Irish KC : A Blog

Radishes

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

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

Feed Address Change

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

This is a special post just for those who subscribe to Irish KC by feed. Atom has been dropped, and there is a new RSS feed address in its place. Sorry about this different servers have refused to be civil to each other so I've had to implement some serious changes.

If you're already subscribed to the Feedburner RSS feed I'll keep that going as well as the one above, so you should be grand enough, but there will in time be a range of other feeds available - for comments and specific categories, like cartoons etc.

I am nearing the end of this current upgrade, and nearing the end of my tether. This special post will be deleted shortly once the relevant servers have been pinged.

See what you might have missed:
     • Hairdressers Guide to Information #6
     • Movements
     • Kansas City Wizards Celebrate the World Cup

Nelly Don: More Showings

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

Speaking of movies, Terence O'Malley's movie Nelly Don: A Stitch in Time about the Kansas City's legendary Irish-American business woman, continues to have more screenings added at the Screenland in downtown Kansas City:

  • Jun 2 Friday - 4:00pm
  • Jun 3 Saturday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, & 5:00pm
  • Jun 4 Sunday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, 5:00pm

See earlier posts for the background story on the movie, and companion Nelly Don book

See Other Movie News:
  • Uncensored Cinema
  • The Irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
  • All Movie News on Irish KC

Free Movie: Millions

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

The Kansas City Star describes a movie called Millions as:

Irish siblings find a bag of cash; will they spend it on themselves or on good deeds?

6:30 p.m. Sunday, Westport Presbyterian Church

While the boys' father is played by Irish actor James Nesbitt, the brothers, like the movie and its setting, are British. Northern English, yes, the northwest even, possibly somewhere between Liverpool - the capital of Ireland - and Manchester - which gave us The Smiths and Oasis, but English nonetheless.

That said, Danny Boyle is a fabulous director, and you should absolutely see this tremendous family film. Fantastical, funny, touching, stylish, warm, and original without being sentimental or stupid. I couldn't recommend it highly enough.

See other Irish movie stuff:
     • Uncensored Cinema
     • Ken Loach: Movie-Making Hero
     • Movie News on Irish KC

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

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

The Wyandotte Players, who present their shows at Kansas City Kansas Community College, are offering the Irish play, Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane from June 16-25.

It is a blend of black comedy, melodrama, horror and my favourite, bleak tragedy. The play is set in Leenane, a small town in Connemara, County Galway, and along with A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West formed The Leenane Trilogy.

The original production programme and promotional flyer describes The Beauty Queen of Leenane as:

the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag, her manipulative ageing mother. Mag's interference in her daughter's first and possibly final chance of a loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that lead inexorably towards the play's inevitable dénouement

That reminds me of the time I had a shedload of pints that led inexorably towards an inevitable dénouement one Thursday. The Beauty Queen of Leenane opened in 1996 in Galway and went on to win four Tony Awards in New York.

See also:
     • McDonagh Play for Unicorn Theatre
     • Bloomsday 2006 in Kansas City
     • All Irish Literature news on Irish KC

Ireland: High Tech & Low Corporate Tax

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

If you missed it, yesterday's Kansas City Star carried an AP article on Ireland supposedly, but really on Dublin specifically - and even more specifically, on the rapidly expanding European headquarters of Internet search-engine giant Google, which it calls a symbol for the new, immigrant-rich Ireland.

The EU's highest per capita GDP, unemployment at an EU-low 4.4 percent, top of the EU's 15 original members in having enterprises with innovation activity, 12.5 percent tax rate on corporate profits being the lowest in Europe, and all the usual stuff.

It also includes figures on new immigrants, most especially the Polish, and on Irish emigrants returning from the US.

Oh yeah, and Henry Street is now a boulevard apparently, despite it being no broader than it was before - which wasn't broad - and not exactly what you'd call landscaped, any more than say, Kansas City's 12th street.

See also:
     • Cardinal Gets Christian on Immigration
     • Too Much Prosperity?
     • Irish Pay Deal and Migrants

ETH in Kansas City

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I like people that lock themselves away from the world.

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

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

Roger Coleman and Joe Miquelon

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

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

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

Encore: 50 More Conservative Songs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #11

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

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

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

Normal Service for Kansas City Irish

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

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

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

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

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

Lunasa: Sean Smyth Interview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bubble Hits: Irish Music Channel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feast or Famine: Emigration Assistance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

English Conversations in the American Midwest

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

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

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

Flannigin's it is, so

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bloomsday Under Threat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's enough to put you off your kidneys.

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

The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology #5

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

HGIT #5 - gruaig : hair

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

Loach Irish Film Wins Cannes Big Prize

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #14

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

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

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

Part-time Irish Rock Star Learns Piano

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But what of U2 and music?

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

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

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

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

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

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #10

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

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

More Irish Conversations >>

Liam O Maonlai News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Celtic Block Party Music

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

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

See earlier Celtic Block Party post for more details.

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

Daniel O'Donnell: He's Coming to Missouri

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

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

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

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

And on describing his duets with Mary Duff:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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