St.Patrick

Moya Brennan Has A New Single Plus My St Patrick’s Day Podcast.

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Great news about Moya Brennan! The first lady of Celtic Music(and the voice of Ireland) has just uploaded a new single via iTunes. It is called Erin Gra Mo Chroi (Ireland the Love of My Heart). I love it when she gives emphasis on the Irish Gaelic language in her songs.

Have you heard it already? Let me tell you what I think. Her voice sounds pristine in this song. Like the way she sounded in the early Clannad albums (circa the 70s). It is great to hear such a voice unadorned by technological armour which is so prevalent not just in pop music but also among her musical culture. That is how you sing with confidence! She is joined by the amazing harpist Cormac De Barra.Thank you Moya (and Cormac)for continuing to shower us with your artistic gifts! You can download Erin Gra Mo Chroi  via iTunes: id1092658199

Here’s my latest podcast for those who miss the kind of music I love to listen to:

Happy St Patrick’s Day to Everyone from The Celtic Music Fan

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Wishing everyone a Happy St. Patrick's Day! Sahara

From Sahara: The stained glass is from St. Benin’s Church Kilbennan Co. Galway and we were very taken with it. Have a lovely St. Patrick’s Day!!

Happy St Patrick’s to you all. I don’t say day because it should the whole week..well not just the whole week. Why not the whole month? Let’s all be in green the whole month. Let me start this show with this reading of the James Joyce classic The Dead. This is the end part where Gretta Conroy tells her husband Gabriel about a secret she had kept all these years. This is where he laments their situation. The narration is read by Alan Cooke who is currently promoting his book Naked in New York. If you haven’t gotten your copy then I suggest you should. It is a great read. You can finish it in one setting and his prose flows like wine. The book is in the right widget of this site.

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I mentioned in my facebook page today that I am posting my whole soundcloud channel so here it is. Not all of them are what you would consider Celtic but soundcloud won’t allow me to post more tracks on my other account after reaching a certain limit. I am planning to add more capacity to post in this account. Yes please enjoy all the tracks. These are music from artists who approved to have their songs uploaded by yours truly via soundcloud as a way to promote the music and albums.

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Huzzah!

Welcome to the flexibility channel where I can talk about anything related to music. For the past few months I see a decline on people who add up comments in this section. I think I am to be blamed because in the blogosphere the way it works is this: you leave comments to other people’s pages so that you get comments in return. Just like in facebook: share and be shared. This principle applies to all social networking sites. The only place I apply this sort of practice is through twitter and google plus. Because micro blogging doesn’t really require so much to do. All you have to do is just to retweet something that you think will benefit your followers. The same goes for google plus. I hardly tweet about my life these days because I am trying to shape my image as an informative blogger rather than an artistic/expressive one. I think this explains why my twitter followers have doubled. It is all about content and not about what I ate or where I partied for the last twenty four hours. Although it is tempting because it is really nice to share about what is going on in my life, however I also need to keep in mind my responsibility to the readers.

The way I understand it, the reason why you visit this site is to find out what is going on in the Celtic music scene. And that is exactly what I am trying to propagate. I want to impart a sort of tabloid/entertainment but which is also informative. And certainly NOT academic. Nope there are sites for that and we are all here to have fun. Yes that’s why I created this site. I want to experience the fun in Celtic music. I don’t even get paid for writing or keeping schedules for this site. If one day this will disappear I don’t think it is really that much of a big deal because we all had our time and our fun. But it will break my heart because this is my baby. If you only knew the things that happened to me because I made this. And they are not really happy things. There was even one time when I thought there was no point of going on because it proved to be more of a curse than a blessing. But then again music is always a blessing. And if we remember that we are doing something because we have fun doing it rather than because we are trying to maintain a schedule or we are answering to someone, then I think we are in the right track.

Now I have several links I want to share with you all. Here they are

Le Pays: http://youtu.be/Hyi06l2UVi8

Danny Boy from the muppets. Please take note that moderation is important. You don’t want to end up like the muppets hahaha: http://youtu.be/OCbuRA_D3KU

Check this out from Marc Gunn: http://pubsong.com/115-st-patricks-day-pub-songs-playlist/

Titanic violin: http://soa.li/qJGq36c 

The Lass of Augrim from The Dead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mybwtXifYc

Nick Burbridge has a new prose. Not for the faint hearted: https://www.facebook.com/notes/nick-burbridge-burbridge-arts/the-joke/491736790888579

As part of my crafting edition for another site where I blog as a contributor, check this interview of Joe Devoy of Tellus 360.

The Folkalists

St. Patrick’s Day

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There is something really touching about the story of St. Patrick. As a teenager, he was held captive by Irish raiders where he worked as a shepherd for six years. Guided  visions, he escaped and went back to his native Britain. But there was this voice telling him to go back to Ireland. And so he did.

This video shows Michael Flatley on a theme called St Patrick  from Celtic Tiger.

Druids

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Celtic languages are fascinating and really beautiful. The problem is trying to learn all of them ,.I should know that because I am still struggling with learning Gealige.Based on articles I’ve read, trying to be a Druid is a high order. It demands a lot and in ancient times,students have to study up to 20 years just to become one.druids

I also found this  wonderful artwork about St.Patrick and Cromm Cruach: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3656/3304360222_78cb55deda.jpg?v=0. For those of you who don’t know,Cromm was actually a feared Deity because he demanded solely human sacrifices. It was St.Patrick who introduced Christianity to Ireland and thus ending the old Celtic beliefs.That’s why now we have the so-called Celtic Christianity.

Druids have always been the source of fascination among scholars but very little is known of them.This is due to the fact that ancient Celts rely on oral traditions.If you want to read more on the subject matter(not only covering Irish lore ) then you might want to check out this link: http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/1669/druid1.html and also http://www.innerlight.org.uk/journals/Vol24No3/druidrel.htm

In modern literature the pure embodiment of a Druid is nothing more, nothing less represented by Gandalf in Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.He’s a wizard and he embodies the trait that is surely Druidic.I don’t know why Howard Shore is taking for granted the Celtic elements of the story but oh well that’s his own opinion.