23/008 Irish Music in Northern Greece

We had a practice on 2^nd August. It was organised in the sense that we had a preset list of tunes and songs to go through. It wasn’t pretty, though! However, I know we will be OK by our next session (10^th September) and next gig (16^th September).

I’ve spent most of the time doing admin things such as setting up the session dates for the rest of the year, updating the dates on www.thesession.org and placing an advert on a Greek website called www.freelist.gr

Sinead O’Connor died on or around 26^th July. On Twitter people praised her for ripping up a photo of the Pope. I said that the gesture was needless, sensationalist and attention-seeking. I was pilloried. I was accused of siding with Catholic Church cover-ups over child abuse. One poster declared that Sinead was Rosa Parks. I wasn’t having any of that shite. Rosa Parks displayed real courage and faced real danger. The strangest insult on Twitter is the dick size contest where people look at your follower/following numbers and declare something like, “As if we can take you seriously with your 45 followers” or “You and your 45 followers can go and fuck yourselves.” I have to laugh. I follow very few and am consequently followed by very few. I think I have cracked 50 followers now. Aside from the wilful distortion of what you’ve written, I find it even stranger that people would look at your profile, seize on your follower figures and weaponise it. And it has happened to me on three occasions. It’s like saying Latvians are inferior to Poles because there are fewer of them.

I was never really a fan of O’Connor. Born on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, it is no surprise that her middle names were Marie Bernadette. She had a difficult childhood from which she never really recovered. It looks as if she travelled from Dublin to London to end her life. How lonely she must have been. I feel for her but that does not mean I have to like her work.

For me, the timbre of her voice had a certain harshness about it. She did a series of traditional recordings with Irish musicians. I think she murdered Danny Boy (a cappella), dragged The Foggy Dew at the beginning, and did a lovely job of I’ll Tell Me Ma. And maybe I like the last one because of the lovely whistle. See what you think.

Danny Boy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PweUGhCZNiM

The Foggy Dew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keWnPZOd2cw

I’ll Tell Me Ma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kge3k99HcI0

May she rest in peace.