(no subject)

move along..nothing to see here

• 02:13 @kellingham so you have mentioned #
• 02:58 @jeswel just remember..nothing's ever been thrown at us that we could not survive #
• 04:39 @kellingham actually neither #
• 05:07 @kellingham a Romaniced Brit, not English..who did not exist yet. and the British and the Irish both at the time were Celts.. #
• 05:07 @kellingham from whence come our ps and qs but that is a bad liniguist's joke #
• 11:49 Time enough for cider. And salmon. And hopefully Alice #
• 12:02 @gojiro and a happy St Paddy as I sit in Ky #
• 22:19 @StudioDraven I suppose that is supposed to make sense somehow? #
• 22:52 @seelix Or step dancers that are also zombie killers? #

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Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter - Official Video

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We are the makers of music

So let us talk about the music. and the truth is that you cannot talk about Irish music without talking about the history of the Irish and of Irish-Americans.

We start with An Gorta Mor, or the Great Hunger..which is a much more precise description than famine..because it was all artificial after all. And there were millions of people forced out of Ireland to North America. And the Americans met them with..well, less than open arms as it happens. The whole "No Irish Need Apply" thing. Which led to, as it happens, to the hyphen. For this new people, the Irish-Americans would not not let go of their Irish heritage but also at the same time refused to be seen as less than American, even though they were a different religion than the majority of Americans at the time.

Cut forward a hundred years. in the Republic of Ireland makers of traditional music were looked down upon. They were reminders of the crushing poverty and the the repression of the Irish Catholic Church (another gift of the English but that is a different tale.) And then the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, wearing sweaters Mother Clancy had made them, came to New York. And this group of immigrants were accepted with open arms as it were, along with curious ears..and the Irish were saying..that is us? More to follow of course.