pedestrianised! Obviously, it's a port town and has been for many centuries. I found a little restaurant (closed) called "TASTE, THE RORY GALLAGHER CAFË, 2004"... Perhaps, I should retrace my steps... On Wednesday May 11th, I played with some musicians in a large pub called the O'SHEA MERCHANT on the Liffey River, trad in one bar, old time dancing in the other. Thursday, Stuart had to wait for his van to be GPS'd so FRANK KILKELLY (jazz guitarist of note) gave me a lift back to Kinvara from Dublin. Friday evening Frank, Paul (acoustic Bass) and meself did a small gig in a rather ritzy hotel in Ennis. The job finished at eight so we drove back through the Burren via several goat track and with the sun slowly sinking behind the blue hills...... kinda special moment.
The Burren... stretches from Ennis and meets the coast around Doolan and I don't know how far it goes from there. Here are a few facts about this incredible ancient landscape. The rock is kind of slate, limestone and a bit like blue metal. Everything get built with the it (and exported all over the world) like the walls of the fields for hundreds of miles which are dry stone and after the great famine, the government employed people to clear the fields and build stone walls. Hundreds of miles of it! All by hand!
Well, my next plan was to catch a bus at 8am in the morning but I went to the gig on Sunday night (last night) and saw the two bands. The classical tango trio playing Astor Piazola was a wonderful surprise and very well received. The trad band, equally dexterous and lively were great as well and so after a couple of Guinnii, Christie (the box player from the trad band) sorted a lift out for from Baltimore to Cork with a student called Sinead. So up in the morning, I got into Cork by 11am and finally reached Kinvara at about 7pm... it's a long way but a lot of fun........I guess my lasting impression was driving out of Baltimore overlooking the most beautiful lake aspect I think I have ever seen. I'd arrived at night so I didn't see how spectacular the place was.

Wednesday 18th May, Back in Kinvara
A few days have passed back here at Stuart's shop. The weather has gone from beautiful sunny days (almost t-shirt weather) to bloody freezing cold and driving rain. In Galway City the other day we walked around the Claddagh in the pouring rain and had an Indian meal, modern irony. The torrential downpour last night flooded the kitchen floor so at 10pm we were mopping up the mess etc. It was off to Winkles for the old timey session. Things start here at 10pm and finish around 1am. I've been playing at sessions every night, a couple with Gary O'Briain, who is an amazing musician. Kinvara is a small town right near the Clare border. It has 10 pubs... Connolly's, Greens, Sexton's, the Ould Plaid Shawl, Keogh's, Flattley's, Winkles, Connole's, the Merriman, the Piers Head and Tully's. So far I haven't played in the Merriman, the Pier's Head, Keogh's or Flattley's. There are an enormous number of musicians and artists living around here. I could name a few... John Prine, Sharon Shannon, Davey Spillane lives just down the road in Doolan (just near where my ancestors come from) etc. I met Winnie Horan, the fiddler with Solas (she's moving here from Philidelphia) with Sharon in Stuart's shop yesterday and the number of people who go through this place is great. Another one of Stuart's friend is a Scottish fiddler, guitarist, singer called John Martin. He has a great sense of humour and is a fabulous player as is Rob Stein a New Yorker who teaches Celtic Studies at Limerick Uni.
I haven't been able to get to North or the South east. I figure that I have been over here for a holiday and to rest up before the FF starts touring and recording. House prices here have gone through the roof. Ten years ago you could get a very nice two to three bedroom cottage for about 30k to 40k (Pounds Sterling = 80k to 100K AUD).. now they're 350k to 400k (Euro = 600k to 700k AUD). Slightly less than a house in Sydney but how about the increase! I don't there is much left in the housing boom here. The tourism thing is slowing down as people are finding with the cost of everything in Ireland and cheap airfares to Eastern Europe, the EU, the Euro, and these countries being safer than they were, people are going elsewhere. There's been an I.T. boom in Ireland but like everything else, manufacturing is moving to cheaper areas including Asia. In a way, Australia has a definite advantage being so close to the action (for once). If anything, this trip has restored my faith in my own musicality and my belief in how lucky I am living where I do. I am not so blind to think Australia is the best country on the planet. Everywhere has it's good and bad points. I would like to spend more time in different countries and especially Europe.

Friday May 20th. Sightseeing
Went on some more touring with Kim, the ex-lawyer from Ohio. Cars are very expensive to hire here. The equivalent of $600 per week for a very small runabout, that's without insurance! We went to Kilmacdugh (excuse the pronunciation) which is an old village, church and leaning tower. Luckily, the castle was open as another group had got the key from the house across the road. When the church becomes no longer used, they bury people inside the church itself and carry on using the existing land surrounding the church until it's all used up. Then we went to Cimcomroe Abbey, which was built in 1182 (almost yesterday!). All these building are made from the local stone (the burren) and are in various states of disrepair. Unfortunately, the abbey's main attraction, it's altar, was closed for repair. I looked like some of the arch work (most of these places have no roofs) was getting a bit dodgy. Then we went down the coast to an abandoned castle, built in the 1500's which Kim said he would buy if he won the lottery. It had a holy well, a ruined church and as usual, cows. The next point of interest was a very small beach with would you believe it, sand and parasailing. It's bloody cold in the ocean, they're all mad. The surf was average. Further down the coast towards Doolan, near the Lisdoonvarna turnoff the burren pavement reaches the coast and lots of wildflowers bloom, orchids, fuschias, even the dreaded oxalis! It's amazing to see such varieties and colours, all starting to appear at this time of year. The burren, which is a metamorphosed limestone has so many variations in texture from igneous monoliths to slate and almost sedimentary slate. The last stop on the way was a Martello Tower in Finavara, built to defend Ireland from attack during the Napoleonic wars. There are so many places I haven't seen, Kilfenora, the Flaggy Shore (Shaggy Floor), New Quay not to even mention the Connemara.

Saturday May 21nd. The Adelaide Connection.
Stuart was selling a guitar to this bloke with a Liverpool accent (Phil) and his girlfriend was a lady from Adelaide (Aine), who looked quite familiar. I have a suspicion I met her when I lived in Adelaide in 1978. Anyway, we spent a great deal of time chatting about how we feel being Australians of Irish decent coming to Ireland for the first time. For me, I feel very comfortable around here. I guess I've always had an Irish bent even though I'm not a real trad player. The thing I like over here is the much greater understanding between the different styles of playing. There's a great divide in Australia between classical and non-classical players and I still get flack from people about another style is not as good as etc. Also, there is no non-classical formal teaching structure. It's still a long way off, but anyway, I'm still on holidays.

Sunday May 22nd. More Sightseeing
So, now we've been to New Quay, Aughinish (Horse Island), Flaggy Shore and a few other places around the southern shores of Galway Bay. Another Martello tower (on Aughinish) has been renovated and inhabited. It's great. The towers are pretty big, enough for about four stories and this one has an atrium on it's oval roof reflecting light into the structure. Amazing really and a great place to live. I didn't get to Kilfenora, which has some amazing celtic stone crosses. The tide between New Quay and Aughinish is one of the fastest in Europe and even though the distance between the mainland and the island is less than 100 metres, it's treacherous. Many lives have been lost trying to get across there by boat. We also went to a lovely old abandoned church in a field near Doorus with a great belltower, not very big, with only a couple of graves in the church itself. I guess we were looking for places to do up around here. The cost of the land is prohibitive, but the building material is cheap. There's also a bit of a housing boom around the southern side of Galway Bay. Since I've been in Ireland the weather has started to warm up. You still get quite strong cold winds but when the sun is out, the place gets quite warm and you can get sunburned. Mid-summer here would be fantastic. The wild flowers are beautiful and abundant but tiny. They only last about a week or so.

Monday May 23rd Back to Dublin.
The journey to Dublin was again full of wonderful scenery. The weather has definitely changed since I've been here. I am sure if I stayed another couple of weeks it would be t-shirt weather. The fields, once looking cold and bare are sprouting with all sorts of vegetation. Slowly, the single lane major roads are being replaced by freeways, but not on the scale of Australia. There are roadworks everywhere. We arrived at about 10pm at Fred Rogers place in Dun Drum, a neat housing estate serviced by the Luas tram system. Tuesday morning we went to the centre of the city via the tram and wandered around the south bank. The architecture is beautiful in places. I went to Immigration department and then we went to a local music store (Musicians Inc, Drury Lane) . Prices for all sorts of musical gear is expensive. Actually, let's face it, everything seems cheaper in Australia. After a day in town I met up with Liz Doherty, who as a young fiddler, has been appointed to the Arts Council, with funding for Trad music. She is very excited by her new job as there has been no funding up till now. Then we saw Martin O'Çonnor (accordion), Desi Wilkinson (flutes, voice) and Brendan O'Regan (bouzouki) play. Such wonderful musicians with loads of experience and international reputations. It seems they all live around Kinvara. Funny that?? After a very late night... I got home to Stuart and Fred having a party with some mates, I got up to start thinking about packing my bags for the journey home.

Thursday May 26th The Return Journey
We went out on Wednesday evening with Pat Collins, meeting in the Bank Bar and Restaurant. It's an absolutely stunning building that used to be the Bank of Belfast, incredible Italian Marble and mosaics. Ii was the final of the Champions trophy and Liverpool were playing AC Milan in Istanbul. The bar was too noisy so we went to a restaurant called Bar Deli (George St). I must admit it was the best meal I've had since I left Sydney, apart from the Sushi (Aya) we had on our first visit to Dublin. We then went to a place called Cafe En Seine. This cafe was also very beautiful but very soon the mostly young crowd were absolutely blotto. It is a very Irish thing to do. One lady slipped and fell in front of me. I was completely taken by surprise as I helped her up when she thanked me in a very deep male voice!!!!!! So, by 3am we were ready to go home... One problem, no taxis... we had to wait for an hour to get one and all the while the whole of Dane street was awash with young people in suits staggering around off their nuts. I now have to catch a bus to the airport, then a plane to Heathrow, change for a flight to Hong Kong and then Sydney. In, it takes about 30 hours of travel to get home. It is a very long way, but worth the effort. I've ot lots of photos and musical ideas to work on. I even got a call this morning from Sydney for some arranging work. It's all go when I get home, with the National tour looming. Hopefully, I'll see out the next three weeks of driving around the southern part of Oz!
I am now in Hong Kong airport. It's pissing down with rain and there is thunder and lightning. Midnight GMT, which means 7pm HKT which means 9pm AEST, does that make any sense? This was supposed to be the tough bit of the flight but had at least 5 hours sleep, so I am adjusting to the altered time zone. The plane has been delayed and I am going to run out of battery soon. I just realized I left my book on the plane, all I have is crosswords. I have a lot of work to do when I get home, string arrangements, sessions, gigs (I hope) and some organizing, emailing, washing....... bloody hell. Anyway, I don't feel too bad. Have had a wonderful time in Ireland. I think I will be back and maybe with more members of the FF? It would be worth getting a campervan (second hand) and travelling around Europe in the summer. You still need a lot of money, but it saves on hotel bills. You can also sample the local produce instead of eating out all the time. All these options, so little time!! It's still thundering outside. I think it's going to be a long flight home. Hong Kong, in case you're interested is a big, fascinating place. I haven't got time to get out of the airport, but the shopping on Kowloon is legendary but in the airport it's expensive. The Harbour is a bit like Sydney's although from where we are you can only see lightning.

Seeya.....