4th April 2022. The notice has gone out for next Sunday’s session in the Dubliner. On Saturday we met at the home of our newly found mandola player for a band practice. The home lies on the outskirts of a village called Triadi. You might be wondering how a village can have outskirts, but that... Continue Reading →
Irish Music in Northern Greece 07/2022
The adventure continues. A week and a half of success. Our session on Sunday 13th March went very well with 15 musicians turning up. We returned to the Dubliner on Thursday 17th March for the St. Patrick’s party and to hear Tir Fada. They were really on form as were the blues band that followed... Continue Reading →
Irish Music in Northern Greece 06/2022
The Dubliner’s website has been updated. Our next session is being advertised so we are getting ready for Sunday 13th March. I have talked previously about Grevena’s St. Patrick’s Festival and its cancellation in 2020 and 2021. It will not receive any support this year either, but I have been asked to organise a session... Continue Reading →
Irish Music in Northern Greece 05/2022
Our fourth session got underway on Sunday 13th February. Another enjoyable afternoon in a wonderfully busy pub. Great to have been there. Next one up is 13th March, the St. Patrick’s session. Ken, the manager, has also arranged a party for the day itself, the 17th. Currently, I am reading Mark Mazower’s The Greek Revolution... Continue Reading →
Irish Music in Northern Greece 04/2022
A quiet period. Our last scheduled practice had to be cancelled and rescheduling was not possible. However, music is back so our next session will take place on Sunday, 13th February at 4:30pm. Let’s hope it goes well. The problem with a session is the “unknown”. Who will turn up? How many? What time? We... Continue Reading →
Irish Music in Northern Greece 03/2022
Some very sad news. A young Irish primary school teacher was murdered while jogging on the banks of the Royal Canal near Tullamore. Her name was Ashling Murphy. She was only 23 years old. Ashling was one of us, an accomplished fiddler. Here she is when she must have been a very young teenager. You... Continue Reading →
Irish Music in Northern Greece 02/2022
12th January 2022. It has just been announced that the music ban has been extended until 23rd January. In today’s www.voria.gr there was an article saying that the music ban alone has resulted in a 50% drop in turnover for the catering sector. Lockdown cost the sector even more. It seems pointless too. Though new... Continue Reading →
Irish Music in Northern Greece 01/2022
We ended 2021 and began 2022 with a negative. No session on 9th January. There is a small chance it might happen on 16th as the restrictions are due to end on that date. I am assuming that they end at 6am on that morning. As a band we sing the song Salonika and segue... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 27/2021
I have briefly referred to the problems with Radio Arvila in GW 26/2021. Greek Reporter has covered the story in depth and goes out of its way to show how people have been driven to suicide on discovering intimate images and video clips of themselves have been uploaded. https://greekreporter.com/2021/12/15/revenge-porn-greece/ The other three presenters of Radio... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 26/2021
2nd December 21. Sadly, the 38-year-old that I referred to in IMLiNG #25 has died. Her name was Parthena “Patty” Koutmeridou. Even while the poor woman’s corpse is still warm, a huge row has broken out. And in these circumstances the favourite weapon of choice is the blame-thrower. Some say it was her gynaecologist who... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 25/2021
Thessaloniki 26th November 2021 A headline in a newspaper the other day claimed: “Matters are getting out of hand”. A customer, denied access to a café because he did not have a Covid certificate, bit the proprietor on the cheek. The full story is here: https://www.iefimerida.gr/ellada/andras-naoysa-dagkose-idioktiti-kafe-magoylo Even more surreally (the apt word), a young actor... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 24/2021
Monday 22 November 2021. A bad day for Covid. Nearly 7,300 cases, 608 intubated and 105 dead – the highest daily death toll since 3rd May when 135 died. In spite of these numbers, there are some facts which seem to be immutable. These include: slightly more men than women are infected, intubated or dead... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 23/2021
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 23/2021 Sunday 14th November. Our second session went very well. Encouragingly, at least four of the ten players were Greeks under 30 years old. I say that because it is pleasing to witness people with no connections to Ireland getting into the music. The second reason is... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 22/2021
1st November 21: I feel as if I’m between a rock and a hard place or – to show off a little classical education – between Scylla and Charybdis, the Scylla of British infection insouciance and Charybdis of the looming Corona crisis in Greece. Yesterday witnessed the highest infection figures since the start of the... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 21/2021
Monday, 25th October 21: This afternoon Fofi Gennimata, the leader of KINAL (formerly PASOK), died. She was relatively young, a month shy of her 57th birthday. Her father, Georgios Gennimatas, also died young, being only 54 when cancer took him back in 1994. Georgios Gennimatas’s main achievement lay in setting up the National Health System... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 20/2021
What a joy it was to write in my last post about something other than Covid but, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Vaccination uptake is well below the hopes of the authorities, particularly in Northern Greece. In a small town called Drama, only about 40% of the adult... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 19/2021
Success and lift-off. The inaugural Dubliner Session kicked off around 5pm on Sunday, 17th October. It was great to see a full pub. We were seated in a corner and, true to session “format”, we were facing in all directions. I think I was right to make sheet music available as several of the participants... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 18/2021
21st September 21. Two bits of bad news today. The local paper Makedonia says the Health Secretary and his deputy are on their way to Thessaloniki to discuss possible local lockdowns. Now iefimerida – my go-to online newspaper has the panicky headline “The nightmare awakens in Thessaloniki – Red with 449 cases, 544 in Attica.”... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 17/2021
2nd September: It has just been announced that the composer, Mikis Theodorakis, has died at the age of 96. Three days of national mourning have been declared. He is most famous for the music of the film, Zorba the Greek. His was a full life: imprisonment and exile during the dictatorship; a move from the... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 16/2021
The dominant stories in Greece are forest fires and Covid. Covid cases are increasing. The table below shows figures for the beginning and end of August. Date (24 hours leading up to 3pm on)New CasesDeathsIntubated2 – August - 212,156818827 – August - 213,0762233728 – August - 213,0643533330 – August – 21*2,34319338 Numbers are generally lower... Continue Reading →