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 →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 15/2021
An encounter with the Greek health system. On August 2nd or 3rd, I left our first floor flat to do some shopping. Halfway downstairs I realised I’d forgotten my mask and charged back to the flat. By the time I got to the door I was completely out of breath and finding it hard to... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 15/2021
We’ll start with Covid. Yesterday, Tuesday July 27th, saw a significant rise in cases – just a whisker short of 3,600 cases yesterday, of which 15 (0.4%) were detected at border entry points. A few weeks back, the government was panicking as intubations rose to nearly 800, but on Monday there were only 142 in... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 14/2021
Saturday 5th June. It is becoming harder to get basic Covid facts from the Greek Press, by that I mean the Greek-language press. Covid continues to abate with 932 new cases recorded today, 35 deaths and 445 undergoing “invasive treatment” as it says in the English-language Greek Reporter. One consistency over the past few weeks... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 13/2021
Despite the country opening up to tourism and despite the increasing air of normality, there has been a steady decrease in Covid. Today’s figures are 1,007 new cases, 41 dead and 480 in intensive care. Of the new cases, only one was detected at a border entry point. The press seems puzzled that over half... Continue Reading →
Irish Music Scene & Life in Northern Greece 12/2021
Hurrah for tourists. May they come in droves. The Greek government, I believe, would have kept us in lockdown indefinitely were the economy not so dependent on tourism. The number of new Covid cases, deaths and patients in intensive care has not really gone down as much as the authorities would like, but the gates... Continue Reading →