It Occurs To Me: Muireann headlines Bluegrass Omagh 

There is great excitement and anticipation at the news that Muireann Bradley is headlining this weekend’s bluegrass festival in the Ulster-American Folk Park in Omagh. 

I was delighted to see that her recent American trip was a huge success. 

The annual MerleFest in North Carolina is a celebration of “traditional plus” music, a unique mix of music based on the traditional, roots-oriented sounds of the Appalachian region, including bluegrass and old-time music, and expanded to include Americana, country, blues, rock and many other styles. 

The festival hosts numerous artists, performing on 12 stages during the course of the four-day event. Legendary blues man, 83-year old Roy Book Binder has curated the Merle Fest stage for almost 40 years and said he had never seen an encore on it until Muireann played there!

What an accolade! Catch her this weekend and pray the sunshine will hold. 

Another fascinating guest is Erik Vincent Huey. 

Erik is a senior entertainment, tech, and media industry government and public affairs executive with over twenty-five years of experience. He has been repeatedly listed on The Hill’s Top Lobbyists in DC. 

Muireann Bradley is headlining this weekend’s bluegrass festival in the Ulster-American Folk Park in Omagh

Politically, he’s a prolific fundraiser and has guided voter mobilization and voter protection efforts in the DNC legal boiler room on a range of campaigns, including Biden-Harris 2020, Obama for America, Kerry 2004, and Clinton-Gore. 

Despite the busy day job, he has released three full-length albums of original music, two with his Americana rock band The Surreal McCoys, and one as a solo artist with his 2023 critically acclaimed solo debut, Appalachian Gothic.

He’s playing with his other band, Starbelly, over the weekend and on Saturday at 1pm. I’ll be chatting with him and hearing about his fascinating life in the Ships Gallery in the Folk Park. He and his band will also play a few tunes during our conversation.

                               Kneecap and Billy Bragg

Let me be blunt about Kneecap’s music. Some call it hip-hop, some call it rap - personally, I’ve been calling what passes for music, ‘C-rap’ for decades.

I wouldn’t cross the road to listen to it, but each to their own. Billy Bragg is a singer, songwriter, musician, author, political activist and was radical when the three Kneerappers were throwing their toys out of their prams in Derry and Belfast. 

It’s refreshing to hear a mature and experienced take on the controversy. In an Instagram post, 67-year old Bragg, said: “I’m glad to see that a number of artists have signed a letter defending Kneecap from attempts to remove them from various festival bills in the wake of comments made at shows over two years ago. However, I’m not sure I would have felt comfortable signing the letter (I wasn’t asked). My problem is that the wording lacks any sense of nuance or understanding of why this whole furore kicked off. And in trying to avoid the complexities of this issue by claiming that the politics of an artist’s views are irrelevant, the signatories are arguing that the only principle at stake here is free speech. I disagree.”

He added that “we need to accept that words have consequences” and said we must be careful to not allow “considered and cogent arguments” to “be undermined by flippant statements that we later have to apologise for”.

                                    The skorts controversy

I don’t know who said (in the 1960s) “...if the mini-skirts get any shorter, they won’t last any longer!” 

I thought of that line last week when I first heard of the ‘camogie’ skorts row, mainly because it’s funny, but equally because it’s ridiculous. 

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But there are different kinds of ridiculous, and the camogie fiasco is of the buck eejit variety. We’re a great wee island when it comes to jobsworths…”No, I can’t ref this match because you’re in breach of Rule 6(b) , which says players must wear a ‘skirt/skort/divided skirt’. 

Now, admittedly, Dublin camogie has instructed its referees to allow games to go ahead even if players refuse to wear skorts, despite the sport's rules stating that games should be abandoned when it happens. Cork prides itself on being the Rebel county, but in this instance, ‘Up the Dubs!’.

The jobsworths in the Munster council called off the camogie final between Cork and Waterford less than 24 hours before it was supposed to start after both teams announced they intended to play in shorts. 

All this has made worldwide headlines! We’re a laughing stock because of an antiquated sexist rule that will be discussed at a special Congress today in Croke Park. Admittedly, of the sixteen Camogie Association Ard Chomhairle members, half are women, but isn’t it unbelievable in this day and age that old ‘suits’ will determine what young women wear on a sports field?

                                              A clean sweep!

A Cavan man is ‘tortured’ with family weddings and is determined to buy no more suits! So, a week before another daughter is due to wed, he takes the good suit to the dry cleaners and is shocked to hear that it will cost him €20. He spots a busy charity shop next door and, pulling his cap down, quickly leaves it in a basket inside the door. He goes across the road to a pub, sips a pint and watches the charity shop window for an hour or so. Eventually he sees his suit going up in the window, takes off the cap, tears across and enquires of an assistant : “Is that suit in middling condition?” “Yes indeed, sir…it has only come in and we dry cleaned it immediately, as we have our own facility.”

“How much?” asks your man. “A fiver…is that ok?” , the woman responds.

“Oh begod, now you’re talking”. 

                            In praise of mongrels

James Connolly said it best: “Let no Irishman throw a stone at the foreigner; he may hit his own clansman. Let no foreigner revile the Irish; he may be vilifying his own stock.”

Your car is German, Japanese or Korean. Your vodka is Russian or Polish. Your Pizza is Italian. Your democracy (if you’re lucky) is Greek. Your coffee is South American or Arabic, as is your oil. Your tea and shirts are Indian. Your electronics are Chinese. Your numbers Arabic, your letters Latin. And you whinge that your neighbour is an immigrant? Remember signs in boarding-house windows in the UK only half a century ago that read “No Irish or dogs!” 

It’s time the ‘right’ wised up but I’m not holding my breath. 

                                    Offending the imbeciles

Allegedly, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, author of Crime and Punishment and other Russian classics, said some 150 years ago: “Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.”

Sound familiar?

                                           Oh dear…Santa!

 So, Donald Trump thinks Mattel is a country, and somewhere called Qatar loves giving away $400 million luxury jets to spoiled children. Whenever he mentions the alternative Santa country, it sounds like Catarrh…appropriate methinks, considering the build up of poisonous mucus that is infecting the rest of the world. As regards the spineless Republican Party, stop asking the clown why he keeps acting like a clown, ask yourselves why you keep going to his circus?