While many people attended St Patrick Day festivities and various planned parades around the country, few realise that the Irish 2011 festival day was also celebrated in space during Expedition 27 aboard the International Space Station, as this video demonstrates.
A very Happy St Patrick’s Day to you the very beautiful NASA Austronaut and Flight Engineer, Catherine “Cady” Coleman,Ph.D. (Colonel, USAF, RET.) from all here in Co Tipperary.
To You Catherine, may you have always:- A world of wishes at your command, God and his angels close at hand. Friends and family their love impart, and Irish blessings in you heart.
A reminder of course that the Thurles festival parade will take place on Sunday next In Liberty Square here in the town.
Music will be provided, on the band-stand in Liberty Square, by ‘The Moynihan Brothers,’ from 2.00pm to 3.00pm, and immediately after the Parade. This group is being sponsored by ‘The Club for Dancing ‘. There will be a dance in The Premier Ballroom from 9.00pm to 12.00 midnight to the music of ‘Patrick O’Sullivan‘. Additional entertainment in Liberty Square, from 2.00pm, include stilt walkers, jugglers, face painters, balloon modellers, comedy etc.
The Parade And Fancy Dress.
This year there is a prize fund of up to €3,000 and a grant of up to €300 is available for any group entering a large float in the parade. Prizes include Cash, Cups, Trophies, Plaques, Shields, Crystal trophies, Ladies watch, Sony Walkman,750 Medals and lots of other prizes. Everyone is invited to take part.
Bosses on the UK X Factor talent finding show have confirmed that no Irish auditions will take place this year.
The word on the street is that X Factor bosses won’t hold trials in Ireland this year, as British music executive, television producer and entrepreneur, Simon Philip Cowell thinks Ireland has no talent.
There’s outright outrage as Irish fans are being told Cardiff is only a stone’s throw away and we’re being told to audition over there.The audition application deadline has passed, but you can still audition at nationwide open days. Just make sure you turn up at 9am at the following times and venues:
March 20th: Birmingham NEC
March 26th: Manchester Old Trafford Stadium
(Metrolink has advised that there will be engineering works the weekend of the auditions, please make sure you look into alternative routes if you wish to come.)
April 9th: Cardiff City Stadium.
Maybe this small summary clip taken by me of Phoenix Productions at work at their recent ‘American Tea Party’ fund raiser, will whet his appetite. The performers are all resident here in Thurles and can take on anything our Simon Cowell can put on show anytime.
Hello Simon Cowell, take off those sun glasses, accommodation and flights don’t come cheap and we don’t all enjoy the luxury and ownership of a private yacht!
We have a wonderful theatre over here in Thurles called The Source and we can let you have it for free for auditions if you have the stomach for it.
If the crowd gets too big, we can move up the road to Semple Stadium
Personally I believe Simon is afraid that the great talent that exists in Ireland, might affect his English acts and he is afraid when the Irish have a vote, same might just affect his little score sheets.
Take care Simon that we do not send some of out outstanding musical talent over to Cardiff City to prove how wrong you really are.
Probably not though, since the troupe will be in full rehearsals for their next production, which is Les Misérables. Such a pity really!
Then again, maybe RTE will rid us of that painful All Ireland Talent Show and replace it with a proper show, using a panel of judges who know something about music, instead of a panel of ‘self styled unqualified celebrities’ and one hit wonder merchants,’ who bore us to death every Sunday evening.
It was with great regret we learn today of the untimely death of legendary blues rock guitarist and singer Gary Moore. The musician was found dead in his room at the luxury Kempinski Resort Hotel in Estepona in the early hours of this morning. A postmortem is due to be carried out later today in the nearby city of Malaga to investigate the cause of his death. The musician aged 58, from Belfast is understood to have been on holiday at the time.
Electric guitar players everywhere, please stop awhile and listen to true genius share his music.
Moore collaborated with a broad range of artists during his music career including The Right Honourable The Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lord Webber, the most commercially successful composer in history, who now resides at Kiltinan Castle, Fethard, Co Tipperary, colaborated with Garry Moore on the composer’s ‘Variations’ album in 1977.
Lord Webber chose the theme of Paganini’s 24th caprice and added 23 variations for cello and rock band. The work premiered at the 1977 Sydmonton Festival featuring Gary Moore, joined by Barbara Thompson on Sax and Flute, Rod Argent on Piano, Synthesizer and Keyboards and Julian Lloyd Webber on Cello. It was subsequently rearranged and recorded in 1978 reaching number 2 in the album charts.
In a career which dates back to the 1960’s, Robert William Gary Moore, to give him his full title, shared the stage with many blues and rock luminaries including Phil Lynott, Skid Row, Brian Downey, B.B. King, Albert King, Colosseum II, Greg Lake, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Bob Dylan to name but a few.
Moore’s greatest influence in his early days came from his association with guitarist Peter Green, of ‘Fleetwood Mac’ fame, who was a mentor to Moore while performing in Dublin. Green’s continued influence on Moore was later repaid as a tribute to Green on his 1995 album ‘Blues for Greeny,’ an album consisting entirely of Green compositions. On this tribute album Moore played Green’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar, which Green had lent to Moore after leaving Fleetwood Mac. Moore ultimately purchased this guitar, at Green’s request, so that “it would have a good home”.
Moore throughout his career was recognised as an influence by many notable guitarists including Vivian Campbell, Patrick Rondat, Jake E. Lee, John Norum, Joe Bonamassa, Adrian Smith, Randy Rhoads, John Sykes, Kirk Hammett and Gus G.
“When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.”
Lyrics by Brendan Graham
“You Raise Me Up,” first recorded by Secret Garden, featuring Brian Kennedy, has become one of the biggest selling songs in the history of popular music, with over three hundred recordings by some of the world’s biggest acts – Josh Groban, Westlife, IL Divo, Paul Potts, Celtic Woman, to name but a few, and has racked up sales of over 80 million copies. It has never been out of the charts somewhere in the world in the past eight years. It has also become one of the most successful songs of all time in sheet music sales, being continuously at No. 1 for the past seven years, in the USA’s Sheet Music Bestseller Charts, in four different categories: Pop, Adult Contemporary, Pop Choral and Downloads and it is the most downloaded song in sheet music format of all time.
All this said, few people in our county realise that the lyrics were written by county Tipperary man, Brendan Graham.
Brendan Graham, born in 1945 here in Nenagh, County Tipperary, was an Industrial Engineer by profession, before becoming a full-time songwriter, after being made redundant in 1993. He was also a former Irish Youth International basketball player, a student priest, a pig-boner in London and a recipient of Western Australia’s Lansing Bagnall State Award for business studies. Mr Graham now resides in County Mayo with his wife and five daughters.
Graham has composed two of Ireland’s winning entries in the Euro-vision Song Contest in the past: “Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids” which won in 1994, and “The Voice” the winner of the 1996 contest.
Irish songwriter and founding member of The Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO), Brendan Graham is officially included in an exclusive club with the world’s top songwriters, awarded “Million-Air ” status by the American Performing Rights Society, BMI. Only 3900 (0.06%) songs of the 6.5 million works, which BMI represent, have ever been awarded Million-Air certificates.
To be included in this exclusive roster, a song must have been broadcast over one million times on American radio. This definition equals at least 50,000 broadcast hours, or more than 5.7 years of continuous airplay. The songwriter joins previous ‘Million-Air’ recipients like song-writing legends John Lennon, Van Morrison, Enya, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Mick Jagger, Ben E King, Sting, Otis Redding and Roy Orbison.
Our congratulations to the Club for Dancing here in Thurles who will celebrate their 40th Anniversary on Saturday February 12th next. The Club will mark the occasion with an event in their usual stomping ground, The Premier Ballroom in Thurles.
All current and former members of the Club are automatically invited to attend this celebratory event and if you are a non member and feel you would like to join in their celebrations “there is a welcome on the mat“.
Two bands will be installed on the night and celebrations begin with dancing to ‘Checkers‘, starting at 8.30pm sharp and continuing until 10.30pm.
Following a short break, dancing will continue from 10.40pm to 12.30 to the music of ‘Tony Stevens and The Rusty Roosters‘.
Admission price: €10.
Note: The club has also just launched their new website with details of their dance calender for the year. You can view this website by clicking here.
The club have been running dance classes for beginners, in social dancing, since 1994. The six-week’s course, from 8.30pm to 10pm each Tuesday night, costs a total of just €20 and teaches the basic steps of the foxtrot, old time waltz and quickstep. They hold one set of classes in the Springtime and one set again in the Autumn. These have proved to be a great success and are normally attended by approximately 70/100 helpers, teachers and beginners. Great for the fitness and an ideal opportunity for young couples getting married this year to prepare for that first solo dance on their wedding day.
Why not join them for their next set of dance classes, beginning on 1st February 2011 and commencing at 8.30pm sharp.
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