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ERIN GO BRACH
Normally I really canít be doing with Terry Wogan (BBC Radio 2). The world should not be making a place for stage Irishmen in the 21st century. Weíve moved beyond Afro-Caribbeans with rolling eyes & excessively deferential Asians; we shouldnít be being charmed from top to toe by twinkling Irishmen ladling out the blarney. And Wogan twinkles like a fire at Tiffanyís. Enough already. But he did trot out a neat little Irish joke in an interview that I read in the dentistís waiting room the other day. And for once the protagonist steps out of a Beckett play rather than off an urban building site.
A guy rushes into a pub south of Dublin.
ìWhatís the quickest way of getting to Dublin?î he demands of the publican.
ìAre you walking or driving?î asks the publican.
ìIím drivingî, answers the guy.
ìWell, thatíll be your quickest way, thenî.
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If youíve not been to Dublin, slip in there quickly before it becomes totally Europeanised. The Irish government have made a sort of Faustian pact with the EC purse holders by which funds are pumped into city enterprises. The price is already identifying itself as being an increasingly grotesque synthesis of Gaelic soul & Euro-blandery. Hard-sell, soft-core Celtic whimsy is everywhere with souvenir shops in forty shades of green on every corner & elaborately Oirish pubs complete with tweedy characters from Central Casting on every bar stool. Goateed youths & wild-haired colleens tuck themselves into window seats & break out the bouzoukis, banjos & bodhrans & soon youíre ordering your glass of stout through a mellow mist of jigs & reels & yearning ballads.
But itís the music that does it in the end. The melodic intricacy & rhythmic density of those beguiling tunes carve a swathe through the dangling trinkets, the mini Irish tricolours, the whole Celtic twilight gimcrackery that festoons pubs & bars alike. Whether propelled by a flat-capped, greasy-suited pensioner on an accordion or a schoolboy in uniform squeezing the air out of a set of uillean pipes, the music has an unimpeachable honesty that speaks of something that endures. With the stewardship of an authentic tradition in the hands of musicians of both genders equally & across the age-range, maybe prophecies of the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Irish culture by Euro-blandery are a little premature.
TEMPLE BAR, DUBLIN
They give a lick of blue and red
to the woodwork, paint the doors
bright green, skew the Victorian railings
into artful dereliction, wait for the weeds
and poppies, then cry, ìBohemia!î
In checks and chinos, Yanks cruise
the alleys seeking out the nachos,
tacos, Budweiser, here amongst
forefathersí shadows. Germans dance
in the street outside the Boogie Room.
Japanese students slip between these
hustling Western bravoes, sharp-white
in their Hard Rock Cafe Dublin t-shirts,
looking for the Kerry Dancers under neon.
On the corner of Meeting House Square
a red-haired boy blows ëDrowsy Maggieí
out of a penny whistle and the flux
of glass and concrete shivers like
a curtain. Green hills bulge
like muscles through the tarmac;
roots of hawthorn flex through paving stones;
the blood of fuscia spills
through breaking windows
and the Liffey swallows bridges
all the way from Dublin to the sea.
pic from: http://www.folktrax.freeserve.co.uk/photos/071McPeake
7:53:09 PM 
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